Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google I/O Registration 2014

stancarney.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 33 posts

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#21

Post by mbernstein »

suyash wrote: post #16
mbernstein wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why only registered Android developers? There's a lot more to I/O (and Google) than just Android.. What do you mean by "hacked into it"? Do you mean people used wget -r on the developer docs and grep'd out codes to try?

"Why only registered Android developers? There's a lot more to I/O (and Google) than just Android.." - Ofcourse, I was just eliciting a contrast to Apple's registration system for developers, Android dev was just 1 use case I'm pointing too. "What do you mean by "hacked into it"? Do you mean people used wget -r on the developer docs and grep'd out codes to try?" - Did you read the blog in full before asking this? In…

Of course I read it. I just consider hacking into something to be a different sort of activity vs. crawling and doing what Google likely intended.

"Hacked into it" to me implies someone circumvented the server that was able to determine which codes were still and open and just took them, not writing a crawler.

You didn't even need to write a crawler - you could wget -r the android dev docs and grep through for goo.gl and try them all.

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#22

Post by magicalist »

just2n wrote: post #19
throwaway1979 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand what Google's goal is with I/O attendance. Excitement. Buzz around the Android developer experience. It is a fun conference. But lets be honest, if they stopped the freebies, would it garner the same interest from non-tech folks? P.S. my personal opinions. I attended it once and had a fun time.

Does it need to? It's developer-oriented, not consumer-oriented. The "freebies" (really ahead of market or exclusive toys that you pay for, or get some kind of discount on) attract consumers, which is the problem. If the goal is to have a place to show off all the stuff that's new in Android (or the new Google devices), that seems like a separate consumer-oriented conference. Or the big unveiling keynotes followed by…

Yeah, I don't think a programming quiz to get a ticket is a great idea, but definitely agree (and it seems to be the general consensus amongst more technically capable attendees) that it's nice to get free things, but if they got rid of the giveaways it would improve the audience demographics and actually increase my desire to attend.

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#23

Post by lnanek2 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #15
saregama wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$900 bucks for a $350 phone ? :) I would say stop giving freebies and see if they still need a lottery..

I have no idea what they may or may not be giving away at this years Google IO (they seem to be trying to reduce focus on that) but the retail cost of the free hardware often exceeds the registration amount. 2012 was probably the best overall in terms of retail price of giveways relative to registration fee: Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Asus Nexus 7, Nexus Q and Samsung Chromebox. Last year was Chromebook Pixels which by th…

Not to mention if you ebay it during the conference, as many people do, you often get several times the eventual retail price. Then just buy it cheap when it comes out.

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#24

Post by saregama »

georgemcbay wrote: post #15
saregama wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$900 bucks for a $350 phone ? :) I would say stop giving freebies and see if they still need a lottery..

I have no idea what they may or may not be giving away at this years Google IO (they seem to be trying to reduce focus on that) but the retail cost of the free hardware often exceeds the registration amount. 2012 was probably the best overall in terms of retail price of giveways relative to registration fee: Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Asus Nexus 7, Nexus Q and Samsung Chromebox. Last year was Chromebook Pixels which by th…

They say there is no free lunch. Wondering what the rationale behind freebies is ?

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#25

Post by georgemcbay »

saregama wrote: post #24
georgemcbay wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what they may or may not be giving away at this years Google IO (they seem to be trying to reduce focus on that) but the retail cost of the free hardware often exceeds the registration amount. 2012 was probably the best overall in terms of retail price of giveways relative to registration fee: Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Asus Nexus 7, Nexus Q and Samsung Chromebox. Last year was Chromebook Pixels which by th…

They say there is no free lunch. Wondering what the rationale behind freebies is ?

The intent (on top of just basic "get our name out there" promotion) is to get devices into the hands of developers to make it more likely they will develop software for it. The sort of ultimate example of this (though obviously not as successful as hoped) is RIM basically giving PlayBooks away like candy to developers when it shipped. The thought being if developers have this device, they might be inspired to write software for it; or if developers have our specific Android device, they may give it special attention as a development/test target, which helps us.

