So, you’re at a pub with friends (it can happen). Suddenly it becomes apparent that trying to remember the name of that actor who was in that movie is critical to any sort of conversation moving forward.
You know that actor, right? The one from that movie?! “I need to google that” – mobile phones are whipped out, 3G networks start buzzing and multiple search queries are fired off into the cosmos and returned in 0.25 seconds (it was Jodie Foster by the way ... just so you know).
“Googling” is a verb for performing a search engine query, most likely, on Yahoo Bing HotBot AltaVista Google. But besides Google’s ubiquitous search engine, it is expanding into an ever-growing family of products and services poised to envelop your online experience. G|South Africa was a conference to discover products, learn techniques and get some face-time with the wizards from Google.
A blurry mobile phone photo: Mattos described local YouTube content and used a screen shot of Cape Town Tourism's channel to represent it!
The keynote address, presented by Nelson Mattos, vice-president of EMEA Product Management and Engineering, highlighted Google’s vision for South Africa, Africa and emerging markets. The three critical challenges are access, sustainability and relevance.
Google aims to:
- Provide access through a faster and more stable internet utilising local caches and points of presence.
- Provide sustainability through support and training by holding conferences (such as G|South Africa) and workshops and creating frameworks that aid investor funding (Umbono).
- Provide relevance through localised search results, translating its services into Afrikaans and isiZulu and getting time formats, numbers and currency just the way we like it in South Africa.
The conference then kicked off into a day of workshops and talks. Many things were +1’ed, some impressive tours of Google+ were given and many an API was explored.
Ricardo Bittencourt (@ricbit) showed the power of the Google App Engine; Luisella Mazza (@luizela) told us all to go use Google Page Speed to optimise our web front-ends; and Bob Aman showed us that it was indeed possible to create a remote-controlled, laser-shooting webcam in Google+ Hangouts.
This conference, met with the fact that Google gives grants to one of our favourite clients, caused me to be even more in love with the company, its products and its crew of plucky travelling Google-zealots. I’d +1 to that.