1998 to now, what happened

http://www.google.com/logos/1998/googleburn.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/23/burning-man-2012-ticket-lottery-sales_n_1294852.html

How did this happen?

Google won't even acknowledge BM in Doodles anymore.

When I ran the MySpace clone this was the biggest topic talked about. Things that were totally obscure back then are now super scarce due to commercialization.

At this point somebody should buy some worthless property in the California desert and burn something else I think. 1k+ for BM tickets on Stubhub?

And why is Google I/0 $900 this year. The first one was 200 and only 2 years ago it was $325 at I/O 2010. Does anybody else think that these grass roots events are getting totally out of hand?

22 minutes ago, 01001001 wrote

And why is Google I/0 $900 this year. The first one was 200 and only 2 years ago it was $325 at I/O 2010. Does anybody else think that these grass roots events are getting totally out of hand?

They probably realized that loafers were attending the event just to get the freebies, and raised the price to discourage them.

@Sven Groot: I've been to every Google I/O and this year I will have to miss it because of the outrageous price. Not because I can't afford it but because I won't stand for it.

That's not what Google I/O is supposed to be about.

The higher price will only ENCOURAGE loafers, because they are the only ones who will pay for it.

The Googlers doing sessions and fireside chats are now going to be doing sessions and fireside chats to people who have no fvcking clue what the hell they are talking about. 

Congratulations Google. Congratulations Burning Man organizers.

I just want to make it clear, you can now SPONSOR Socal Linux Expo for less than a single visitor ticket to Google I/O costs. If that's ok with Google, then they can go f themselves.

really funny .....

hey there is this thing called "Making Money"  businesses like to do that so they can stay in business. 

seems like i recall someone here posting about all the free stuff they got from Google events and how great that was.... so now they have checked and found that possibly giving away stuff and not charging much to go was not making any money. 

and i can not follow any logic in :

"The higher price will only ENCOURAGE loafers, because they are the only ones who will pay for it."

really ??  what are you smoking ??   if i have to pay to go then i am not there to "hang out and loaf" i would only be there to find more info on how to make more money.  if it's not going to make me money then i am not going to spend money to "just be cool and hang" LOL

wow.

@figuerres:

if i have to pay to go then i am not there to "hang out and loaf" i would only be there to find more info on how to make more money. 

 
This does not translate into reality. Last year I ate lunch at a table with one friend and like 8 people from Intuit. NONE of them were software developers. Half the people in the sessions were live blogging the sessions(which is stupid because Google was streaming them live anyway) and were obviously not developers. The GWT sessions were full of people who never wrote a line of Java or Python code.

These are the people who have taken over the Google I/O event.

Google I/O AFAIK was never about making money before, but now it is.

hey there is this thing called "Making Money"  businesses like to do that so they can stay in business. 

Google I/0 started in 2008 and it was just for developers. Nobody else really wanted to go. Similarly to Burning Man. Google never ran a for profit event business before now. 

Google was really good at identifying the difference between making money and being a jackass about it and adjusting, but the lines are becoming blurred. I am having a harder time seeing the difference between Google and Microsoft in 2012.

At least there are still good events in the south like Scale.

I would really like to participate in this conversion, if only I could figure out the topic. I would rather go to the TED conference, exorbitant fees and all, than hangout with knuckleheads in the desert.

-Josh

@JoshRoss:

But you won't get anything out of TED. Just like SXSW which is basically just a party now.

Google I/O is supposed to be a place where you can get one on one info with Googlers who are doing bleeding edge features in sessions and office hours.

Now that I/O is has essentially been overrun with the Robert Scoble and MG Seigler wanna be's what the hell are they going to get out of it?

I can see MG Seigler right now stepping up to the mic asking questions after a Datastore optimization talk. Or a customer service rep from Intuit who only went because she wanted to go eat at a certain restaurant in Chinatown and couldn't give a damn about the Google SDKs or Intuit for that matter.

Both Google and Burning Man have lost their purpose in these outrageous fees. They both drew people in because of their understanding that you shouldn't charge just because you can or just because the market can absorb the fees. The demographic changes and in a year or 2 no one will want to be there.

@1001001: If you want either to be more meritocratic, perhaps you could suggest to the organizers that they implement one or more tests, in which the attendees would have to achieve a level of competency prior to being awarded the option of purchasing tickets.

For I/O, you could even use something as simple as stackoverflow points. BurningMan, might require something more complicated.

-Josh

@1001001: It sounds more like you're p1ssed because you can't flip the freebies on eBay for much of a profit now. You can only hope to break even now.

4 hours ago, 01001001 wrote

Half the people ... were obviously not developers. ... were full of people who never wrote a line of Java or Python code.

33 minutes ago, JoshRoss wrote

... suggest to the organizers that they implement one or more tests, in which the attendees would have to achieve a level of competency prior to being awarded the option of purchasing tickets.

I think anyone who thinks that writing a line of Java or Python code is the definition of a developer probably wouldn't pass that test.

7 minutes ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip**snip*

I think anyone who thinks that writing a line of Java or Python code is the definition of a developer probably wouldn't pass that test.

All the GWT and Android libraries are for Java and Python, pretty much everything Google makes is for Java and Python and all the sessions there are Java and Python based.

So yes, it would be appropriate. The problem is that people would cheat.

Not everybody uses stackoverflow, so I don't think that would be a good way either. For Google in particular, you could say the person would have to attend at least 2-3 GTUG meetings during the year before, and complete code there.

 

@cbae:

It sounds more like you're p1ssed because you can't flip the freebies on eBay for much of a profit now. You can only hope to break even now.

When I saw the 2012 ticket price announced before the ticket sales, I decided not to go. I don't want to be taken advantage of in the name of commercialization and executive bvllsh1t. There are still plenty of good conferences in the area. 

Somebody call the WHAAAAMBULANCE!

@1001001: So does this mean you're going off to troll Google dev forums now?

Herbie

@1001001: Mmmm

Still sounds like a steal compared to the price of the WWDC, and you don't hear the Mac developers complaining.

It's possible that if this seems a lot of money to you then you may have taken a wrong turn in your career path somewhere.

I'm being serious. I've been on two-day training courses that cost twice as much as were about half as useful.

@1001001:Oh, and you asked what happened.

Shareholders.