Forum Moderators: open
---
I attended the Google Dance last night and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Here are a few of my random thoughts and observations:
- Very young crowd and interesting demographics.
It reminded me of college parties, but more friendly and with less spilled beer on the dance floor. I was surprised to see fewer Asians than at many dot.com parties I've attended. This is neither a complaint nor praise, simply something that struck me as odd.
- TONS of Google employees... friendly and good looking ones to boot!
Sometimes it seemed there were more Googlers than non-Googlers... and on the dance floor, this was DEFINITELY the case. Also, all the Google folks I chatted with were friendly, helpful, and -- forgive my lack of political correctness here -- generally quite attractive as well. Also, the Google employees somehow struck that amazing balance of being professional while still not appearing uptight. Fun was the name of the game last night.
- Rather unoriginal DJ but a fun video screen!
The beats weren't bad, but didn't change much from hour to hour. Some variety would have been nice. Some goofy 80's pop tunes, campy 70's classics, whatever. On the other hand, the video screen, complete with Robot logo, live search feed, and live coverage of the dance floor was fun and occasionally mesmerizing.
- The food wasn't from Charlie
The food wasn't bad at all, but was admittedly a little bit of a dissapointment after eating at Google's amazing cafeteria.
- GoogleGuy was closely guarded
I asked a couple of Google employees to point out GoogleGuy to me, but they were understandably coy. And since I'm broke and not a member of this fine WebmasterWorld site, I guess I will never learn his identity. Bummer.
- Can you say GENEROUS? I knew you could!
Google was giving out $300 credit vouchers for potential and existing AdWords customers. Holy moly! Open bar, free food, dancing with fun Googlers AND $300? I'm already blocking off my calendar for next year's Google Dance! :D Alas, though, I wasn't the lucky fella who won the Segway scooter. What a cool (free) raffle prize!
- Other miscellaneous details
Google brought over their massage chairs, table games (foosball, etc.), and lots of bouncy balls!
Info booths (for AdSense, AdWords, GoogleBox, etc.) were staffed.
The party was still bustling when I left a bit before 10pm.
The guys' bathroom line was consistently longer than the womens' line.
Lots of Googlers were taking pictures!
We got cool Google t-shirts, Google bags, and Google lit pins.
It became pretty darn chilly last night; I felt bad for the Googlers who volunteered (?!) to be in the dunking booth.
-----
Okay, enough of my observations. What did you think? What did you notice?
All those Googlers are really friendly, wholesome people too. They must have a great HR department.
ThatAdamGuy - I'm surprised at how many SF Bay Area WebmasterWorld people there are, and how many were at SES or the Google dance. You're another one. How can we compile a list?
Okay, okay, that's a rude AND stupid way to go about it.
I'm open to ideas, but yeah, maybe the best/easiest/most-ethical way would be WW-piggybacking on a future Bay Area event.
Alas, Google only offers one public party a year (at least according to the Googlers I queried). Bummer.
Brett Tabke
Danny Sullivan
GoogleGuy
WebGuerrilla
oilman
HawkGirl
SkiBum
WebMama
WebWhiz
MartiniBuster
ThatAdamGuy
Robert Charlton
Good2Go
EquityMind
Anybody else care to add to this list if I missed someone?
EquityMind
johnt32
WebRookie
didit
...and skiguide (another skier), whom I didn't see, was also scheduled as a panelist.
Best dancing I saw was the Google engineers trying not to answer too many real questions all night! Smart, smart folks...
"If I could tell you (which I can't), it would take 3 hours worth of math to show you, and then you probably wouldn't understand, (not because you're dumb), but co-citation allows blah blah blah..."
Rob
