6 ms·
Mysterious Google barge is a massive showroom, “party deck”
- gabemart 13y agoprevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645469
- frank_boyd 13y agoThey definitely have excessive cash to spend.
- VikingCoder 13y agoI think this is probably cheaper to build than it would be to RENT that much square footage for a month in SF or NYC.
- praptak 13y agoBut if you don't really need that much square footage, then it's sunk (heh, heh) cost anyway.
- WalterSear 13y agoNo, they have a sense of humor when it comes to talking with credulous reporters.
- surrealize 13y agoI can't believe people are taking this theory seriously. "Party deck"? Lol, nice work whoever planted this story!
- joezydeco 13y agoMakes sense to me. You run the store on the lower decks, then invite VIPs and clients to the party area on top. You write the entire expense of the barge off on your taxes as "marketing expenses". The free publicity of "OMG parties going on at the GoogleBoat!" can't hurt either.
- lnanek2 13y agoIt's completely in line with current Google Glass experience. The pickup has Valets, champagne, ice cream, guided campus tour...
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- timdorr 13y agoAnd why are they building a similar one in Maine of all places? http://www.businessinsider.com/google-has-reportedly-built-another-mystery-barge--this-one-is-floating-off-the-coast-of-maine-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-has-reportedly-built-a...
- eropple 13y agoCheaper than building it in Boston Harbor or New York Harbor.
- numbsafari 13y agoBecause Maine, of all places, has high-quality and affordable ship-builders with a lot of expertise outfitting these kinds of vessels. Also, it's a banana republic, so it's easier to do things quietly. Notice that, despite the fact that the local Portland paper (which is admittedly garbage) has tried to cover this in-depth, they haven't been able to get any information whatsoever about what is going on. Indeed, most of what they have reported is basically just ripping things off from SF reporters. If you want something done and done quietly, it's best to go somewhere you can easily manipulate the local officials. Of all places: Maine.
- joezydeco 13y agoIt seems to make a bit more sense now. A reconfigurable store that can be dragged in and out of high-rent areas like NYC and SF. Others have done this before, like Target's holiday-season barge that they parked at Chelsea Piers in NYC: http://money.cnn.com/2002/11/15/news/companies/target_boat/ http://money.cnn.com/2002/11/15/news/companies/target_boat/
- chubot 13y agoBut why would one barge be in the Treasure Island, while the other one is in Portland ME? If you're targeting SF, Treasure Island makes sense. If you're targeting NYC, a million other places make sense besides Maine, like NJ. Nobody in Maine is gonna buy a damn Google Glass! :)
- wiml 13y agoSee, the thing about barges is you can move them.
- 001sky 13y agoThis would make sense if it disaggegated itself into containers (ie, for rail/ships), but the moving the barge itself not so much.
- dragonwriter 13y agoActually, if this is really the purpose, the whole point would be to be able to relocate it without disassembly/reassembly.
- benologist 13y agoSummary of http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/10/31/googles-secret-revealed-barge-to-offer-high-end-showrooms-party-deck/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/10/31/googles-secret-r...
- api 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
- ihsw 13y agoSounds like a great way to conceal an espionage/reconnaissance operation. Or maybe it's a self-driving ship.
- Zigurd 13y agoDepartment manager takes "Google X" literally, gets budget for giant rave barges. Seriously, no. Someone is having a good laugh over at Google.
- swamp40 13y agoThis makes absolutely no sense to me. Which, based on my past experience and predictions, most likely means that it is true.
- jonnathanson 13y agoSeems very similar to the Pier 57 container-built floating mall/exhibit space/tourist destination under development in NYC. I wonder if the same developer (Youngwoo & Associates) is involved? http://inhabitat.com/nyc/new-pier-57-incubox-shipping-container-mall-set-to-open-next-april-in-nyc/younwoo-pier572/ http://inhabitat.com/nyc/new-pier-57-incubox-shipping-contai...
- jff 13y agoWell, that actually makes more sense to me, I was wondering how exactly they planned to get a datacenter's worth of bandwidth out to a ship. Sure, you could run a cable when you're in port, but the rest of the time your datacenter gets to enjoy satellite networking, yay!
- blcArmadillo 13y agoThere are lots of cables in the ocean: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/ http://www.submarinecablemap.com/.
- jff 13y agoAnd the barge should... toss down a fishing line to it?
