Google just raised the bar on tech conferences
by Volker Weber
Not only did they stream their keynotes, they are also making videos and presentations of their sessions available to the public. That's going to be a tough one to follow for Apple, IBM and Microsoft ...
Google I/O 2010 >
Google I/O 2009 >
Comments
I completely agree with you. I hope everyone who runs a tech conference reviews what they did. This made not being there not matter.
What is interesting is from talking with people there, they said the typical benefits of being at a tech conference were missing at Google IO. They said a lot of people were buried in their laptops and devices and not interacting. And getting to interact with the actual developers at Google was not organized, and in some cases, standoffish. I think the best part about Lotusphere is the Ask the Developers labs - the guys who wrote the code are there and are more than willing to discuss problems and ideas for an extended time. There is very little marketing barrier to those folks in those rooms. Same goes for the UX labs.
Easiest way to see if IBM and MS listen is if they video every session at their next conferences. Neither have done that for years. You can't even buy all the sessions at Lotusphere any more.
Yes, that is a very enjoyable part, although they are being told not to speak to press. :-) What I like most at Lotusphere is the Innovation Lab, because you can see some of the things people are working on.
I would not want to judge the value of Google I/O without being there. They sold out pretty quickly, much like Lotusphere did 10 years ago. One of the perks to actually having been there is a brand new phone to develop for. Last year, you got a G1, this year a Nexus One and an Evo 4G. Next year a tablet?
Now they are getting an even broader range by publishing the content to the world to see.
I also can't speak about the being-there-experience, but the videos are great (and have been great last year too). For Android developer those are must-see videos.
A bit off topic ... I remember that a year ago many in the developer community weren't quite sure if Google was serious about Android.
I feel that this question has been answered meanwhile and the doubts are gone.
For non-attendees, its a shame that the Google Developer Days at major cities across the world seem to have been killed off. There were only 2 (in eastern Europe) last year. Getting to talk directly to the product engineers was always valuable.
And to be fair, the WWDC session videos are always made available to Apple Developer Connection members ...for $499 USD.
I don't know why others have not done this yet. My only reasoning is that the vendors who hold these conferences, and make people pay, say they don't want to disadvantage those who paid to come by putting up the content. Which is sooooo 90's.
People goto conferences for the experience of "being there" and also networking.
I would think it's a tremendous wasted marketing and PR opportunity by not putting it online, after going to so much trouble to put on the show in the first place.
I challenge IBM to do the same at the next Lotusphere.
Let's see when Google sells stuff they talk about in those conferences if all continues to be free ;-)
