Developers Discuss Future of Innovation in Web Applications at Google Developer Day – Google announces open source technology for offline capabilities, new tools for mashup programming

SYDNEY, Australia  (RUSHPRNEWS) May 31, 2007– Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today is hosting more than 5,000 developers at 10 locations around the world at the first-ever Google Developer Day.

In keynotes and breakout sessions in Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Madrid, Paris, Hamburg, London, and Mountain View, California, Google engineers and product managers will be discussing the future of web applications with developers from around the world.

Google will be articulating its strategy for working with the developer community and reinforcing its commitment to driving open standards, providing building blocks for developers inside and outside Google to create web applications quickly, and leading strategic enhancements to the web development environment as a whole.

“One of the things we find most exciting about emerging web technologies is the ability to mash up many different pieces of technology to build new applications, create businesses, or even just satisfy that niche interest or convenience,” said Jeff Huber, vice president of engineering, Google. “We want to work closely with developers so together we can define the next generation of products available to users on the web.”

Google’s developer program is focused on enabling developers to incorporate Google’s infrastructure and services as building blocks in their own products. Using Google products, developers can:

Integrate Google services. Google builds web services that enable developers to use products like Google Mapsâ„¢ mapping service as building blocks in their own applications.
Reach Google users. Google enables developers to embed their applications within products like iGoogleâ„¢ personalized homepage service, so they can reach millions of Google users.
Build next generation web applications. Google looks for ways to improve the web browser as a platform, so that ultimately users’ most important applications can run in a web browser.

Underlying these themes is a firm commitment to open standards and a desire to work with the community to experiment frequently, gather feedback, and iterate quickly.

A step forward for the browser
At Developer Day events, Google will share details and demos of a new open source technology for creating offline web applications. (See related press release here.) The new browser extension, named Google Gearsâ„¢, is being made available in its early stages to the developer community so that everyone can test its capabilities and limitations and help improve upon it. The long-term hope is that Google Gears can help the industry as a whole move toward a single standard for offline capabilities.

Easier mashups
Today Google will also release Google Mashup Editorâ„¢, an experimental online code editor for building mashups using a simple markup language. Aimed at developers familiar with HTML and JavaScript, the Google Mashup Editor offers a simpler way to deploy AJAX user interface components atop existing feeds and Google web services. By substituting extended XHTML tags for entire blocks of JavaScript code and hosting the mashups on Google servers, the Google Mashup Editor speeds mashup creation and fosters more powerful, more interesting web applications.

Google Mappletsâ„¢: An API for embedding third-party applications in Google Maps
Developer Day sessions will also feature a new product called the Google Mapplets API. Released on May 29 at the Where 2.0 conference, Google Mapplets enable users to customize Google Maps with mini-applications from Google and third-party developers. These applications might provide news, real estate listings, weather reports, or just about anything else a developer can dream up. Since the Google Mapplets API combines the Google Maps API and the Google Gadgetsâ„¢ API, anyone familiar with those APIs can quickly build a Google Mapplet and reach millions of Google Maps users.

Google Web Toolkitâ„¢ framework reaches one million downloads, supports the Google Gears browser extension
Google will announce today that the Google Web Toolkit has surpassed one million downloads since its release in May 2006. It will also release the Google API Library for Google Web Toolkit with support for Google Gears, enabling developers to conveniently enhance their Google Web Toolkit applications with offline functionality.

Google Developer Day in your browser
For those unable to attend, the Google Developer Day website will provide live webcasts of the sessions from the Mountain View and London events. In addition, the website will offer blogs, schedules, presentations, Developer Day photos, and links to recorded videos from sessions around the world. All session videos will also be available on a Google Developer Day channel on YouTube. For more information, see: http://code.google.com/events/developerday.

About Google Inc.
Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Media Contacts:

Courtney Hohne
courtneyh@google.com
650-253-3260

Chris Ulbrich
culbrich@google.com
650-253-8324

Press Hotline
press@google.com
650-930-3555
 

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Anne Howard www.annehowardpublicist.com writer and publicist