Google I/O might be my favorite work related event of the year. This isn’t my first geek-adventure at Moscone Center in San Franscisco, and hopefully it won’t be my last.
I have been to several technical Google Events in the past year including ones at the Chelsea office in New York City, the Venice Beach office in California and in my backyard at the Boulder campus in Colorado. Still, I/O, a technology conference spent mostly in lectures where I studiously absorb new information, is a no brainer for one of my favorite things to do each year.
I am seriously excited for _this_ year for several reasons.
From a consumer perspective this is an exciting event where new offerings from the Google mother ship will certainly be unveiled. Wearable computing, including Project Glass, smart watches and more. Entertainment options like GoogleTV
and streaming music services and hardware. Tablet choices like the heavily signaled 7 inch “Google” tablet, that will out perform and under price all competition will be announced.
From a technology perspective a new Android operating system, Jelly Bean, will likely be showcased with a future release date. A new service to compete with Amazon’s cloud computing offering is expected. Learning about Android, App
Engine and getting to talk to esteemed Google employees richly versed in User Interface design and software development will be great. (I have my list of questions ready!) Although Larry Page is rumored to be a no-show, I hope to
shake hands with Sergey Brin again this year.
There will be give aways, if history is any indication. With this year’s steep, but reasonable, price increase (the registration cost doubled for me) one might expect multiple tablets and devices to be given away.
And there are the invite-only partys, too. A gallery/food truck/free booze event for mobile app developers, a product launch from a major hardware developer (my invite promises a major hardware giveaway), geeky events like hackathons
and one where you weld and laser etch and destroy things, and more.
It will be a great time. I am happy to be back and reporting it here on Vendor Alley, so thanks to Greg for the air time. I’ll try and post something about each day of the event, so Greg’s readership can enjoy an inside experience by
a Real Estate technologist. You will certainly read about the event in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, but here you should get a candid view and hopefully some Real Estate related spin as well.
Mark Scheel is president of Digital Construction Inc. a software consultancy based out of Colorado, who has done work for the National Association of Realtors and the Department of Defense in the past year. Currently Mark is involved
in a business turn around effort and acting as Vice President of Mobile Software–heading up Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7 development–for a California company in the Entertainment vertical (the rumors about Larry David working in
the same office complex are true).
