This morning Google opened up registration for its annual Google I/O conference, a two-day event focused on developer topics that will feature Android, App Engine, Chrome, GWT, and AJAX APIs. According to Tom Stocky, Director of Product Management at Google, the event has a broad appeal for both small startups and large, established companies. He says that this year’s event will emphasize demonstrations from companies that have successfully implemented some of Google’s technology.
Last year’s event saw one of the first demonstrations of Google’s Android mobile phone OS, as well as the public launch of App Engine. Google also handed out T-shirts cleverly meant to spell out “Google IO” in binary, except they actually said Google KO.
Tickets for the conference are $300 before May 1st, when they’ll rise to $400 (students get in for $50). As an added bonus for early birds, anyone who buys a ticket before May 1st will get a hard copy of the Google Chrome comic book, which was used to introduce the browser last September.
We’re giving away two free tickets to the conference today, and will have more as we get closer to the event. For the first two, tell us in the comments why you need to head to Google I/O and we’ll pick out the best two answers (be sure to use your real Email address, and a sense of humor is encouraged).
For more on the conference, check out Google’s blog post.
Update: We’ve picked out the winners, noted in the comments below.
I should get the ticket so I can create a cool App on AppEnginge, which can be covered in this years CrunchBoard
.. Plus I am guessing I will be the first commenter to this.
I wanna go so I can know how to write offline applications, using Google Gears, for Crunchpad!!
I’ve been coding since I was 10 years old and absolutely love development. There are very few major events that cater to geeks like me, so I absolutely need to attend. I’ve been following OpenSocial since the beginning and just haven’t made the time to implement it, so I think IO will give me the kick in the butt I need to get it going. I’m also getting into building iPhone apps, so I need to figure out what Google App Engine is all about. So really everybody needs me to go or they’ll miss out on some awesome apps.
As Google will someday soon be our overlords I would like to educate myself on how to serve them better. All hail Google!
I was just talking to my friend last week and I told him “The next time there is a cool tech conference coming up, we absolutely have to go, our wives like sitting on beaches and relaxing in exotic countries, and we don’t, so let’s go sit on our own exotic beach of pleasure.” It may not have been as sexual in person as it seems here, but this is the kind of stuff I need to go to. I’m tired of beaches and I need to go to one of these and unfortunately I have no money to go to exotic beaches let alone tech conference. Free tickets however will turn the tides in my favour.
There can’t be a Google IO conference without I.
,Michael Martin
http://www.googleandblog.com/
I NEED to go to Google I/O! Why? To ask them when AppEngine will be coming out of beta! So far our startup is costing us $0 to run since we host it on AppEngine, and I’m SCARED at what the price tag will be once they start charging… we already had our quotas raised beyond the free limits several times
btw, AppEngine is awesome.. check it out if you haven’t
Some support from our community
http://tinyurl.com/asma5p
Why do I need to go there? First of all, to save $50 for the entry ticket. Second thing – going there I’ll do 2 important things: learn about Andoid and meet new people in Google. After that I’ll certainly get a job there, so my next New Year’s present will be a new Android (4G).
I went last year, and during the conference, I read TechCrunch’s story about how they screwed up the t-shirts: http://www.tech...irts-too-fancy/
I saw Mike asking for one of the shirts and I found myself in a dilemma. I always gave conference t-shirts to my girlfriend. So either I get an XL t-shirt for Mike or I get a S t-shirt for my girlfriend.
Of course, I had my priorities straight, and I got one for Mike. Well, my girlfriend got pissed at me for picking Mike over her. And when we broke up a few weeks later, she cited that incident as one of the examples of how I never cared about her.
The kicker? Mike never responded to my emails so I still have the stupid useless shirt hanging in my closet.
Mike Arrington singlehandedly played a part in my girlfriend dumping me. That’s why you should send me to Google I/O.
Winner #1.
Man, I just need to get out of the office for two days!
I drove down from Nevada for last year’s with my Dad. I still qualified for the student rate, so that was pretty sweet.
With that experience, I’ll be better prepared for this year’s. One thing I noticed is that all the content is streamed over the Internet, so if you’re only going to learn, save your $300 and YouTube it. You have to be clever about it to make it worth going in person.
I’m starting a list of ways to do that:
1) Last year, the food mainly consisted of Rice Krispie treats, yogurt, and bagels. They also had a surplus of small, medium, and large shirts. (I know this because I sold a bunch of them in the comments to this very blog. I still have a few extras if anyone needs one).
