I’ve heard the Goog take some lumps for not engaging in social media that much. Well, they just got pretty damn social with me. And I’m impressed.

While at SXSW, I tried out the new Google Transit service. I was far away from the hotel and wanted to find an efficient way to get back. Well, Google got me close, then expected me to cross an eight-lane highway on foot. Um, no. I had to explore for a long time to find a way to get across the damn thing and back to my hotel. I bitched at my blog.

Today, I got a package from Google at my workplace. At first, I saw the hand-written “Google” return address and thought “anthrax”, but figured, what the hell. I ripped it open. I was treated to the single greatest customer service experience I had ever had. Enclosed was a hand-written note from Joe Hughes at Google. The note said:

Dear Superman,

Reading your blog post about Google Transit at SXSW made us wonder if you were losing your powers—I mean, how hard could it be to leap over a simple 8-lane highway intersection, man of steel? We’ve enclosed a new cape—hopefully it will help you find your powers again.

…seriously, though, Adam, we’re sorry that Google Transit sent you on such an expedition, and we wanted to let you know that we’ve since improved our routing, so that it returns more plausible walking sections at the start & end of transit routes.

Cheers,
Joe Hughes
Google Transit

Wow. Just, wow. Google is listening. The read a blog by little old me. They addressed my problem. They found a way to make me smile about it. And the best part… Ella now has a Superman cape.

Cheers to you, Joe.

After the panel, Tantek was swarmed by his numerous fans. After a while, I saw him (gasp) by himself. So what else to do but bug him? I just said hey and I admire his work… mentioned I did some questioning of “rel=hcard” on the Microformats list. After GTalking with new pal Nick Peters, I found out that Tantek would have known of that as “The Darowski Problem” (Nick talked about it in those terms with Tantek before). Should have dropped my own name! Next time, I’m totally getting a shirt that reads I AM THE DAROWSKI PROBLEM.

So, the thing that sucks is I’m pretty far away from the hotel. I mentioned I took a $25 cab ride to the convention center, but was going to try public transportation on the way back. The new Google Transit (still in Google Labs) mapped my path. The actual bus itself was fine. Where Google dropped me off and told me to walk was the problem.

Um. Am I Superman? How the hell am I expected to pull that off? I was stumped. Here I am behind some warehouses in the pitch dark, trying to find out how to get over/under that highway. It’s a tangled mess of high speed lanes. I come across train tracks. Of course, I look to my left and a train is coming (of course, I was at a safe distance). But are you kidding me? I’m trudging all over the place. I finally call my hotel (which I can SEE but can’t get to), and they walk me through the way to get there. Which was very long. I think I have a permanent crater in my shoulder from my laptop bag and the huge SXSW bag. I was walking for about 90 minutes when it was all said and done.

Here’s the path they gave me. You can click through to Flickr to see notes on the image. Or, the gist is that I had to go all the way down Spicewood Springs Road, cross an overpass, and work my way back.

Rid.iculo.us.

The sad part is, I get back to my room, see Chris Messina left me a comment telling me BarCamp is tonight. I had heard something about BarCamp, but I had no idea it was tonight. I blew it. I would have loved to be there. I’m sure Brian, Tara, and maybe Dan were there. Instead, I’m sweaty from my trek, eating Starburst, trying to re-motivate myself to do some work for a project at Aptima I need to catch up on. Perhaps I should just sleep and try it all again tomorrow.

I shall rawk SXSW. Just apparently not today.

Update: Man, Google came through, in a BIG way.