Day1 at g|Nigeria:Google Launches SMS products
Google today opened its third web and mobile conference g|Nigeria. The two-day event brought together hundreds of tech savvy entrepreneurs, developers and journalists, and provided training sessions on how to get the best from Google products. Participants got the opportunity to discuss the future of web application development, receive training on Google’s products and learn about online business skills.
In a press note made available to us by Africa Practice,one of the notable highlights of the g|Nigeria event was the launch of Gmail Chat SMS. This new feature allows users to use Gmail Chat to communicate between all mobile phones and platforms, even if they are offline or have an SMS and voice only phone. The new products also allow users to receive Google+ SMS notifications and post status updates via SMS, and will ensure that the users are always connected with the people in their circles.
The third annual g|Nigeria event reemphasizes Google’s commitment to making the web more relevant to the everyday Nigerian. The conference featured capacity-building sessions for top-tier journalists, news webmasters software developers, and business owners. The sessions are focused on showing Nigerians new opportunities to make money from the Internet. Attendees were able to explore Google’s platforms through a combination of tech talks, breakout sessions and code-labs run by engineers and business teams from across the globe. Key among the speakers were Juliet Ehimuan, the Country Manager for Google Nigeria and Nelson Mattos, the Vice President of EMEA Product Management and Engineering for Google.
Conference content included Google’s developer and business technologies, ranging from established products such as Google Maps and YouTube, to brand-new Google innovations such as GMail Chat SMS, Trader SMS and Google+ SMS products. The first day focused on hands-on training from Google engineers specializing in popular tools such as App Engine, Android, Maps, Google+ and Webmaster Tools, while the second day was focused on marketers, webmasters, and entrepreneurs. Google highlighted tools for the development of the news industry in Nigeria through tailor-made workshops
for journalists and news webmasters, and attendees got to see awesome applications built by Nigerian developers for Nigeria and the world !
Commenting on the event, Juliet Ehimuan, Google Country Manager for Nigeria, said,“ Google is excited about the third annual g|Nigeria conference, and about the opportunity to bring new innovations to Nigeria. The conference will inform developers and businesses on relevant ways to make the most of the web and broaden the range of technical skills relevant to today’s technology landscape.”The event continues tomorrow.