Someone needs to determine the correlation between a person’s conference-food-preferences and his girth. If we can find a casual link between fat nerds and Googlie treats, we may be able to slim them down for next year. Skinnier geeks -> more room for seating -> more attendees, yielding more cash for event organizers.
I’m launching a market research firm next month, so I’m especially qualified to take this study on.
2) As much as we all love Googlers, there are bound to be a few presenters who haven’t quite developed audience-grade charisma.
My solution? shadow puppets! I’ll also sprinkle a few easter-eggs throughout the venue for those eager to test the limits of the new high-quality YouTube
3) Networking – the only real reason to go to a tech event in person. I developed my networking skills in USC’s kick-ass entrepreneurship program, and honed them when I volunteered at the TechCrunch 50 this summer. I spent the whole event in the DemoPit meeting people. Not only did I make about 100 new contacts, I also found a floor to sleep on while I finished my transition to Silicon Valley.
Please send me to Google I/O. If you’ve got any other reasons that belong on my list, let me know.
I need to find out if Google App Engine has improved since my blog post, “Is Google App Engine Ready for Prime Time?”. The answer then was NO.
I need to go to see if the answer is now YES!
http://www.sach...pp-engine-ready
nice post! we’ve had our issues with it, but so far its handling our app very nicely and scaling well as we grow… I’d say its closer to yes now although there are definitely annoying little issues with it. At least its a yes for the scope of our project
My wife works at Google. I work at Yahoo!
I want to some free food too !!
I’ll just buy one if it will help out the poor guy who was crazy enough to get Mike a shirt over giving it to his now x girlfriend.
I NEED to go so I can hear Marissa’s laugh one more time(!!)
I’m very eager to learn more about Android and Google App Engine.
If I get a free Google IO pass, I promise to give another developer the opportunity to have the same experience by giving away a pass for next year’s event.
I’m all registered! Can’t wait!
The free ticket is a cool spice for crunching the Google IO. Thanks!
Judging by the photos from the conference last year, a few geeks got some good sleep in the conference hallways. I haven’t had a good sleep in months… Wouldn’t it be nice to curl up with my laptop and have a full 8-hour sleep on the beautiful Moscone Center carpet to the lulling buzz of GWT-speckled Androids spinning sitemaps on the AppEngine… … …
I am interested and eager to know more on developing application on Anroid SDK, GWT and AppEngine
More over it will be fun to see all the cool technologies.
I need to go just to rub my wife’s face in it. Seriously. All day long she’s at me about why can’t I be like Stanley, my neighbor who works at Google. “You’re smarter than Stanley” she says. “But you’re weak. My mother was right.”
Stanley has that iPhone and Twitter and all that dot-com stuff. I’m no Phil Gates, but I know my way around Microsoft Works ‘98 Small Office Edition. So I got that workin for me…
Anyhoo if I can just pick up some fresh info about Google that Stanley doesn’t know, then at the next Rotary Club BBQ, I’m going to wait til everyone’s circled around Mr. Big Shot and just hit him BLAMMO with the phat facts I pick up courtesy of TechCrunch. I can’t wait to see the look of puzzlement and wonder as he has NO IDEA what I’m talking about. And my wife slowly turns to me with that look from Debra Winger at the end of Officer and a Gentleman. Then I chuck my Zima on his nice flagstone patio and sweep her up off her feet (piggy-back style — she’s big-boned). IN YOUR FACE, STANLEY!
Seriously. How ’bout them tix?
#2
I was there last year and it was pretty amazing. The stuff they showed off are much better than the other conferences I have been to. Unfortunately I won’t have the funding to go this year.
I really liked their hand-on session to build Google App Engine and the milk truck using Google Earth API.
I have a Google of reasons to get there, but I won’t tell you any.
I need a ticket to attend Google I/O because I honestly believe that I’m an Android programmed with Javascript.
I just know I have to go
Wouldn’t it be nice to attend a free conference not just the expo hall.
Here at Marin Institute, we are trying to help the alcohol industry take their own advice, “be responsible”, at the same time helping kids and youth be more aware of the dangers of excessive alcohol use while their brains are still growing.
We are in need of development to create new tools to help disseminate professional studies and advocacy we do in-house to the largess through the use of mapping, Android apps, Google apps and more of what Google has to offer.
This I/O developers conference is exactly inline with our current roadmap.
Being a low-budget non-profit, we would be honored to attend.
Sincerely,
Bruce Wolfe, M.S.W., CIO/CTO
Marin Institute – Alcohol Industry Watchdog