Google is set to launch major expansion efforts to their Kirkland, Seattle office -- home of many of the Google Webmaster Central team. The reports claim this will double the size of the existing office, making this one of largest Google offices outside of Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California. The Kirkland office was first set up in 2004, but then moving to their new location in 2009. Google will be able to fit over 1,000 workers in the new space, according to a Google spokesperson. Chee Chew, the site director of Google’s Kirkland office, said "we see a great opportu [...]

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Google boosts London's Silicon Roundabout from BBC News reports Google has signed a ten year deal to lease the entire top floor of the seven floor building in what is known as the Silicon Roundabout. The Silicon Roundabout currently has about 300 firms in the area and it is located in the Old Street area in the UK on Bonhill Street. Google is leasing the space to provide "assistance to new technology companies" according to BBC News. A Google spokesperson said they will host "a range of activities, such as speaker series, hackathons, training workshops and product demonstrations" as well as [...]

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Google's Growth Unsettles Mountain View by the Wall Street Journal reports on the tension growing between Google and the city they have grown up in, Mountain View. As Google continues to grow and require more space, Mountain View needs to expand with them. City council member Laura Macias told the Wall Street Journal "we may not develop as much as Google wants." Mountain View is a region that has lots of greener, wildlife and is not city-like. Google is interested in building bridges, recreation facilities, corporate housing and more offices. This will result in high density pop [...]

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Mercury News reports Google entered an agreement to lease an additional campus with nine building and up to 630,000 additional square feet of space in Mountain View. The new building is right across Highway 101. "We had two other major companies interested in our project, and we had been in discussions with them for several months, and then Google came along and was much more intense," said John Lovewell, partner with Keenan Lovewell Ventures, the owner of "The Quad" campus on Ellis Street. "They were ready to make a commitment -- a specific commitment -- very quickly, and that's why w [...]

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Mercury News reports Google is planning on building their own office building, which can fit up to 600,000 square feet of office space. Google's current space is pretty much as capacity now and Google is looking to pay the city of Mountain View $30 million to lease 9.4 acres near Shoreline Boulevard, according to Mercury News. Google has never built their own office buildings from the ground up. They have built data centers, but not office space. Google hired leading architects firm Ingenhoven Architects, a German based company who is known for building buildings that are green and [...]

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The Hollywood Reported reports Google is opening an office in Beverly Hills, California. Google is opening a 13,465-square-foot office, which will be the space used by Google's entertainment division. That includes some of the YouTube staff and others involved in that area. The location is at 331 Foothill Rd, Beverly Hills and the move is expected by the end of the year. The lease deal is for 11-years and valued at $6.3 million. Google has plans on YouTube to push it's own original content soon. And Google is working hard on expanding their presence in Hollywood and the enter [...]

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The Xooglers Blog has been posting videos of the old GooglePlex, old Google office from back in November 1999. I believe these videos are from the office Google had at 2400 Bayshore, Mountain View. As Alex said, Google started off in Susan Wojcicki's garage, then moved to 165 University Ave in Palo Alto, then to 2400 Bayshore, Mountain View and now they are at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway. In any event, here are the videos of Google's office from November 1999: [...]

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Google to Buy New York Office Building from the Wall Street Journal reports Google has signed the deal to buy the NYC office building they currently lease for close to $1.9 billion. This was an expected move by Google, who currently leases about 2 or 3 of the floors of the massive building. The building is well known, previously the home of the Port Authority, with space of about 2.9 million square feet. It fills an entire city block, from Eighth and Ninth avenues from 15th and 16th streets. It has several addresses, commonly 76 Ninth Avenue or 111 Eighth Ave and is one of the largest bui [...]

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Google's big buy by the New York Post reports Google may shell out $2 billion to buy the New York office building they currently rent a portion of. The building is well known, previously the home of the Port Authority, with space of about 2.9 million square feet. It fills an entire city block, from Eighth and Ninth avenues from 15th and 16th streets. It has several addresses, commonly 76 Ninth Avenue or 111 Eighth Ave and is one of the largest buildings in New York City. In January, we reported Google is looking to expand their New York offices from the two or three floors they current [...]

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Conan O'Brien, the comedian, tweeted that he is performing at Google today. I scanned through Twitter to find pictures from Googlers of his performance. Here they are: Here is another. [...]

