I/O notes

my first full day in the Bay Area, technically still going as I jot some notes down at the I/O after-party (not to be confused with the “after-after party”). Just notes, because there’s too much going on around me to write any serious synopsis or review.

The day began around 7am, with a splash of water to the face. After that it was a blur. Between there and walking into the main hall at the Google I/O conference there was: a breakfast burrito, a 1/2 mile walk through San Mateo, a Caltrain ride past the city metal scrapyard, a tour past South Park where Wired and other dot-com sites of fame were founded, and then finally the convention center where the conference is being held.

First impression is it’s good to see so many PCs. Sure there are plenty of Macs to be seen here, but Google being Google means they use whatever is available, and in the case of their check-in machines that means classic IBM ThinkPads, and PCs for many of their presentation stations. Basically, they aren’t pompous or pretentious, they just use what works for what they need.

I caught most of the opening keynote speech. Again, Google being Google means the keynote has a different flavor to it than other tech companies. I’m not going to bother breaking down the speeches that were given, instead just flip through the GoogleDeveloper YouTube channel or watch part 1 of the keynote below, and go from there with related videos:

The seminars were hit-and-miss to be honest. The first one I went to – Bringing Google to Your Site, part of the API column of seminars – was spot-on! In the past two weeks I’ve had several conversations with various individuals, non-profit organizations and for-profit ventures, and some of the ideas we were bouncing around in our conversations were answered by Google at this seminar! Very fortuitous! The third seminar I went to – Fireside Chat with the Google Chrome and Chrome OS Teams – was a bit of a flop though. No one from the Chrome OS team was actually present; and the “chat” wasn’t really a chat but a town hall. Granted, I like town hall meetings, Q&As, and open forums, but I was actually expecting to be presented with a chat. And there weren’t any major Chrome developments to report, so it was a bit banal.

However the HTML5 seminar (about Chrome and Google tools) made up for any shortcomings:

and unfortunately I missed the Ignite seminar because it was completely full-up.

One of the most interesting – and almost easily simple – ideas that Google presented was their Font API, which allows you to print custom fonts to webpages with a single link src call, like this:

…

Then there was the after-party, not to be confused with the after-after party. What can I say, Google likes to party. Actually, there were elements that worked and elements that didn’t. The mini-Maker Faire in the after party, ROCKED, of course. As a preview of what to expect at the Faire this weekend, the very-mini event had a whopping 10 Makers – the Faire this weekend will have over 600! The food, however, sucked. The lines were long and the quality was edible but unexciting. Sort of unexpected. However the DJ and VJ element was pretty good – of course you can thank Google for owning YouTube for that! It made the VJ process very… obvious. Just queue up a YouTube playlist and watch some mash-ups on HD projectors! BAM! But seriously I think the mini-Makers and tech projects stole the show:

the I/O was mostly successful. And this post is relevant to yesterday’s events, I didn’t get to see the conclusion of the I/O today, as I’ve been busy at the San Mateo Expo Center helping with Maker Faire prep, so I haven’t seen what Google announced; there was buzz yesterday that they were saving the “big news” for today: TV, Android 2.2, etc. – I don’t know but I’m sure it’s all very exciting. All the Google engineers and employees I talked to were all very driven by being a part of something that was bigger than them, yet something that they knew they were absolutely contributing to the ethos and longevity of. All in all really strong energy, and a sort of alternative approach to a conference compared with historical big-name hardware and software companies.

Oh yeah, and they gave me a Verizon Droid phone with 1 month free data service – in essence, they bought me! However I can’t use the Droid, and I WANT the Nexus One. So anybody out there want to buy an upgraded Verizon phone for under-market rate and help me achieve my dream?