We Had Naked Beers with Google

Last night we journeyed all the way to Fremont for a Google-hosted meetup at the Red Door--who, by the way, have Ninkasi's Total Domination IPA on tap. We're not IPA-lovers, but my god, that's a refreshing beer.

This was Google's first attempt at a public meetup (they're doing meetups in several cities), and no one really knew what to expect. It turned out to be a fairly informal happy hour--Googlers circled the room wearing nametags (see Exhibit A, right) and you'd just flag one down and say something like, "So, like, explain this API thing to me." And then Matt, very agreeably, would tell you. (Thanks, Matt! We should totally hang out.)

We were not successful in getting a useful response to our question about how to make sure all of our posts garner the #1 position on Google. We tried several times, but even after a few rounds of beers, Googlers were tight-lipped. Though they did allow that adding "Naked" to every title may not hurt.

But it wasn't all biz, or even all Google. We met up with loyal Seattlest reader Raj (left) and the real estate developer who's behind the reopening of a Hostelling International USA location in the International District (ETA July 31, 2009). Stay tuned for news about their Melrose redevelopment.

After about an hour, the Googlers gathered their forces for a Q&A, taking questions on a range of usual suspects (the Chrome OS, Linux support, SEO, privacy issues). Oddly, the photographer who seemed intent on busting Google for their Street View kept taking pictures of everyone at the meetup without asking.

We didn't expect anything to happen, really, at a happy hour, but at the end of the evening we felt like we'd "met" Google finally. Maybe that's why we tried to talk Google into letting us borrow the car for a trip to the coast this weekend--which, okay, sure, too soon--but we smoothed it over, we think. Can't wait for next time!