The Google I/O freebie I'm hoping for: Nothing | Hacker News Reader

The Google I/O freebie I'm hoping for: Nothing

justinsb.posterous.com

193 pointsjustinsb55 comments

A quick TLDR: It seems probable that a lot of the people are just going for the freebies, and by announcing that there will be no giveaways and offering refunds, that will open up spots for people that actually want to go to the conference

If I recall correctly, last year they said there were no plans to give away devices like the year prior. I didn't believe them and signed up anyway as a student for $100 - best investment ever.

I imagine that the scalpers will take that opportunity to sell their spots, instead of opting for a refund.

The hope would be that Google makes transferring tickets sufficiently hard that if people don't really want to go they just take the refund.

It shouldn't be too hard, though. If I have a ticket and something comes up preventing me from going, I should be able to give it to a friend.

I'd argue you should be able to get a full refund, but no transfers should be allowed, to prevent scalping.

I see lots of people making these accusations but is it possible that there are just more developers who want to go to the conference and everyone realizes how quickly it sells out so as soon as it went on sale everyone bought up the tickets? I got a pre-sale ticket this year and although I appreciated the free stuff I got last year I'm still going to learn....

Can you imagine the shit-storm if Apple gave away iPhones at WWDC? At least I can attend that conference knowing full well that I'll be surrounded with developers who are there to learn & network.

I'm really disappointed that I won't be making it to I/O this year. 2009 was a blast (I missed 2010 out of laziness). Thought all I had to do was register within the first hour and I'd be fine.

Honestly, I blame Oprah for this.

I don't know, I went last year, and was heavily disappointed about how nontechnical all of the talks were that I went to. The whole place was filled with a ton of tech-reporters and a limited amount of actual developers.

I didn't bother signing up this year, and saved myself the money and time by doing so. Maybe it was better in the past, but I hope they change the conference to actually promote developers and developing.

Really? Maybe the keynotes, but the (>10) sessions I've watched on youtube (I haven't been) have all either been on how to develop on their products or how they developed their products.

That is with the caveats that I've selected what to watch based on what seemed interesting (and technical), and that the sessions they call "201" seem to be more 101, but from what I've seen and the in-person Q&A/networking opportunities, it seems well worth the trip for developers.

Having the same experience with non-technical content and a crowd of journalists as the grandparent poster, i also not trhilled with those.

but i saw a couple on youtube when they were featured, and i must say they were at best introductions to their platforms than anything else.

My experience in '09 mirrors this somewhat, but that was the first year they chucked a phone at us so perhaps I was distracted. I sought out the more technical talks and avoided most of everything to do with Wave. I was particularly interested in the Chrome talks and thought the presentations involving Javascript were pretty good.

It seems there are a lot of people out there enamored with Google, but don't have any other venue to rub elbows with the "Google people." I'd like to see a Google conference geared towards media, SEO, and the press so all those types will get the hell out of I/O. That way they can still announce products, ape and/or heap scorn on Steve Jobs, and get some noise made.

I went to Google developer day and all IO. The trend is for less in depth presentation and I miss the candor of the first year, but it is still a fabulous occasion to talk directly with people from Google and other devs.

Apple has "given away" stuff in the past. I seem to remember iSight cameras were one. It is a once-in-a-blue-moon thing though.

This is true, and they also gave away their first laser mouse if I recall. What's nice about WWDC is that its cost tends to act as a fairly decent bozo filter.

The cost of the conference is relative. There's a lot of international attendees and for them the price is more than the freebies.

What I have seen with higher price conference is that you get a lot of corporate attendees and more lower to middle management than developers. It may have been also because of the conference too (oracle, webmethods and Microsoft)

It got sold out in 56 minutes! What a bummer. I don't care for the swag they give out, I was looking forward to meeting the people.

How about this idea: A parallel I/O Error Conference at the same time?

I started an I|O ERROR 2011 signup spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/h9KQrR

Please add your name if you would attend such an unconference over the same dates as the real I|O.

I'm recklessly confident that we can find space at dogpatch labs, citizen space, or similar...

