

Google I/O announced for June 25-26 - abraham
https://plus.google.com/+SundarPichai/posts/hVVvM5MJU3d

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fidotron
Amazing how little attention this is getting.

Still can't say I'm surprised about either point. They were clearly stuck for
material for that third day and I heard definite noises about them sharing the
concerns some of us voiced about the attendee demographics!

Frankly the 2013 keynote was a tad embarrassing too (without the giveaway the
mood in there would've been a lot more skeptical - my row were amazed by how
bad a lot of the demos were), so I wonder if they're going to tone that down.

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ryanhuff
And then, some sessions were difficult to get in to.

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twaddington
A lottery is the only sensible way they can handle the increased demand for
tickets. I was saying they should have done this two years ago. It just makes
so much more sense. No getting up at 6am and madly refreshing a page. It's
just a much more considerate and friendly process. Similar to receiving a
callback from customer support instead of sitting on hold for thirty minutes.

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tristan_juricek
I wonder if people will be happier or more frustrated with the lottery setup.

And... I wonder if such a lottery system would help take on general ticket
scalping. (I could see a lottery mechanism doing some kind of 'real person'
verification.)

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bobbles
It makes not receiving a ticket feel less insulting.

1) No feeling of "I missed the 2 minute window"

2) No feeling of "I couldn't buy it because your system was down"

I mean it still sucks for people that can't make it, but want to go, but at
least everyone at least gets a chance this way.

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DrewRWx
Conversely, not pounding F5 until I get a ticket makes me feel powerless.

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nRike
>> Conversely, not pounding F5 until I get a ticket makes me feel powerless.

Actually, last year they implemented some kind of IP-based persistence for
each potential attendee: you could try to get on queue for a ticket on your
smartphone or laptop and every time you access the timer did a reset.

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DrewRWx
At least that had an interactive element in jumping back into the queue when
Google Wallet stalled out.

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Karhan
They're going to switch to a lottery system for admission. thats kind of neat.

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kchung
It's interesting to see that they went back to a two day conference. For the
past two years it was three days long.

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ben1040
I didn't get to go in 2013, so I don't know if things changed then, but in
2012 the third day just seemed hastily bolted-on.

There were not as many talks on the third day, and they were the less-
interesting ones. The demo pit had been completely dismantled and removed
overnight after the second day's program had ended. There was a box lunch
instead of a hot lunch like the first two days.

I wound up leaving halfway through day 3, instead spending the afternoon
looking to explore SF a little and get a couple beers.

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datawander
I welcome the change and think it is a good solution.

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, especially for the HN crowd, but
it's relatively easy for any developer to write a bot to auto-register them-
self. One could even use Selenium.

There is a very popular Google Developer's MeetUp and space for 200+ runs out
in less than 5 minutes of unannounced meetings opening up for registration. I
am 100% sure that a lot of bots can and do register for these events.

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nRike
>> I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, especially for the HN crowd,
but it's relatively easy for any developer to write a bot to auto-register
them-self. One could even use Selenium.

Well, I'm not completely sure if it is _that easy_. Last year they had a first
queue to get a ticket which did reset every time you opened a tab in your
browser or entering via another device. After that, you had another queue to
access your personal data, and finally you needed to use Checkout for buying
the ticket. Not sure if they're going to do the same, but I'd love to hear
some kind of programming challenges to get yours.

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donniezazen
Do folks from non-US countries attend Google I/O?

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bookwormAT
My company pays for the trip. This makes it even more unfortunate if you don't
get a ticket: It not only costs you a good conference, but also a free trip to
san francisco. ;)

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donniezazen
Visa hassle and trip cost could be off putting considering you could watch all
the videos at home.

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bookwormAT
there is no "visa hassle" if you come from Europe, and there are no trip cost
since the company pays for everything.

While the sessions are available as video streams, the sessions and
discussions in between the sessions are not. I was at I/O last year and I not
only had a good time, I also learned a lot during the three days.

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youngtaff
Shame it clashes with O'Reilly's Velocity Conference -
[http://velocityconf.com/](http://velocityconf.com/) as I'd like to do both
(they did this the year before last too)

