Last year, Google hosted Google I/O at Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco, a destination city with abundant hotel and dining options. So, it came as a bit of a shock to us when Google announced that Google I/O was moving to Shoreline Amphitheatre, which is literally just down the street from us in Mountain View, California.
Google I/O is a developer conference that explores the latest in technology and mobile. Our own software engineer, Nick Moline, has attended previous I/Os where he’s learned about Structured Data markup and knowledge graph search which powers Google Now. Nick notes that I/O is also where Google first launched various APIs that people use every day. “Most of the Google Maps API was first announced at the original Google Developer Day back in 2007, and SPDY, the precursor to what is now known as HTTP\2 a new faster way of working with the internet, was pushed heavily in 2010.” This year, Nick is looking forward to the sessions focused on high performance websites, in particular for mobile. These sessions should be of interest to lawyers and law firms seeking to improve their marketing reach.
Shoreline Amphitheatre is better known as a concert venue. Shielded under an iconic tent, the amphitheatre hosts a diverse range of musical acts during the summer concert season. The facilities also include a huge parking lot that serves as a midday rest stop for the many Google Buses that collect and deposit Google employees from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to Mountain View every morning.
Since an open air amphitheatre is not an obvious setting for a tech conference, many of us were a bit perplexed until we observed the changes taking place in the Shoreline Amphitheatre parking lot. Last month, the Google buses departed from the parking lot and parts of the lot were resurfaced. Next, workers began installing the framing for the structures where the conference sessions will be held.
After a week, the main structures were assembled. Besides the traditional rectangular buildings, the convention grounds also have four geodesic domes.
If you will be attending Google I/O next week, this part of Mountain View does get hot in the afternoon especially when there’s no wind, so dress appropriately and say hi to Nick if you see him.
