Google IO Archive

I’ve been to hundreds of conferences over the past few years and I am always interested in watching how the check-in process is handled at each conference. It always seems like the check-in process at the SXSW interactive festival is the worst in terms of time and length of line. SXSW has moved the check-in location a couple of times over the past five years to allow for more volunteer positions, but the check-in process is still a pain in the butt and frankly a waste of valuable networking time.

Most recently, I suggested that SXSW setup stations along the hallway where 50+ laptops would be setup to allow for individuals to check-in to the conference. You would enter your registration ID, confirm your name and company and submit. Since SXSW has so many different types of badges, you would then have a printer location displayed on the screen and when you get to that printer, the SXSW volunteer would hand you your badge. This would nearly completely eliminate the lines and the time involved waiting on the check-in line.

Well it seems Google was reading and listening because the Google IO check-in process was the smoothest I’ve seen in a long time. When I entered the Moscone West conference center, Google had 3 check-in pods. Each one had about 15 computers (apparently they were the CR-48 netbooks), a Google employee and a badge printer. You could scan the barcode from your printed receipt, enter the code manually, or scan the barcode image directly from your smartphone. After I picked up my attendee badge (I was attending as a CloudContacts employee no press pass for CN), I stood nearby and watched how long the process took for others who wanted to check-in. The process was less than a minute for almost of the test subjects with many completing the process in about 30 seconds.

Continue reading “Google Shows SXSW How The Conference Check-In Process Should Work” »

As soon as the announcement was made at Google IO this morning that all 5,000 attendees would be received the yet-to-be-released Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1″ tablet, I joked around with some friends that tonight we would see the first batch listed on eBay. I figured they would be priced at about $1,000 if we assume that a “limited edition”, “not for sale” version would bring in about a 30% premium.

Well I was wrong on both fronts…the first two auctions are now online on eBay for the tablet.

The two auctions are:

• Auction 1 – A buy-it-now price of $1,699 plus $10 shipping, currently with no bids. This is a one-day auction. UPDATE: This auction has ended with a final price of $1,358 with 25 bids.
• Auction 2 – A buy-it-now price of $1,999 or make best offer with free expedited shipping. This is a three-day auction.
• A few more tablets have started to appear on eBay – ranging from $900-$2,000.

Update #1 – the first tablet has hit Craigslist – the best deal so far for $800.

I will update this post as I see more auctions and listings appear online. My guess is that we will see about 100 of the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets appear for sale within the next 24-48 hours.

The Google I/O conference starts in under an hour — you can watch the conference online on YouTube. Our men on the street, Sorgey and Brem have just sent in 10 of the announcements that will be made during the Google I/O conference. If you aren’t a fan of spoilers, you might want to look away now.

1. Android phones will no longer allow multitasking – we are hearing that Google realized how big the iPhone is and figures if they do it, we should too.
2. All Android apps must be in Flash going forward – developers of current apps will have 10 days to update their apps to the latest Flash standard or risk deactivation of their mobile devices.
3. Beginning with Android software version 2.2, all apps must be open-sourced. No apps that aren’t available as open source will be accepted.
4. Google search spiders will now look for the presence of the Facebook Like button – if they find it on your site or blog (apparently one page counts for the full site) – you will be dinged 1 pagerank level.
5. Google Maps will add a “me” icon. If you have an Android phone, your friends will be able to watch you move around the map. If you enter a zone of no coverage, the map will “snap to” your location once you get into an available access location. Who needs checkins when we have a map with faces moving around in real-time?
6. Google Buzz will be merged with Yahoo Buzz and AT&T Buzz to form Optimus Buzz – no idea what the feature set will look like at this point
7. Google Finance will be enhanced to predict the next time one of these huge stock drops will be coming so we can all get P&G and Accenture shares for a penny each.
8. Google will remove Twitter entries from their “real-time” search
9. All developers will receive a free Nexus One once the store closes- but the developers will need to figure out unique complex math equations to get to the form to receive the free Nexus One
10. You can use your Google account to sync with the new Windows Phone and Windows Mobile 7.

If you hear of any other announcements coming out of the conference, please leave them in the comments. You can use an alternate “handle” to protect your identity.