[bobz]

I'm pretty sure this outcome is exactly what Google wants. Hardest tickets to get in town, even with a $900 price tag. Why else would they continue to give away such great swag at an event with such high demand?

On the up side, streaming basically the entire event for free does calm the righteous indignation to a degree.

Still, it would have been nice to get a chance to meet and chat with other people working on the platforms I use.

[Samuel_Michon]

"I'm pretty sure this outcome is exactly what Google wants. [...] Why else would they continue to give away such great swag at an event with such high demand?"

I agree. Giving away equipment worth more than the ticket price doesn't attract the right crowd.

Apple has similar problems (lots of devs who want to come, but not enough space or manpower) but it at least seems to put in an effort to filter out the developers who don't need access to Apple engineers. It doesn't give away equipment, ticket price was raised to $1600, tickets are personalized and are non-transferrable, and the presentations are put online for free soon after WWDC ends. Despite all that, last year's WWDC was sold out in under 2 hours.

[objclxt]

> Despite all that, last year WWDC was sold out in under 2 hours.

...and I'm willing to bet that if Apple announced the time WWDC tickets went on sale in advance, as Google do, it would sell out a lot faster.

[Samuel_Michon]

I doubt it. Just as with I/O, the ordering system is the bottleneck. If the systems could manage it, both events would sell out in mere minutes.

Recap of WWDC 2012 ticket sales: for the first time, Apple didn't pre-announce the WWDC dates or when ticket sales would start. People were quite upset because it was so sudden and because it was so early in the day – sales began at 8:30AM EST. Per John Gruber, on the day: "Sold out in two hours, before the U.S. west coast even woke up." http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/04/25/wwdc-2012

[mbreese]

This is the real question - what is it that Google wants out of I/O? Do they want developer engagement, or do they want to publicize their most recent toys? Either is certainly valid, but the current setup does not optimize for engaging developers.

But, you've got to hand it to them, they certainly do wring out all of the PR they can from I/O. I'm honestly not sure how I'd change it... expect maybe make the keynote a separate ticketed event. I'd love to go just for the developer talks, even if it meant skipping the swag-laden keynote.

[objclxt]

As well as the online streaming, I highly recommend going to a I/O Extended event, if one's happening near you (Google will publish a page listing them all nearer the time). Last year the London event was over at Google's co-working space, and as well as streaming some of the sessions, they brought along sample hardware, t-shirts (if that's your thing), and a lot of good networking opportunities.

[myko]

At least this year the tickets are non-transferrable. I'm hoping a lot of scalpers get screwed on this.