It’s a thirty-minute video, but there’s a full transcript on the video page, if you don’t want to watch the entire thing.

That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t follow along. Google will be livestreaming the keynotes, but there will no doubt be much more fun happening on Google+. For one, it’s likely that Google+ will get some new announcements at the event, but it also happens to be the social network where Googlers are always chatting it up as it is.

Googler Scott Knaster put together a big list of nearly 200 people that will be speaking at Google I/O, and compiled them into a neat Google+ circle that anyone can follow. Of course, he shared the Circle on Google+, so enjoy:

Click the image above to go to the post, and add the circle.

To further prepare for Google I/O, I also suggest taking a look at these ten preview videos Google has put out.

Do you prefer apps developed for Google platforms or for Facebook? Let us know in the comments.

Also read: Does Google Deserve to be Labeled Evil?

According to the report, 39 percent of the more than 2,000 mobile developers surveyed plan to focus more on Google initiatives than Facebook’s social graph this year. The reason this number is so significant is due to the fact that Facebook dominates the marketplace in most metrics.

It’s important to consider that developers have a very strong sway over the use of any platform. They are, after all, the ones creating the apps that you use. Think about how much Zynga has helped Facebook, by providing users with games like Farmville, Cityville and Mafia Wars. These findings are very significant, and have major implications for Google’s social endeavors. Of course, the Google ecosystem is much larger than just Google+. Google’s Vic Gundotra recently talked about how Google counts users who sign into Google+, and use another Google product within a month, as users. Presumably, this includes Gmail, YouTube, a signed in Google search (complete with Search Plus Your World), Google Reader, etc. According to Gundotra, Google+ has 100 million “30-day active” users.

Google put in a strong showing at the recent Game Developers Conference (granted, so did Facebook).

Michael King, the principal mobile strategist at Appcelerator, told us that because these findings were “so different than what we expected,” they conducted a follow up study to make sure the results were accurate.

“For us, it was extremely surprising. When we put together the survey, we actually thought Facebook would just crush Google in terms of social engagement, and quite frankly, we saw Google make a tremendous showing, given the fact that their social initiatives are pretty much dwarfed by Facebook in every measurable manner,” he said.

They learned that developers are pursuing Google over Facebook for its position in social and mobile. They believe Google is better in terms of its network assets such as YouTube, search, maps, and Android. They also felt Google engages with them better and offers more guidance into how they should approach social applications.

On the other hand, the developers feel that Facebook gives them a long list of what can be done with its API, but then doesn’t offer any direction for how to do it.

“They [Facebook] really need to step up their engagement a little bit in order to get the developers excited about the platforms and to get the developers thinking about different ways to use social in their mobile apps,” said King.

While this data is good news for Google, the study did find some less encouraging news for the search and advertising giant in terms of Android development. The study found that the interest in Android development has dipped more than 10 percent in the past 3 quarters. Incidentally, Mika Mobile announced that it was dropping support for Android earlier this month.

The iOS platform has remained the steady leader, but in the 2nd quarter of last year, Android was within 2 percentage points of it, said King. According to him, Android is dropping due to continued fragmentation of the platform.

“This is a very tough line for them to walk because, if you curtail fragmentation, then there’s no way that a developer can effectively write once and work across multiple Android devices,” King pointed out.

He told us that Google could help to solve this issue by establishing itself as a “centralized authority.” King believes this could help both the distribution and discovery of apps.

Other significant findings in the study pertained to HTML5 and cloud development. For starters, both areas are growing. Around 79 percent of developers said they planned to integrate HTML5 into the apps they build this year. But, only 6 percent of developers will write their entire apps in HTML5. Most developers plan to build hybrid apps using both HTML5 and traditional code.

King told us these results were understandable since HTML5 is not always appropriate for the job.

“HTML5 is only one tool in the bag,” he said. “Or, if you a golf fan, [it's] one club in the bag to help you get to the PGA tour.”

Additionally, developers expressed an increased interest in cloud development, especially in the areas of location and notification. However, King said developers still struggle with understanding how to utilize the cloud.

So, what does all this research mean? Overall, King told us that the mobile/social wars have just begun. He believes that if companies want to succeed in this space, they have to engage with developers.

Furthermore, he suggested that the deeper implications of the data could mean a shift toward Google+ over Facebook. In fact, when asked if Google+ could catch up to Facebook, nearly 70 percent of respondents said it could.

