This last Thursday was incredible! I had hoped to get at least as many attendees as last time, but I got even more. I counted to 90 people sharp, but I might have missed one or two. Also, people lined up in front of the registration desk instead of bolting for the beer (as I would have). People were very nice, courteous and happy. Even when Google's Serge LaChapelle was unable to connect to the projector and was forced to switch to a smaller panel-mounted TV.
We got people from Bwin, Mindspring, Tieto, Skype, KTH, Skatteverket, Unibet and *lots* of other companies and organizations. Between the sessions we had discussions breaking out everywhere. Also interesting was that between 25-50% of the people present had done some or a lot of Android development, which only made the big announcement even nicer: Bwin Games AB will host GTUG Stockholm's Android Hackathon the 28/11. Details will be forthcoming during the coming week.
The schedule for our second GTUG Stockholm meeting was as follows:
17.30 - 18.00 Mingle. Register at the laptop.
18.00 - 18.10 Presentation Ottoboni / Peter S.
18.10 - 18.20 GTUG Stockholm news / pres.
18.20 - 19.00 Johan Nilsson, Bwin; Android/iGlaset
19.00 - 19.30 Break
19.30 - 20.00 Serge LaChapelle, Google, om Gmail Video Chat
20.00 - 20.30 Jacon Gyllenstierna, Enemy Unknown on OpenSocial
This was great since it cut my time talking down from pretty much the whole time, last time, to just presenting the event and the sepakers. Don't get me wrong, I love talking, but I feel that it is better for the community to have lots of different speakers with lots of different experiences.
First off was Johan Nilsson, from Bwin, who presented two useful Android apps he had made; STHLM Travelling and iGlaset. We got some good practical examples on what to do (and not to do) when developing an Android app and lots of good pointers to resources.
Then came Serge LaChapelle from Google Sweden, originally working for the Swedish company Marratech, which was bought by Google some years ago to use Marratech's technology to create what was to become Gmail video chat. Serge did a great presentation with a live video demonstration and dozens of technical questions asked by the attendees, like which was better of GMail chat and Skype (both have their strengths and weaknesses), How much overhead the new H264/SVC codec demand (1-2% CPU tops), why they don't use SIP (since they build everything on top of Gmail chat and XMPP, it felt cumbersome to create a separate infrastructure. Google have apparently really good internal oomph for juggling XMPP (pusubhubbub anyone?)).
Our last talk was Jacob Gyllenstierna from Enemy Unknown who did a great presentation on how OpenSocial works and how the cotnainer (web site) interacts with the OpenSocial apps. These guys are interesting because they are one of the few companies I know of that have created their own OpenSocial compatible platform (in Ruby, no less) and have OS applications created by the community which ties directly into their services. The also do consulting, if you have an OpenSocial project that you need developed. Normally I'd recommend myself, but these guys are just much tougher :).
One of the more interesting things that was brought up over beers after the main talks was that several people wanted some more business-oriented information, like someone who has implemented Google Apps for an existing customer, or sales-oriented certfication for different Google Products. Google does have some certifications available, and more will be forthcoming, but I will take this to heart and try to have some more nuggets avilable for the business oriented Google Entepreneur next time. promise!
[Update: More (and better.. ahem) pictures from @vilcans: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10185883@N05/sets/72157622370852645/ ]
1] Slides from Johan/Android
http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=djszmqj_2d584vcdw
2] Slides from Serge/GMail video chat
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxFzwqvEUKapOTFiMjI1NTYtMjU2ZC00MDA1LTkxMDAtZGZiZGZhYThiMzdh&hl=en
3] Slides from Jacob/OpenSocial
2] Slides from Serge/GMail video chat
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxFzwqvEUKapOTFiMjI1NTYtMjU2ZC00MDA1LTkxMDAtZGZiZGZhYThiMzdh&hl=en
3] Slides from Jacob/OpenSocial