Google I/O, the annual Google confab for web, mobile and enterprise app developers, has sold out in just 59 minutes.
Registration for the Google event – to be held in San Francisco on May 10-11 -- opened around 1PM EST and before long those trying to get into the website were being met with error messages caused by the rush to sign up. Google said it expects about 5,500 people to attend the event at the Moscone Center, though does plan to stream keynote sessions to those who cannot be there in person.
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Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra tweeted about an hour after registration opened: "Google I/O 2011 sold out in 59 minutes! Holy Moly." Earlier, he tweeted that last year’s event took 50 days to sellout and that the 2009 edition took 90 days to reach capacity. A note on the Google I/O website also confirmed that the event is sold out.
(One Twitter user responded: "How about a Google I/O 2 (& 3 & 4) later this year for us poor bastands [sic} stuck in meetings between 10:00 and 10:59?")
Early bird pricing was $450, or $150 for students/faculty. Google charges an extra $100 for a bootcamp program.
In recent years when popular tech conferences have sold out quickly, tickets have then surfaced on sites such as Craigslist and eBay, as was the case with Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last spring.
Sessions include everything from "Storing your data on Google’s cloud" to "Building Web apps for Google TV" to "Honeycomb highlights." Google Earth, Google Apps and App Engine are among the other topics on the agenda for the two-day event.
Last year, Google previewed Android 3.0 (a.k.a. Honeycomb), the tablet-optimized version of its mobile OS that Google just released. Google officials also took plenty of jabs at what it deemed Apple’s less open approach to computing and app development.
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