- ZanyProgrammer 13y agoThe thing I don't get, is how is a barge a seaworthy vessel? If they are data centers, it doesn't seem like a barge is something that would be seaworthy, sitting out in the ocean for extended periods of time.
- pagekicker 13y agoNauseating.
- evan_ 13y agoGood point- do you think they issue seasickness pills before you get on? Or maybe it's moored well enough that it doesn't rock?
- jlgreco 13y agoPeople have been partying on yachts since yachts were invented. Seasickness is probably not a significant concern.
- WalterSear 13y agoGullible.
- skaevola 13y ago> The barges are held under an LLC called By And Large, apparently a reference to Pixar’s “Buy n Large” of WALL·E, which is itself a reference to the phrase “by and large.” Really?
- joezydeco 13y agoaaaaand we've come full circle. Thanks for that.
- splawn 13y agoalso, take out the "y And L" and you are left with the word "Barge"
- nilliams 13y agoYou could also say By and Large is simply 'Cockney rhyming slang' [1] for Barge. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_slang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_slang
- waqf 13y agoUnless you have a citation for its being used in the East End, to comply with EU labelling requirements you should rather say that it is "Cockney-style rhyme-based language product".
- smackfu 13y agoThis is a good example of why you need copy-editors. Sometimes your edits end up making a sentence that doesn't make sense. Although I thought Ars did have copy-editors.
- selmnoo 13y agoSorry, I don't get it, what's wrong with that sentence?
- 13y ago
- outside1234 13y agowill Sergey's party jet be able to land on it? will togas be issued?
- tomphoolery 13y agoOoh is this where Burning Man Decom is next year? ;-)
- gibwell 13y agoSeems highly unlikely unless the next generation Google Glass is a quantum leap ahead of the existing one. I'm not a naysayer about the product in general (although I am not a fan of google), but I have used Glass, and it is far from being a usable consumer product. Iteration will change that. However I have doubt that that have got to that point yet. If this is article is accurate, then I think the operative words are 'invitation only'. The idea would be to get massive celebrity endorsement to create desire without real consumers actually experiencing the product. So far Glass has done a great job of making Google not look like a boring copycat. If they can keep this up and launch a great product at some point, it will turn out to be a masterpiece of marketing.
- quink 13y agoIf this really is it then I'm rather disappointed by Google's lack of imagination here. Surely you could put that money to better use.
- logicallee 13y agocomments like this are probably why it's kept secret. I mean I'm sure you know what it takes to change society as fundamentally as Google glass does/would, and you don't need to wine and dine and woo anyone. Good luck with your approach.
- quink 13y agoGoogle's market cap is $350 billion. They're at a point where if they need to woo and wine and dine people into accepting their new supposedly revolutionary product on a party boat, then that's just about the biggest sign of a failure ever. Please tell me where the Google Web Search party boat was? The GMail party boat? How about the Android party boat? The Google Chrome party boat? Did they need a YouTube party boat after they bought YouTube or didn't they need a party boat because YouTube party boated before? If you have a product, make it awesome like any of the above and that should be enough. If the first step to changing society as fundamentally as this is hyped to do, then inviting hipsters and celebrities of the bourgeoisie onto a party boat for some Gatsbying leaves me rather disappointed. Like someone on Ars Technica said: > I guess this is what happens when a company has more money than it has uses for and slips into hedonism. You know what would be cool? If they sailed this thing out to the open sea, and worked together with a company that's laying some transoceanic fibre and tapping into that. And Google might in that way have a data centre in international waters. Would it be useful? Who knows. But it would be a cooler thing to do with a bloody barge than this.
- yohui 13y agoGoogle search, Gmail, Chrome, and YouTube are all free to use, hence low barrier to adoption. Android devices cost money to buy, but the software is open source and free for OEMs. Glass, on the other hand, needs to sell buyers on a whole new product category. Also, as a very conspicuous accessory, it needs to make a strong positive fashion statement. Do I know that a floating expo is the best way to accomplish what Google's setting out to do? No, but I'm not convinced it isn't. As logicallee was saying, if speculation concerning nautical data centers hadn't percolated, nobody would be upset if/when that proves unfounded.
- pirateking 13y agoL. Page's Raft - where people wear antennas on their head.
- adamfeldman 13y agoThe Raft and antennaheads together refer to Snow Crash[1], a most excellent novel by Neal Stephenson [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
- eunice 13y agogoogle's very own 'sea org'
- mtraven 13y agoNothing stops a party barge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9Wblb3zJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9Wblb3zJo