Google I/O tickets go on sale; sell out

Google Inc. today went live with the page for their annual developer conference, I/O. Aside from being a very nice HTML5 page featuring animated bouncy balls (also check out the draggable logos and buttons – seriously, this is a cool site!), the site also opens up registration for those wishing to attend.

The blog post went live around 4 hours ago, as did the registration site. Unfortunately for you if you’re reading this now and fancy attending, the tickets are all gone already. And it didn’t even take 4 hours, the tickets sold out in just 59 minutes according to a tweet by Google’s VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra.

To put that in perspective, I/O 2009 sold out in 90 days, I/O 2010 took 50 days. That’s a huge increase in interest in the space of just one year. Although it’s hardly surprising, given the search giant’s mobile OS, Android, has really gone stratospheric in the last year, beginning to eclipse even iOS. Combine that with Google’s other hot properties – YouTube, AdMob, Google Apps, Voice, Chrome and the impending Chrome OS and you’ve got an appealing little event for any would-be app developers. We’re sure Google’s habit of handing out free devices to developers in attendance has something to do with it, too.

With Google publicly promising to take more action to improve the monetisation potential of the Android Market – traditionally the home of the “free and mostly crappy” app, Google has launched the Android Web Market and is taking other steps to make those lucrative paid apps more visible and easily purchased.

I/O 2011 will be taking place at San Francisco’s Moscone Center from May 10.