As of now, there are six people. What would be the minimum number of people to pull such a thing off?

Not sure. I'd hope for something like 25-50, perhaps, so that there is a good crowd but finding a space is not impossible.

That sounds like a great idea. The event will be streamed live [http://www.google.com/events/io/2011/faq.html] & I'm sure one of the co-working spaces would be able to put something on a big screen.

I've not missed a Google I/O event since the first "Google Developer Day" in San Jose in 2007 and so I'm bummed not to be attending this year.

Google did offer me a 'pre registration" but I didn't anticipate the level of demand that would occur :(

If people are indeed registering just for the (potential) freebie, I wonder what impact that will have on the conference in terms of people sticking around to actually attend sessions and participate.

I might lobbycon it anyway.

They should have coding requirements for the freebie. Nothing crazy - just enough to prove the person knows at least one language or maybe even a bit of HTML.

At a Sprint Developer Platform conference they gave everyone a free Android phone if you attended an Android development workshop - but a requirement to literally get past the door was that you had to have the Android SDK installed and a "hello world" running on the simulator.

It was amazing to see how many people couldn't get that far... folks who were just cruising for a free phone.

It was also a smart test because it wasn't like an answer to a programming puzzle that could be circulated - you actually had to have this already running (or know how to quickly install it).

That's a good idea - but they might want to distribute the SDK on USDB drives beforehand to all attendees. WiFi networks at conferences break often enough without every single person trying to download the SDK at once.

True but then if you are a legitimate Android Developer and you were invited to bring your development laptop to a development workshop, you should probably already have the SDK installed

Google I/O is (a lot) more than just Android though.

yeah, i remember waiting in that line. everyone wanted the hero and people were frantically installing the SDK while in line.

5000 developers is to big anyways. Once all the scalpers leave with their swag everyone who is left can have a more intimate conference.

Google IO did not sell out yet. This is how you register.

http://arronla.com/2011/02/google-io-did-not-sell-out-yet-th...

If people signed up just for the goodies, why did the bootcamp (reportedly) sell out in 2 minutes?

At least we can get the technical content, if Google continues to post the videos:

http://www.google.com/events/io/2010/sessions.html

I'm just really starting to get into Android and was hoping for the chance to really get in and get excited about the technology. Much like it was in my first experience with the web all the way back in 2007.

I'm really disappointed that I won't have the chance to go. I hope it's not because tons of people are going for the free device.

I've actually become a huge Android advocate to my friends, but things like this irk me something awful.

Although one can't blame Google for it, what's really sad is the loss taken by people who had booked flights and hotels in anticipation. Google definitely needs to come up with a better system to address all the nuances. A tech conference need not be like a rock concert.

It'd be interesting to find out how many people are actually developers using google technologies at this year's event.

Admittedly, I would have loved to get and get a freebie, but I would have enjoyed all the GWT and web sessions more than a freebie.

I got in. I'm planning on going and attending as many sessions as I can. My work training budget is empty so I'm self funding. (flying in from Austin and currently trying to find a couch to crash on.) I'm not going to lie, the supposed HW freebies of previous years helped make my decision and soften the blow $$ wise.

I think you're exactly the sort that Google wants to attract - so congratulations on getting your ticket. The issue is that the structure that means that you're willing to self fund (giving you freebies that refund your cost), also attracts people that Google probably doesn't want there.

Ideally, Google would have just identified you as a good developer and given you a free place, like YCombinator does with startup school.

Bockris ... I think I managed to get in too. Got a receipt from Google checkout. Did you get any other confirmation email from them? I have a fear that my credit-card payment didn't go through.

I got a receipt from Google Checkout and a confirmation email from 'googleio2011@google.com' about 30 minutes later.

My checkout receipt doesn't have my IO confirmation # in it.

In your receipt email, click on the 'Get up-to-date information about #' link and see if it charged OK. If it did and you didn't get a confirmation, I would try to contact them to see what's up.

Thank you!

