Google TechTalk

Nov 22 2007 Thu

1:39 am PHT

Thanks to Andrew I was able to snag a slot at the recently held Google TechTalk, which was held in Makati last Monday, November 19. This event was organized by Philippine Google Country Consultant Aileen Apolo. Two Filipino American Googlers from the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA, Jay Aguilar and Franklin Naval, visited the country to promote awareness about some of the tools and resources Google has made available for developers.

The topics they discussed include iGoogle and Google Gadgets, OpenSocial, Android (which I blogged about before), the Google Summer of Code (c/o Ruben Canlas, who is a mentor for the program), and working at Google. Personally, I’m a wee bit disappointed with the lecture since they haven’t presented anything new that you won’t be aware of even if you follow Google-focused blogs and news. But I would say that the exposition of creating a Google Gadget for iGoogle was quite informative though lacking an actual demo. (But I might probably create a gadget or two just for the heck of it as a result of this talk.)

During the Q&A portion, I asked about whether Google has any plans of tackling Brad Fitzpatrick’s Social Graph Problem and how OpenSocial doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. Expectedly, Jay and Frank were unable to expound on it because they were not directly involved with the OpenSocial team in Google.

L-R, T-B: 1. View of the venue before the talk. 2. Clique, the Party Photobooth makes an appearance. 3. Frank and Jay giving the talk. 4. Of course, Google fans listen in rapt attention. 5. “So you want to work for Google?” Is that a rhetorical question? . 6. Shwags: sticker, bookmark, and t-shirt.

Anyway, I was able to meet up with a bunch of old acquaintances like my U.P. batchmate Joel and orgmate Jem, and newly introduced bloggers like Jon Limjap and Arpee Lazaro. Juned, AJ, Markku, Dax, Karla, and Janette were also there.

Unexpectedly, the blogger events mainstay Clique Booth graced the event. See the wacky pictures!