Yesterday was the first day the F8 Developer Conference. Sunshine and lapping waters met all arriving participants down at the old military installation Fort Mason, where the conference is held.
The conference opening keynote was with Mark Zuckerberg. He greeted the approximately 4,000 participants invited to the conference. And thanked all the handpicked and invited developers on site in particular, that they are an important part of Facebook. And that this conference is for them. On site is also the absolute top leadership of Facebook’s business management from all companies in the Facebook family.
The conference is extremely lavish. Service to the participants is high. There is food, drink and service everywhere.
Inside the “Garage” you’ll find all the Facebook companies represented and with its own staff on site. Facebook has a very open approach to the participants. It offers information, tips and tricks for developers to become successful with their services. Most popular stand was Oculus where the booking schedule to get test new Oculus rig got overbooked right away.
The program of the conference is extensive. You can not go to all sessions.
One interesting session was “How Facebook grows”. Alex Schultz, VP of Growth Marketing Facebook, handed out great tips and strategies that Facebook has learned over the years on how to grow faster for you as a business. Actually, not really news but rendered with such simplicity and clarity that it was black magic for those who do not have built up an internet service in the past.
The big news was released directly by the keynote address by Mark, who you already read about in the news. One of the news was to launch the Messenger as a platform for developers. And more exciting is the Messenger for Business, still at a early stage, but hopefully with lots of possibilities for both developers and businesses.
Another interesting session was “Building for the Next Billion” where Ime Archibong and Jackie Chang from Internet.org on Facebook, talked about how Facebook is working with developers to bring their services to billions of new users in developing countries that are about to connect online for the first time. Facebook mission “Connecting the world” is purposefully followed step by step.
After the day’s sessions Facebook handed out cool free down jackets from Patagonia to all the participants and then got all the participants partying inside one of the great military hangars. Free food, liquor, beer and party to the music of Deadmau5 who played live on stage. ” – A company that brings free booze and Deadmau5 to the party is a company you want to work with” as someone said. Enjoy our on site video:
A great day for us at AppSpotr. We got talking to our friends on Facebook who are all hugely impressed with our service and today we look forward to more discussions on the conference’s final day.
Cheers!
Patric & Fredrik @appspotr
