Embracing The Cloud
public String CloudThoughts{ get; set;}

I'm getting on a plane tomorrow morning for San Francisco to attend the Google I/O conference. If you're a cloud developer and can only attend 1-2 conferences per year, then this conference should be on your calendar (in addition to Dreamforce).

Even though 90%+ of Google's revenue comes from search advertising, they are much more than a search engine these days. They've effectively leveraged their massively scalable Google File System to develop and host hundreds (if not thousands) of applications that are accessible throughout the world using nothing but a web browser.

Google has realized that the best way to increase revenue is not to push more customers towards Google, but to provide more accessibility to the web itself. You can deploy this somewhat altruistic strategy when you have a 72% market share.

Deploying highspeed fiber networks and launching the open source Android mobile operating system are just a couple examples of Google seeking to further enable access to the cloud on the premise that consumers of these networks/devices will eventually utilize the Google search engine and ads.

To see Android phone sales surpass iPhone in the last quarter is quite an amazing feat given the OS has only been available for about 18 months. Google shipped Motorola Droids to all 4,000 Google I/O attendees (including myself) with 30 days pre-paid access via Verizon. My Google G1 phone now seems archaic in comparison and I can't wait for the 2 year Sprint subscription to expire so I can switch over to Verizon and continue using this Moto Droid (I also recently purchased a Verizon MiFi for roaming cloud access and have been very impressed with their coverage)

Moving contacts and calendar events to the cloud is a common first step (I still don't understand why iPhone users tolerate the concept of syncing a device) and the ease of using GMail with Android makes it quite easy for consumers and businesses alike to move to the cloud.

Some key areas/topics I'll be following at the conference:

Chrome OS
I think the formal launch of Chrome OS and ubiquitous distribution through netbook partners will be a next likely step to broaden Google's reach and I expect some exciting announcements about this platform this week.

Android Development
I have the beginnings of an Android app integrated with Salesforce Chatter started, but I need to attain more mastery of debugging techniques, use of the emulator, and package/deployment steps.

Google Apps Marketplace
How to develop for and monetize Google App plugins.
Appirio has a pretty slick demo of embedding a Salesforce widget in Google Mail. I'm hoping Google will open up this API at the conference for others to try it out.

IoT and Google App Engine (GAE)
I'm interested in the potential of using GAE and BigTable as an aggregator for the Internet of Things. One side project I'm working on is to port my Chatter bot to Google.

Chrome Browser and HTML5
Just how far can Javascript be pushed to deliver rich internet applications? I'll be looking for some early indications that Google is serious about implementing HTML5 local storage and video on Chrome.

BI / Google Charts / Visualization
This is a little known API for rendering charts using a RESTful interface and I really dig it. There's great potential for moving business intelligence (BI) apps to the cloud by replicating/aggregating data using GAE and Google charts and visualizations for reporting

Google Sites
As a follow-up to our soon to be released "Cool Sites for AppExchange" app, I'm interested to learn how our template designs can be repurposed for Google Sites.

Google Wave
We've started using Google Wave internally quite a bit internally and it's emerging into an excellent collaboration tool.
Check out some live Google Waves this week. I just may be on some of them