Has Google lost its mojo at I/O 2011?

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At Google I/O today I have to admit it was comical when the presenter doing the WebGL track had to stop in the middle of his presentation because his laptop forcibly rebooted when Windows decided to apply a security update. He even joked that maybe Microsoft did it on purpose. But, who really believes Microsoft is still the biggest threat facing Google?

Google I/O 2010 was such an amazing event last year because of their focus, again, on developers. I have always loved Google products because I believe that Google engineers believe in open standards first and the success of their company second, and I personally think this is a formula for success in the Internet world. I feel safe developing on Google platforms because I don’t think Google cares about locking developers into proprietary platforms and technologies, unlike the Microsoft-ish strategies of the yesteryear. And, I still believe that. I remember saying to friends last year that the Google I/O keynote was so amazing because it was the best developer conference I attended, and the keynotes catered to developers. We saw live demonstrations proving via statistics that Android was growing fast and then proving via Javascript benchmarks that the technologies behind it were ahead of the competition (meaning Apple). It was thrilling to watch and I came out feeling so energized about developing on Google platforms.

Not so this year. The keynote presenters almost all read directly from the teleprompter, rarely attempting eye contact with the people in the audience. This is forgivable, especially at a tech conference. What is intolerable is we were subject to platitudes about how developers are “so important” and thanking us for “giving us your most important resource, your time.” This felt insincere when they took that time to shove product launches for Google Music and Google Movies on us. Are we really supposed to be excited about the “opportunity” to rent movies from Google in a way that looks no better than anything Amazon or iTunes has offered for years? Google Music was slightly more interesting as a cloud sync solution, but they missed the most important point: this is a developer’s conference. There were no APIs to any of these services, and at the Android Roundtable there was at least one frustrated questioner (a developer of a music app on Android) who expressed strong concerns that there were no answers about how these services would be presented to application developers. It was a huge miss for Google to come here and not have clarity on at least a API roadmap for these new features.

While the WebGL presenter’s laptop was rebooting, I decided to check out another track. I walked up to Marissa Meyers talk on the Geo track and was told that out of respect for the speakers, no one would be permitted to enter after a track had started. Has no one at Google ever heard of the “Principle of Two Feet?” As I wandered aimlessly I saw Tim O’Reilly refused admission, and this has unfortunately been the most exciting thing I have seen (picture above). I spent the rest of the afternoon in sessions, frustrated at times when the presenter was talking beneath us as developers, but feeling trapped that I could not leave. Feeling trapped: if Google does no longer care about us, are they going to resort to the same type of lock-in as Microsoft did, rather than what worked in the past, keeping us excited by new technologies? Is this the state of things to come? Has Google lost its connection with developers? Is Google’s worst enemy now only itself? The first day at I/O 2011 was not encouraging.

Google seems to be playing catch-up on too many fronts lately. It's as if they feel they have to have their fingers in every pie just to stay competitive but then they roll out these lackluster, me-too implementations of their competitors' existing products. From the outside there doesn't seem to be a coherent strategy.

I was similarly unimpressed by how siloed and corporate everything felt during the Q & A sessions.

I watched the Android fireside chat, and there was so much "we don't plan on supporting that" and "that's in the hands of our OEM partners" and "you'd have to talk to another team to get specific on that" or "we may look into that in the future"

Things felt so soul-less and uninspiring. You'd think that the Android team(s) would have no problem promoting excitement and optimism among the people who want to build on top of their work, but it was just lacking. ::sad panda::

The OP url is currently dead, but in general I think Google IO has been very promising for developer. I remember last year sitting through a large part of the key note that covered a very broken Google TV demo and also a large enterprise apps segment (yawn).

Google is doubling down on Android (today at least) I'm really excited about it. New combined smartphone and tablet OS, open source hardware accessories program, new devices etc. I'm really excited for the dev opportunities here compared to the iOS stack.

While it may be true that Google isn't trying to lock developers in like MS has tried to do, that needs to be considered with respect to their business model. MS and Google are both huge software companies, but that's about the end of the similarities. Don't forget that other search engines are a click away, so lock in isn't a viable strategy for Google's primary revenue stream anyway. I think culturally for Google, this has meant that they don't tend to think quite the same way as MS.

All that being said, the tradeoff turns out to be for end-users, not developers. Google is essentially saying, "Give us all your emails, photos, docs, and music.... In fact, give us all your personal data". End users submit their private data to Google so the advertising machine can rifle through it and monetize it. The products may be free as in beer, but the actual price is entrusting Google with all your data. I'm not really sure there is a historical analog to Google, but it does suggest an area of vulnerability for startups and competitors: "Use our (almost free) service but we promise not to peek at your stuff and beat you over the head with creepy ads".

It seems to me that the only things that really bothered you were how they ran I/O this year (which is barely a day into the event so far). ....Rebooting laptops without a spare, being locked out of conference rooms, being forced to listen about Google's new products without having an open API at Google's only conference every year.

It's as if this is a complete waste of time for you. I'm certain that you are not getting any valuable knowledge whatsoever being "trapped" in these rooms. There are plenty of people who are extremely excited at the prospects of Android@Home and the Open Accessory Framework (which will probably enable manufacturers to eventually develop for the largest ecosystem of consumer products than ever before.... a product designer's wet dream).

Not sure what you're looking for out of this event. Why don't you elaborate on that and maybe Google will hear you (and might even fix that "un-encouraging" event that you're probably still at). eyeroll

Site is down, and page not in Google cache. Anyone got a copy?