Google Space extends searching offline
Published November 24th, 2005
Google Space, at Terminal One of London’s Heathrow airport, will allow people to log onto the net and check e-mail while they wait for flights.
For Google, the space will be used to test its myriad product launches on the public.
“We see it as a huge focus group,” said Lorraine Twohill, Google’s European director of marketing.
“For many of our users, we have always been something in their computers and they have never actually met us,” she said.
With trained Google staff on hand at the booth, it will be a chance to road-test some of its new product launches and get invaluable feedback.
Google has been a phenomenal year of launches, even by the standards of a cutting-edge tech firm.
Desktop search, Google Earth, Google Mail, Google Local, Google Toolbar, picture management store Picasa and Google Mobile have all come online in recent months.
Google’s ever-expanding product portfolio has led some commentators to question whether it is making a bid to be the next Microsoft.
According to Ms Twohill, its ambitions are more modest.
“We are still a tenth the size of Microsoft and are not ready to be compared to them,” she said.
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