Short But Sweet At Google I/O

If you’re like me and missed your opportunity to attend Google’s premier developer gathering this week--Google I/O, you where likely following your favorite Google blogs rather obsessively on Wednesday and Thursday, trolling for early insights before the inevitable mainstream analysis. Google did not disappoint with two days of nearly 100 sessions on AJAX & JavaScript, APIs & Tools, Social, Maps & Geo, and Mobile. An opening keynote by Vic Gundotra (VP, Engineering), kicked off discussion with three key themes:
- Making the Cloud more accessible
- Keeping Connectivity pervasive
- Making the Client more powerful

Vic’s keynote also answered a common question regarding Google motives...What is Google doing hosting a developer conference if Web is the platform?
His simple answer (paraphrased)...aside from Google founder’s need to give back to the open source community, Google believes the collective platform (the Web) will get better if it is open to innovative developers. Development improvements will increase the volume of webapps and consequently the number of users and usage (more Google searches) for the Web. Ultimately this translates to more revenue for Google. I don’t think this is a big surprise to anyone, but I think skeptics and conspiracy theorists will never be satisfied with such a simple formula for success. No matter for those at Google whose culture feeds on that innovative spirit Vic infers is the force driving the Cloud/Connectivity/Client focus. Afterall, much of Google’s workforce are Computer Scientists.

Although the setup and philosophy sounded great and inspiring for many developers, the best parts were the demonstrations. Skip ahead to about the 25:00 mark if you are in a hurry. Here you’ll see a decent demonstration of the Android mobile platform. Android is getting close to release and handsets are due to ship before the year is out (The next iPhone is also on its way later this summer).

Of course you will notice some familiar user interface features along with some improvements like a built in compass and great integrations with Google products. I scanned some comments on a few blogs that criticized the “blatant/shameless rip-off” of iPhone, etc. My take...good for you Android, if it means a better experience for the user (and if its not patented), then let us have it. Again, Vic’s comments on an open platform that is free to be improved by the collective, makes for a better Web with more and better products to choose from. To showcase some of the mobile innovations, Google has plans to launch an apps directory of sorts (although its unclear if it will be a marketplace) for developers and users.

Lastly, the Google cloud computing environment, Google AppEngine,
is now available to everyone. Although it still has some governors set, like a 5 million page views per month limit, so far it looks pretty solid for a preview release. As usual, its free for now with some fog around how much one will pay to make it scale upwards when your sites take off.