Amazing how little attention this is getting.<p>Still can't say I'm surprised about either point. They were clearly stuck for material for that third day and I heard definite noises about them sharing the concerns some of us voiced about the attendee demographics!<p>Frankly the 2013 keynote was a tad embarrassing too (without the giveaway the mood in there would've been a lot more skeptical - my row were amazed by how bad a lot of the demos were), so I wonder if they're going to tone that down.
A lottery is the only sensible way they can handle the increased demand for tickets. I was saying they should have done this two years ago. It just makes so much more sense. No getting up at 6am and madly refreshing a page. It's just a much more considerate and friendly process. Similar to receiving a callback from customer support instead of sitting on hold for thirty minutes.
I wonder if people will be happier or more frustrated with the lottery setup.<p>And... I wonder if such a lottery system would help take on general ticket scalping. (I could see a lottery mechanism doing some kind of 'real person' verification.)
I welcome the change and think it is a good solution.<p>I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, especially for the HN crowd, but it's relatively easy for any developer to write a bot to auto-register them-self. One could even use Selenium.<p>There is a very popular Google Developer's MeetUp and space for 200+ runs out in less than 5 minutes of unannounced meetings opening up for registration. I am 100% sure that a lot of bots can and do register for these events.
Shame it clashes with O'Reilly's Velocity Conference - <a href="http://velocityconf.com/" rel="nofollow">http://velocityconf.com/</a> as I'd like to do both (they did this the year before last too)