Following Google’s inaugural I/O conference, the question on everyone’s minds precisely what you’d guess: how did they do? While throwing a conference is a decidedly non-trivial task, the expectations that many have of Google are far from reasonable. Thus the question.
The answer is: not bad. Not great, but not bad. Overall, I’d grade the Googlers out as probably a C+ (it probably would have been a B- if we were talking about anyone but Google), which is a pretty fair achievement in my view for the first time out of the gate.
For those interested in such things, some specific reflections on what was done well and what was done poorly.
Attendance
While I haven’t yet managed to get my hands on actual attendance figures, the crowds were, frankly, less than I anticipated. One unconfirmed figure had registered attendance in the ballpark of 5,000, which if true would be excellent for a first time event, but Moscone West felt significantly more empty than it did for the Web 2.0 Expo a few weeks back. The majority of the sessions I attended were at or near capacity, however, which speaks either to my inability to accurately assess attendance or the popularity of the sessions I attended.
Attendees
As expected, it was principally a developer crowd. Meaning that yes, sadly, the ratio of male to female was wildly skewed. From a vendor sports angle, I’m told that both Adobe and Microsoft were well represented at the show, while IBM and Sun were largely absent.
Comfort
Credit to Google, the layout of the venue was well executed, with couches liberally applied to the second and third floors. There were so many multi-colored beanbags strewn across the top floor that it was like one of those Chuck-E-Cheese ball pits. Seating in the sessions was cramped and narrow, but this is common as conference organizers try to maximize the attendance of individual sessions.
The main problem for attendees was power: outlets were tough to come by. To the extent that most sessions had attendees lined up along the sides, sitting on the floor to recharge their machines.
Content
Assessments of the show’s content varied widely from the conversations I had at the show. The principal complaint, echoed here by Eclipse’s Bjorn Freeman-Benson, seemed to be that sessions were overly Google-centric. To which many would respond, well, it’s a Google conference. Which is true. But when a principal theme of the show is the web as a platform, it might have been beneficial to demonstrate the breadth of said platform within the sessions.
Apart from that criticism, however, I heard little but positive feedback on the content. And speaking as an attendee who was there primarily to hear from Google, I did not come away disappointed.
While my usual travel karma prevented me from seeing Vic Gundotra’s opening keynote – liveblogged by Mark Hendickson here – I did find Marissa Mayer’s second day opening talk a bit underwhelming. It could just be due to the fact that I track Google reasonably closely, but I found some of the related anecdotes stale. The story of how Google added the trademark footer to the homepage to prevent users from waiting for it to finish loading, for example, is practically a cliche in web circles. Though I admit that I wasn’t aware that the Swedish Chef translation of Google had been viewed millions of times.
Conversation
While the session agendas weren’t entirely conducive to the facilitation of inter-attendee discussions – a nearly universal failing amongst conferences that I attend – the hallway aspect of I/O was alive and quite well. As usual, these were of high value for me, and to judge from the throngs that flocked around the couches, beanbags and booths I was not alone in this respect.
Also worth noting was the quality of the discussion within the sessions themselves; in a few instances, talks ran long and Q&A time was artificially limited, but in nearly every session I was at the audience was fully engaged and the Googlers were very open (for Googlers, anyway) and receptive to all manner of questions. The level of audience participation was the best I’ve seen outside of unconference settings.
Food
As would be expected of the vendor with the best cafeteria in the business – seriously, I can confirm this – the food options at the show were solidly above average. Due to previously scheduled meetings and other engagements, I missed the meals, but there were options to suit most tastes.
Most importantly, they had buckets of Gummi worms available. For free. Not joking. It’s a good thing most conferences don’t do that, or I’d be in serious trouble.
Hours
With sessions beginning at 9 AM, Google demonstrated a slightly above average understanding of the nature of the attendees – developers almost to a person. 10 AM would have been preferable, but at least they weren’t kicking things off at 8 AM.
Logistics
The sessions were generally speaking well organized and clearly tracked, and the scheduling grid was not difficult to navigate. Better, the layout of the sessions was uncomplicated and easy to remember.
My major logistical complaint was one commonly heard: there were no presenter names attached to any of the sessions, either in the grids or in the placards in front of the session rooms. I just happened to select the Serverside JavaScript session over two others: if I’d known that Steve Yegge was giving the talk (he was excellent), my decision would have been far simpler.
Music
Kudos to Google or their designated organizers for branching out a little musically. I’ve got nothing against U2, but I’m very tired of being hammered with 140 decibel versions of Beautiful Day or Elevation. The selections were a bit eclectic at times, but the variety was appreciated.
Social
As I had a dinner engagement on Wednesday, I can’t comment on the social end of I/O. To judge from Senor Shankland’s pics, however, it looked like Google did ok in this department.
The Net?
Would I go again? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to others? Depending on how much more open the agenda is, almost certainly yes.
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