Melon Corporate Blog
Melon Media Goes to San Francisco and Visits Google
Kevin Garber at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View.
>>> For more pictures and videos including an interview with a Google Product Manager click here.
Melon Media was lucky enough to be invited to the prestigious TechCrunch50 to present our spellr.us product.
Out of over 1000 applicants 50 were chosen to present on the main stage and 150 chosen to present in the “Demo Pit” - spellr.us was selected for the Demo Pit.
So off I went to San Francisco.
San Francisco along with the nearby Silicon Valley is the epicentre of the internet and IT world.
My first impressions of San Francisco was that it was a lot dirtier than I expected and a lot more homeless people than I expected.
People however are extremely smart, very friendly and the city is full of interesting characters.
The TechCrunch50 conference is put on the by the TechCrunch blog.
The panellists were extremely smart, interesting and all had real achievements behind them and were not mere corporate talking heads.
My favourite panelists were:
- Marissa Mayer from Google - Vice President, Search Products & User Experience - so eloquent, passionate and smart
- Yossi Vardi- a veteran early stage venture capitalist - smart, full of personality and focused on the basics of business
- Chris Sacca - an investor that spoke a lot of sense about starting and growing a company.
There were about half a dozen Australians but what was really interesting was the Israeli presence.
I have been long well aware that Israel has the second number of companies listed on Nasdaq after the USA but the number of companies presenting at TechCrunch50 and the number of participants totally surprised me.
In a cafe in Mountain View (where Google have their offices) the only other language that I heard besides English was Hebrew!
I think Australia and others should take a look at Israel and consider how such a small country with 0 resources can deliver such a large amount of innovation.
At the conference spellr.us received many positive reviews and as someone mentioned to me, we were one of the few products launched that "actually did something!".
A highlight of the trip for me was being invited to Google to visit their campus and to talk to one of their engineers.
Google is about an hour south of San Francisco by train in the town of Mountain View.
Google buildings totally dominate the town of Mountain View with every second building a Google building.
I interviewed Sharath Bulusu who is a Google engineer working on mainly internal products.
You can view parts I and parts I of the interview here and here.
I was also lucky enough to be invited to lunch at one of the famous Google cafes - Google provides free organic food at its cafes.
Anyway I will let the pictures and videos below do the talking.
Picture of me in San Francisco with Alcatraz in the background.
One of Google's main buildings in Mountain View.
Panelists at the TC50 conference - from the right - Chad Hurley Co-Founder of YouTube; Marissa Mayer Google Vice President; Ron Conway Eminent Silicon Valley Angel Investor.
Google main campus.
Our spellr.us owl at the Google campus.
One of the many Google buildings in Mountain View.
The streets of Mountain View - town that is the home of Google Headquarters.
First day of TechCrunch50.
Train station at Mountain View.
My friends from Joongel (they were part of the Israeli effect!)
TechCrunch blog founder Michael Arrington is a bit of an Internet celebrity - this is his father with Michael's dog.
Welcome to TechCrunch50.
Our demo pit space at TechCrunch50.
Our shirt with misspellings of the TechCrunch50 founders (Michael Arrington and Jason Calicanis) got some good attention - thanks to the folks at Whirlpool discussion board for the great idea.
Some Videos
A fan of spellr.us - one of many!
A very tired Kevin on the morning of the Demo Pit.
Morning in the TechCrunch50 Demo Pit - day 2.
End of day in the TechCrunch Demo Pit - day 2.
The founders of the TechCrunch50 Michael Arrington and Jason Calicanis open the TechCrunch50.
Interview with Sharath Bulusu - a Product Manager from Google.
Through a contact I was lucky enough to get invited to visit the Google campus in Mountain View south of San Francisco.
I had the opportunity to have lunch with Sharath and Sheila from Google in one of their many free organic cafes that Google provides for its staff.
I interviewed Sharath for about half an hour - we discussed a range of topics including the platforms they use at Google, new Google products, his view on social media and a range of fascinating topics - Sharath was clearly very smart and articulate.
Clip 1/5 - 9 mins - discussion includes Sharath's role at Google, platforms and technologies Google uses.
Clip 2/5 -8 mins - discussion about Google algorithm, Google culture, discussion of cloud computing, Google Gears, Google Chrome.
Clip 3/5 -3 mins - more interesting talk on Google culture, Sydney Google office discussion, Google 10th Birthday.
Clip 4/5 -7 mins - discussion on social networking and as it relates to search. Google newspapers and book search.
Clip 5/5 -3 mins - Google Chrome and cloud computing.
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Comments - oldest entries appear first, most recent entries at the end.
Nice one guys. Very exciting. Well done.
By Matthew Wooler on 03 10 2008
First want to congratulate you for gettign invited in such a prestigeous event. Nice photos. thanks for sharing.
By steve on 23 11 2008
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