Ask HN: Google Next 24 is over. Anyone else disappointed?
Apr 14, 2024 - news.ycombinator.com
The author expresses disappointment with a conference focused on Google's generative AI, Gemini. The author criticizes the overemphasis on Gemini, stating that it overshadowed other topics and was often inappropriately shoehorned into unrelated discussions. They also lament the lack of technical details, stating that the conference was filled with high-level marketing information rather than useful product interaction and limitation details. The demonstrations were deemed cringey and useless, often lacking technical details or featuring unreadable code. The conference app was also criticized for its functionality issues.
Despite these criticisms, the author found value in one talk and appreciated the expo, where Google's engineers were available to answer technical questions. However, the author concludes that the conference was too focused on advertising and promoting Gemini, rather than providing useful information to better use Google's products. They question whether their disappointment is a result of being jaded or a shared sentiment among other attendees.
Key takeaways:
The conference was overly focused on Gemini, Google's generative AI, to the point of excluding other topics.
The presentations lacked technical details and were often either cringey or useless.
The conference app was not user-friendly and had several issues, including not transferring 'likes' from the website and making it difficult to locate things on the map.
The expo was the best part of the conference as it had Google's actual engineers who were able to answer technical questions.
