Slashdot Mirror
Google I/O Sells Out In 20 Minutes
netbuzz writes "Last year it took almost an hour, but this morning Google's enormously popular conference for developers sold out in about 20 minutes, Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of engineering, told his followers on Google+. 'While we're overwhelmed with the interest and enthusiasm around Google I/O, we know it can be very disappointing and frustrating when an event sells out this quickly,' he wrote. Those who did not get tickets were not only disappointed and angry, but mystified as to why they were left out of a first-come, first-served sale despite being online and ready to buy the second the bell rang. And, of course, tickets were quickly being scalped on eBay." Of course, everyone who gets in drives away in a free Tesla.
I've always wondered with I/O how much people want to go because of whatever new technology is being introduced or discussed there or because the expectation being set that all attendees will get a full featured Android device (phone or tablet or STB).
The developer of the dominant alternative recovery for MANY android devices wasn't able to get a ticket this year (though he may well get one via back-channels) due to the mobs of people who snatched up the tickets like it was a Queen concert complete with zombie Freddie Mercury.
Also as TFS pointed out I suspect there are a fair number of people who got tickets with the intention of reselling them at a profit.
If Google does the right thing, they'll find and cancel the scalped tickets - and do a second round.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Maybe instead of an online first-come first-serve process Google should hold a ticket lottery for those who want to attend, That will help get the tickets into the hand of pre-qualified developers instead of eBay ticket scalpers.
The ever increasing "stuff" that attendees get, a few years ago everyone got a Nexus One, a couple years ago I forget but last year people got a XOOM tablet and some other multi-hundred-dollar gizmo.
It's a shame, because a couple of these guys are Java wizards with a strong interest in developing for Android. A simple programming challenge at the gate would've thwarted all the posers.
Oh, well. I guess I'll start learning Objective-C.
Historically, I/O attendees received giveaways that exceeded the ticket cost in value.
For example, 2011 attendees paid $350 I believe, and received, at a minimum, a tablet worth $500 (Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1).
This year, the ticket price was increased to $900, the question of course is - will the swag value increase or decrease? If it decreases or stays steady, it may not sell out so fast next year. If it increases to match the ticket price - this problem will continue because the conference becomes effectively free (with the exception of travel expenses of course.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The Raspberry Pi organization and its distributors are based in the UK and manufacturing is done in China. But don't let facts get in the way of paranoid rants.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
I ended up getting a ticket, though I'm giving it to a co-worker (who work is paying to send).
From what I saw, it wasn't actually a first-come first-serve setup. One of my co-workers who got in "queue" before me didn't get a ticket. I started about 5 minutes after they were posted and I got a ticket. So it seems that once you were in their queue, it may have been random who they gave the tickets to.
I can't speak for others, but I attended Google I/O for their GWT (Google Web Toolkit) and related talks. The GWT sessions were actually rather popular, even though Android is the hip tech that everyone is interested in. I'm guessing people also wanted to attend the Android talks in hopes of getting free phones (some of the talks last year gave phones to people who went to that specific session).
If I was a student in the Bay area, I would definitely fork over the money (only $300 for students) to get the free swag. But for a regular priced ticket ($900), plus hotel and travel, I figured it would have cost me around $2600. I couldn't justify that cost, especially since all the talks are posted to Youtube within a few days of the conference.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Agreed. For all the technology and data store that Google has, they're probably be able to barcode the tickets to your DNA. It should be a no-transfer ticket, but you can turn your ticket back in and allow them to send them to wait-listed people if you decide you can't make it. Sort of an enforced don't-be-evil requirement for attendees!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It's a little late, but I have two thoughts. One was a band that discovered something like 80% of their tickets had been bought by scalpers, who were demanding 10X the ticket price. Their solution? They held 3 more shows. The first, originally scheduled, show was practically empty - the other 3 were packed.
Solution type: Increase supply.
