Google Scalability Conference 2008

I attended the Google Scalability Conference again this year.  Hard to say no to a free conference in your home town. 

Here's my quick run-down of how it compared to last year:

Talks: Even

Last year I had hoped for more of the talks to be in-depth and technical, this year more were, but their topics weren't as interesting, nor their depth as great as last year's.  Both years had a couple of corporate shill type talks.

Food: Advantage '07

Last year's food was amazing, and the full bar afterward had some decent scotch.  This year the lunch was deli meat on dry bread, and only beer and wine afterward.  But still, both pretty good for a free conference. 

Schedule: Advantage '08

Last year's dual-track was annoying, I hate having to choose between two bad sessions or two I want to see.  I'm glad they were able to make this year a single-track.

Talking with other conference-goers afterward I asked various people what their number one take-away message was, and didn't get a single answer more than once.  That sounds like the sign of a well balanced conference, if also the sign of a conference with nothing too earth-shattering.

My number-one take-away was how many people were negative towards the maidsafe idea.  I've had the same idea in the past, along with others along the same vein.   I'm still pretty optimistic toward the idea of harnessing the true Internet cloud to create a coop of resources.