Do you have attend to get the freebie? I can't imagine spending the money AND the time to get a freebie of their choice, when I can buy something of my choice w/o having to leave my house.

The freebies substantially reduce the effective cost, possibly to $0 or less. Last year everybody got a free Droid and EVO, which you could have flipped on Craigslist for at least $600. If you're in the SF area and have any interest in the conference, it's a no-brainer.

Agreed. I presume the main point of charging at all is to match supply & demand, but given that everyone believes the price is <= 0 anyway, this obviously isn't working any more.

I guess if you're in SF that may make sense. Being in WA I wouldn't fly down for a couple of days even if the price was free. Just wouldn't be worth the time for a cell phone or tablet.

UPDATE: Although after rereading what I wrote, I realized that those people whose time means so little that they'd attend a conference largely to get the cellphone/tablet are exactly the people you don't want at the conference.

Several co-workers and myself are road tripping it from Oregon and splitting hotel rooms. We're all self funding to go. I can't speak for the others but I'm interested in the sessions, though without potential freebies it would have been a much harder decision.

And a google TV a couple of months latter

I believe this year you will have to attend. Last year they sent the Droid or (Nexus One outside the U.S.) prior to the conference, there is nothing auguring to this early giveaway this year.

I'm attending this year again and I'm flying from Canada. No way I would attend just for the freebies. The plane is currently at close to 800$ and my hotel will be probably at least 600$. If I wanted a phone, I would buy one, it's much cheaper. And I would not miss 3-4 days of work. I love the freebies, but they would be awfully expensive if the conference had no intrinsic value for me.

I didn't see a reason why they sent them early last year anyways.

The email they sent announcing the early giveaway suggested they wanted people to be able to get their feet wet with the SDK on a modern Android device and maybe show off your prototype apps with people over lunch or beers at the after hours party.

It worked well for me; a friend of mine and I spent a couple Saturdays at a coffee shop ahead of the conference tinkering with the Android SDK to learn how things worked. I already had an N1, but he didn't, and so now we could actually hack together on stuff. After messing with things ahead of time I got a lot more value out of the sessions and was able to hit the ground running when I got home.

Doing so again will depend on whether they feel the need to seed the developer community with another new device. Do they really need to do this for tablets?

Six months ago, I would have guessed a Google TV give-away, but this year's agenda is pretty light on Google TV.

Six months ago, I would have guessed a Google TV give-away, but this year's agenda is pretty light on Google TV.

Actually, back in December they sent Google TV devices out to I/O 2010 attendees (or at least some; I received a Logitech Revue and so did a coworker of mine who attended). They did not promise this at I/O and an email just came out of the blue around Thanksgiving asking for my shipping address. So far I am disappointed with Google TV but I'm looking forward to the talk at I/O this year that pretty much is concrete evidence we'll see an Android SDK launch for it in May.

I see no reason for them to seed phones again, anyone who wants an Android phone for serious development (or anyone serious about development enough to go to I/O "just for the articles" as they say) probably would have already bought one. Tablets, maybe; I might see them doing an all-out blitz with the Honeycomb release.

The Honeycomb emulator really sucks right now and is pretty much unusable. If they want decent apps as these tablets launch, giving key developers tablet devices might be one way for Google to buy their way out of that problem.

Because 2 years ago everyone was registering there HTC ion with the 1 month prepaid sims they gave. Anyway that's the reason they gave.

If their event sells out in 59 minutes, why don't they raise the price dramatically?

Google gives the freebies away so that developers will have devices at hand to make apps for. If non-developer freebie seekers are going, that obviously defeats the purpose. Maybe they should have some sort of coding exercise that you have to complete to be eligible for registration.

I have been there for the last 2 years, and I was able to pre-register this year. I go for the talks and the awesome energy that the event irradiates. I am pretty sure the quality of the talks and the energy will be just better than last year.

Developers like conferences and free gadgets, yea there might be some people looking to get some "free" $500 gadgets, but I don't think that will ruin my experience of awesome tech stuff and meeting the teams from all the different technologies that work on stuff I use every day.

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