Another option is to hold a 'dutch auction' for the tickets. Easy enough for shows with one seating category, but only a touch more difficult with multiple to handle people who are willing to pay $X for 'good' seats, but $Y for 'normal' seats only if they don't get good ones. The tickets then go for the minimum price that 'just' sells all tickets. Yes, this means that only the richest and/or most dedicated fo fans get to go, but at least the money ends up in the hands of the artist's company, not scalpers. If the artists feel that the price has risen too much, add shows.
Solution type: Increase the price so that demand equals supply.
I don't read AC A human right
Personally, I like PCIe for internal and fiber optics for external. I don't think Google is even a hardware or network service provider. It's no wonder it sold out so quickly.
All Google has to do is ban scalping of the tickets. You buy a ticket, YOU get in, not the holder of the ticket.
How would one implement that while maintaining the ability for a business to decouple purchasing a ticket from the decision of which member of a development team gets to go?
So a business can buy a ticket for a to-be-named-later employee, but you gotta prove you're an employee of the company to use the ticket. You can get your money back up to a certain point in time, and that spot goes to the next person on a wait list. It's not that fucking hard to ban ticket scalping for these kinds of events.
How do you propose to enforce this magic?
Really? The same way they do at the airport.
i.e., the few thousand tickets available could have theoretically been sold out in seconds. The Moscone Center West would not even have the capacity for 25K+ Google employees, let alone the 10's of thousands of developers/students who would like to attend. My only point here is that there's a lot of demand and very little supply, so there's going to be a lot of disappointed people. I don't think a better registration system, programming challenges, doubling capacity, a lottery, etc will do much to placate everyone who wants a ticket. Perhaps the only sensible way to reduce demand would to be double, triple, or quadruple the price.
FWIW, I've been in 2009 and 2011 - in my experience, it's mostly engineers, developers and others interested in and actively working on Google technology - not people there for just for the freebies (although they are certainly welcomed).
Actually last year it was a Galaxy Tab 10.1 (not a XOOM), a ChromeBook with 2 years free 3G, and a Verizon 4G hotspot with 3 months of free service for everyone; and for some attending certain sessions, an Xperia and an Adruino ADK.
So your solution is to commit mail and/or wire fraud?
In soviet google, genius solution invents you.
Not everyone. There are a few lucky attendees that get to dress up like a well-endowed blonde babe and suck off a everyone else.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Link the ticket to the company and have the employee provide credentials to show they are a current employee. How was that hard to come up with?
"Yes, I do work for ScamScum Ticketing Inc. It says so right here in this letter - on their company letterhead! - which they conveniently sent me along with my overpriced ticket".
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
Any of the following is probably better than "first come first served" when "first come" is hard to determine or unfair to large numbers of potential attendees
1) Auction to the highest bidder. Takes scalping (mostly) out of the equation but locks out those of limited means. If you pride yourself on being non-greedy, donate the "over the face value" profits to charity.
2) Limit "1 per organization" and prohibit transfers outside of a pre-files small list of alternate users. Limits scalping.
3) Invitation-only event.
4) Require participation to attend, e.g. submit a paper, if it's accepted, you get in but you also have to / get to present your paper.
5) Require you submit a portfolio showing your presence is desirable for others who are there and/or that you are likely to benefit from attending more than someone else in line.
6) Lottery.
7) "Diversity" factors, e.g. we want 40%-50% of the attendees to be experts in the topic of the conference, 10%-20% to be newbies, and 30%-50% to be somewhat knowledgeable in the topic. Or, we don't want any more than 10% of attendees from the same company or more than 25% from the same industry segment.
There are other ways to "shake things up a bit" as well.
You can do this with just about any "over-subscribed" event from concert tickets to elementary-school transfer requests.
"First come first served" has its place, but when people start standing in line early for the sole purpose of making a buck on eBay, then either they are denying others who really should be there but can't pay $$$ a slot or they are denying you or your charity the $$$ you could've made with an auction.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.