Today one of my favorite airlines, Virgin America, has gone Google. It was bound to happen. After all, Google and the airline have been teaming up since 2008 when they did the first ever live YouTube stream at 35,000 feet in the air. It really gives a literal sense of “cloud computing.”
The YouTube stream was widely to advertise Virgin America’s in-flight WiFi system, GoGo. They now offer it on every plane, but unfortunately it isn’t free. They expect you to pay at least $10 for internet no matter how short your flight is and it becomes even more costly on long flights. Last year however, Virgin America teamed up with Google again and offered Free WiFi across nearly every national airport and all of their flights during the Holiday season. Myself and many others are hoping that they start a tradition of free holiday WiFi and do it again this year.
Needless to say, Google is excited that the company has “gone Google.” They’ve announced the switch on their blog and even hired on a skywriter to show off the announcement in the air above the Googleplex. This gives them another 1,700 employees to add to the 10,000,000+ and growing base of Google Apps users.
If you have a small organization of under 50 people you can try out Google Apps for free. Check out our groovy guide on How To Go Google!
I used to be an Alaska Airlines or Jet Blue fan, I now fly exclusively Virgin America. Maybe with all the money they are saving they will be able to offer free WiFi?
Never flown on Virgin personally…. I do however fly Alaska. I have their visa so once a year I get a $50 companion ticket. Only reason actually I have the card. 😉