In the case of Google IO though the freebies were such a good deal that many non-developers who are constantly looking to resell hot gadgets (the slickdeal-reading types who camp out at walmart before a new console release and try to buy 5 units so they can "flip" them on ebay) tend to come out of the woodwork when IO rolls around. This seems to contribute to the massive amount of registration interest Google IO gets relative to the size of the event (combined with the fact that all the talks are published in video form right after the conference) and the anecdotal rapid drop-off in attendees present at the conference from day to day.

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#26

Post by lighthazard »

georgemcbay wrote: post #15
saregama wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$900 bucks for a $350 phone ? :) I would say stop giving freebies and see if they still need a lottery..

I have no idea what they may or may not be giving away at this years Google IO (they seem to be trying to reduce focus on that) but the retail cost of the free hardware often exceeds the registration amount. 2012 was probably the best overall in terms of retail price of giveways relative to registration fee: Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Asus Nexus 7, Nexus Q and Samsung Chromebox. Last year was Chromebook Pixels which by th…

$900 + travel expenses + hotel/quarters expenses

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#27

Post by CountHackulus »

toufka wrote: post #2

Reminds me of trying to get access to an old Hotline server. "The login is the eight word after 'summertime' on the last page of this link. Then, register for this service and the final word of the last paragraph of text is the password." Either way, off-putting.

As someone who used to dabble in Hotline servers, you could make enough bank to pay for your internet with those "find this word" directions. Most people would do it if they really wanted the stuff on the server, or they could pay, or they could upload. Really, it became a self-sustaining system.

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#28

Post by CountHackulus »

VonGuard wrote: post #6
toufka wrote: post #2

Reminds me of trying to get access to an old Hotline server. "The login is the eight word after 'summertime' on the last page of this link. Then, register for this service and the final word of the last paragraph of text is the password." Either way, off-putting.

Wow, Hotline FTW. I remember it well. It still exists, actually, with some old Mac OS servers out there, still. Problem is, the transfer protocol tops out at something like 50kb/ps or something that's fairly silly today, so it's not that great for modern large file transfers...

Really? I remember it topping out much higher than 50k. I remember maxing my download speed at 800k. Must've been a low slots/high queue server.

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#29

Post by blisterpeanuts »

georgemcbay wrote: post #25
saregama wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say there is no free lunch. Wondering what the rationale behind freebies is ?

The intent (on top of just basic "get our name out there" promotion) is to get devices into the hands of developers to make it more likely they will develop software for it. The sort of ultimate example of this (though obviously not as successful as hoped) is RIM basically giving PlayBooks away like candy to developers when it shipped. The thought being if developers have this device, they might be inspired to write…

Interesting... and frustrating. Certainly where I work, any new handset or tablet will be used for testing our apps. Freebies are most welcome; there's a lot of red tape involved in purchasing a device just for testing/validating.

Maybe they could key the freebie devices to your Google I.D. and use a non-OEM plain plastic ziplock so that the flippers will have to manually wipe it and list it as "open box" on Ebay.

Anyway, I enjoy watching the keynotes and classes from the comfort of my home office. You can't beat the price.

Re: Google I/O Registration 2014

#30

Post by bookwormAT »

suyash wrote: post #16
mbernstein wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why only registered Android developers? There's a lot more to I/O (and Google) than just Android.. What do you mean by "hacked into it"? Do you mean people used wget -r on the developer docs and grep'd out codes to try?

"Why only registered Android developers? There's a lot more to I/O (and Google) than just Android.." - Ofcourse, I was just eliciting a contrast to Apple's registration system for developers, Android dev was just 1 use case I'm pointing too. "What do you mean by "hacked into it"? Do you mean people used wget -r on the developer docs and grep'd out codes to try?" - Did you read the blog in full before asking this? In…

I think being able to write a web crawler is a better test for your development skills than opening a $25 developer account. And don't forget that most Android developers do not publish their work on their own private accounts.

Anyway, the easter eggs were just that: a small game for promotion and fun. There were around 300 of these - the Google+ I/O community alone has 43000 Members (Disclaimer: I got one 3 days after they started the easter eggs).

If Google's I/O team is smart they secretly check for peoples public activity through their Google+ account when they select winners in "the lottery". If they favor people who follow Google Developer pages or who liked some of the tech videos on youtube, they would already filter out a lot of the civilists.

Post reply on HN