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For the second year in a row, Google hired goats to mow their lawn. This is Google's way of reducing their carbon footprint. The 200 goats, according to Google, cost as much as a lawn service to bring in and would benefit the world by eliminating mower emissions, reducing noise pollution, restoring plant species and fertilizing while grazing. I assume the goats are not just about minimizing Google's carbon footprint. It is also a nice marketing and PR play for them. Here are some pictures: [...]

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TechCrunch reports Google sent a letter to the zoning board in the City of Mountain View, trying to encourage the city to change the zoning laws near the Google headquarters. Currently, the areas around the Googleplex are zoned only for commercial use. Google wants to enable their employees to be closer to the Googleplex, which will make for happier employees. Right now, the transportation to and from Google is not the best for many Googlers. Google spends a lot of money on private buses from San Francisco and other locations to make that commute less of a burden. Here is an excer [...]

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The New York Observer reports Google is expanding their already humongous New York office by 57,000 square feet. Google leased two floors of the old Port Authority building on 76 Ninth Avenue, between 15th and 16th street, spanning from 8th to 9th avenue, back in 2006. The building spans a complete avenue and Googlers are rumored to use scooters to get from one side of the building to the other. I guess it simply was not big enough, and Google has signed a lease to add on an additional 57,000 square feet. I actually have some photos of the office building the week when it opened. He [...]

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Justin Uberti, Google's tech lead who I believe leads the Google Talk team, posted on his blog that Hulk Hogan visited Google's Kirkland office. Hogan made his visit on Tuesday, November 3rd, as a signing event for his new book, My Life Outside the Ring. Here is a picture from Justin: I too grew up during the "Hulk-O-Mania" period, so it is cool to see him at Google. Also, big happy 35th birthday Justin! [...]

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The Charlotte Observer reports the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law appealed the decision to not allow them to sue over Google receiving tax breaks for picking North Carolina for a server farm. The advocacy group argues that the tax benefits given to Google will ultimately cost North Carolina's tax payers more, to make up for those benefits given to Google. North Carolina feels the jobs created, 210 of them, will lead to more income for the state and benefit the state over all. Bob Orr, the institute's executive director said, "How are people going to challenge the acts of government [...]

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A fire has broken out at Google's UK headquarters in Victoria, south west London. The fire appears to have been started on the rooftop, possibly due to the barbecue that is used there. Right now, it appears the fire is under control and that no one was hurt. The 6 floor building has been evacuated after six fire engines and 25 firefighters were called to the see just before 2pm local time. A Google spokesperson told the Telegraph: All I know is that there was a barbecue on a roof terrace above one of the Google floors. We have all been moved away from the building and we are waiting f [...]

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For all the uber-geeks and electrical engineers, CNET offers an interesting story about Google's approach to servers. From the very early days Google was thinking carefully about scale, efficiency but perhaps mostabout cost savings. Rather than buy servers, Google has built them from the beginning. Google finally revealed one of its home-made servers before an audience on Wednesday. According to the article: Google's big surprise: each server has its own 12-volt battery to supply power if there's a problem with the main source of electricity. The company also revealed for the first time that [...]

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I had the privilege of meeting with the Google Israel team in their Tel Aviv office.  Eyal Miller, the manager of the technology sector of Google Israel was kind enough to give me the office tour and introduce me to the people. As some of you know, Google has two offices in Israel.  One in up north in Haifa and the other in Tel Aviv.  I only visited the Tel Aviv office, which has a floor devoted to engineers and another floor of sales and marketing staff.  The Haifa office, I am told, is devoted to engineers.  In total, there are about 80 Google engineers based in Israel, they work on [...]

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Google plans data centre at old Finnish paper mill from Reuters reports Google purchased a Finnish paper mill from Stora Enso for $51.7 million dollars as a possible place to put a new data center. Google told Reuters, "We are currently considering to build a data centre at this site." The location is in southeastern Finland, where part of the land will be transferred to the city of Hamina for other purposes. Stora Enso closed down the mill in early 2008, which has been in operation for 53 years. The deal is suppose to close by the end of first quarter 2009. Further discussion on th [...]

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Harper's Magazine has a spread showcasing a blueprint of Google's Oregon data center in The Dalles. The article documents the data center at 68,680 square feet with three buildings, two that are currently completed. The data center would require enough power to light up about 82,000 homes, equivalent to 103-megawatts of electricity. Check out the full blueprints over here, and take note of the dormitory building and various landscape. More coverage on this story at Techmeme. Postscript: Also, the New York Times has a piece on this. [...]

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