How you do (online) Social!?

Pretty much of the people who follow me, do so for stuff related to Agile or Community events/stuff (along with a few others who knew me for sometime and might really care to follow my news as a person/friend)

I thought it was obvious how I categorize my stuff but lately I realized that it needed to be more explicit, so here is a list of what I'm sharing so you won't get spammed by my other personal stuff (That is the way I do it, what about you?):

ComCal.org: Wanna follow follow technical events and share events with others? Egypt IT community Calendar is a public calendar that includes offline IT community Events held around Egypt. Also, online events both from Egypt and around the world. Choose your way subscription between from the site. You can add events to share it with the community here.

@ASGEgypt: Anything Agile, I was a bit sleepy but probably will be posting there more often soon. Note: this is a "colaborative" twitter account, others (ASGE organizers) post there too.

FCIH Blog: A collaborative blog by many guys from FCIH, I try to blog there as much as I can, but the blog is really full of great posts by my fellow Helwaneez there.. Strangely, we have huge (daily) hits from USA & India compared to those from Egypt.

@FCIH: Speaking of the blog; many guys from FCIH blog might post/reply there to any technical questions.

Google Reader Share items: for more "serious" stuff like articles I read, etc

LinkedIn: my online "professional ID"/CV/Resume.

@mShady: I was always fond of status messages (here's the proof!).. So this is my status messages/shout out/ etc extended and kinda archived! This is "me"; no filters attached!

This Blog: A year or so ago, I've went back through my blog to make sure my tags are more limited. No I have like only 9 (not sure if I should really reduce that again). I'm trying to make sure that all the posts here are either under "Personal" or "Tehcnical" Tag.. All the other tags are just extra tagging..

Facebook: is more for friends and family (or at least I'm trying to do so from now on) though it's wasn't exactly my "policy" before, I used to accept almost everybody as friends as long as they look "human" to me.

BUZZ: A combination of all the above!! I prefer discussions on Buzz and Facebook.. twitter is not made for that!

 

Now that I wrote it down, may be this way I'll be more strict about these rules that they are now public

A late brief review of #GEgypt

G-Egypt was a 3 day event held by Google on Dec 8th-10th at Dusit Thani (New Cairo). I've attended Day 2, and 3 (Day 2: targeting Software Developers, Day 3: targeting Entrepreneurs and Software Developers), & knew about what happened on Day 1 (targeting Academia) from my brother and a couple of my younger friends from the community/FCIH.

Most of the sessions was too simple (may be except for Day 1, as mostly the attendees were younger/students) and sometimes they seemed even dull too, as most of the speakers seem to be software developers who aren't much exposed to speak on similar events before.

Yet, the same speakers were much more interactive, answering questions at the pods. There were 5 pods on the open area for most of the speakers of each day + one for Cairo-GTUG (Google Technology User group).

The Keynotes was mainly talking about Google's plan on targeting MENA , and what they're offering (especially in Arabic) lately, with some demos (stuff like search, translate, Ejabat, Maps, AppEngine, with a note that Android Arabization is in there plan, but no dates announced). Stressing on that one of their main issues is the lack of "well-formatted" Arabic content, that's mostly buried in forums (which is not the best place to put your content SEO-wise), asking for developers of the region to help them with that.

The sessions about AppEngine (Google's cloud computing offering, and the main reason I attended the event) was one of the most attended sessions, yet the session presenters were pretty boring and later on, many of the attendees either left for the other parallel session or stayed not paying much attention.

Yet, Again, to get the audience attention, the AppEngine speakers (there were 2 of them) announced a technical contest (only on day 1, 2) for creating apps using AppEngine (+ using other Google Technologies) which was judged by the end of each day with the best app awarded a Google Nexus!

On Day 2, the most attended and most lively session, by far, was the mobile (Android) development session. There was another couple of sessions by Site Clinic team, analyzing real sites of some of the audience from an SEO (and sometimes a little security) point of view. There was a rather dull session about Chrome extensions too.

There was a couple of session about the benefits of working with open source and using open standards on Day 2, 3 (which were generally favored by most of the people I talked to about). Also, on Day 2, there was a session by adopters of Google development technologies (Android, Maps), talking about their experience using it, and starting their new businesses on top of it.

There was a multitude of sessions about maps and their applications on Day 2, 3 with a business (possible uses of maps, no code) sessions about the topic on Day 3.

On Day 3, the most attended and tweeted about sessions (actually throughout the whole 3-day-event) was the session and panel discussion about Entrepreneurship,. There was another Entrepreneurship panel discussion on day 2, but that too dull compared to Day 3.

Concerning logistics, the event was held on four areas: Main Auditorium, Breakout sessions room, an open area, and the dining area. The open area has many entertaining stuff like the ones you'd see on a typical "Life at Google" video; stuff like Wii, Beanbags, seats, Sofas. Also, the speakers’ pods were at this area. Also, there weren’t many giveaways, only t-shirts at the end of every day, and a couple of Google-branded mugs during the sessions. No attendee-kit, only a notebook and a pen on the seats during sessions.

The main organizer/host of the whole event is a French guy called Sebastian. He is a very lively person; probably most of the attendees will remember him and G-Egypt as synonyms (especially the ones not familiar with Google, before the event).

The event has a major drawback is that on every single day of the three day, the schedule wasn't progressing as planned. Also, the sessions were too short. Probably those were a couple of the main reasons why most of the sessions were too simple as most of them had to wrap up too soon.

 

Let me know how did G-Egypt went with you?