It looks like Google is happy with the initial response to its “Gone Google” campaign, where it uses simple white billboards to try to recruit more companies to its Google Apps online software.
The campaign started in August, with the posting of billboards in Boston, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, whose messages changed every weekday. The billboards were aimed at workers and IT managers frustrated with traditional work software like Microsoft Office, and bore messages like, “Email, shared docs, and team sites? Nice. I want to go Google.” Now Google is adding signs in train stations and airports in the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Singapore. You can watch a video montage previewing the international promotion here.
As VentureBeat writer Paul Boutin noted at the campaign’s start, there are plenty of reasons why an IT manager might be leery of Google’s efforts to convince office workers to make the switch to Gmail, Google Docs, and the rest of the apps. But the company says “Gone Google” has spurred “thousands of tweets and hundreds of comments explaining how and why your company decided to go Google with Apps.” (Indeed, the VentureBeat team has been using Apps for years.)
Google has also updated its user numbers since August, and now says Apps serves 20 million users at more than 2 million companies.