Google+ to Overtake Facebook” class=”aligncenter” width=”543″ height=”567″ />

“If Facebook decides to fall asleep at the wheel here and doesn’t begin to engage those developers, then absolutely Google+ and Google mobile may become the more de facto standard,” said King.

He went on to say that he hopes both companies will respond to this report by building on their strengths and improving their weaknesses.

An interesting thing about Google mobile, however, is that Google continues to tie many of its products and platforms together in more ways, making the larger ecosystem more unified. Think Android, YouTube, Google Play, and Google TV. If what co-founder Sergey Brin said holds up, Chrome and Android will likely merge sooner or later, as well.

If this trend is happening with developers, will it soon transition to consumers too? Tell us what you think.

WebProNews Senior Writer Chris Crum contributed to this report.

When we initially released Android Design, by far the number one request we received was for us to release stencils as well. The fine folks on the Android User Experience team are pleased today to release some official Android Design stencils for your mockup-creating pleasure.

With these stencils you can now drag and drop your way to beautifully designed Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) applications, with grace and ease. The stencils feature the rich typography, colors, interactive controls, and icons found throughout Ice Cream Sandwich, along with some phone and tablet outlines to frame your meticulously crafted creations.

Currently we have stencils available for those venerable interactive design powerhouses Adobe Fireworks, and Omni OmniGraffle and we may expand to other applications in the future. The source files for the various icons and controls are also available, created in Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.

Developers can expect regular hangouts about the +Platform every Wednesday at 2:30PM EST (that’s 11:30 PST for you Silicon Valleyers). So far, the excitement seems unanimous among the comments on the inaugural post on the Developers page. So far, it seems like lots of people – developers, I presume – are anxious to get more information about the Google+ API.

This follows the recent launch of the Android Developers Google+ page at the end of last month, which should give software developers plenty of fodder for their news feeds. If anything, for you developers out there interested in following this type of news, the creation of the Google+ Developers page should allow you to consolidate or eliminate several of the subscriptions you follow for all your developer news needs. Now, all you need is this Goolge+ page to get your fix.

Using SSO, developers are able to save their users time and frustration of logging in to their apps repeatedly. The developers also have access to the Graph API to build in-app social experiences.

Facebook recommends the following 4 Pro-Tips for developers:

Pro-tip 1: Include Facebook Login at User RegistrationApps will often only use SSO and Facebook Login when asking the user to enable Facebook features in the app. You should also include Facebook Login anywhere you prompt the user to Register for your app, often times when users launch your app for the first time. Users can enjoy a simplified registration process, and you can request the same information, such as e-mail address, that you would normally collect manually from the user.

Pro-tip 2: Store the user’s session in your appAfter your user authenticates for the first time, you should immediately store the authentication result locally. This way, you can keep the user logged-in to your app without having the user re-authenticate each time.

Pro-tip 3: Request only the permissions your app needsWe have streamlined the SSO permissions dialog, along with all permission dialogs in our recently announced Improved Auth Dialog. You should only request the permissions you need to get the user registered and using your app’s social features.
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve privacy protections for Facebook users, we’ve deprecated the ‘offline_access’ permission. Instead, you now have the option to extend the expiration of existing, valid access tokens for a limited amount of time without requiring the user to login again. Learn more about upgrading access tokens. Also, many apps incorrectly ask for ‘publish_stream’ when using our Feed Dialog. Your app only needs ‘publish_stream’ if it will be publishing to the user’s feed programmatically with the Graph API.

Pro-tip 4: Complete all iOS and Android Fields in your App SettingsBe sure to fill out every field related to your app in your app settings in the Native iOS App and the Native Android App fields. You can access these app settings for your app here. On iOS, If these fields are not configured, we will not be able to drive traffic to your app or the iOS App Store. In addition, we use the iOS Bundle ID to streamline authentication for users who have already authenticated your app.

Developing an Android app wasn’t that complicated in the beginning.  There were just one or two versions of Android to deal with, and not too many different smartphone screen sizes to worry about.

With new versions of Android rolling out on a regular basis, and a glut of Android tablets on the way, though, Google’s smart to address the matter of fragmentation now before it gets worse.

Tim Bray explained Google’s solution on the official Android Developers blog.  He wrote, “[W]e’ve released a static library that exposes the same Fragments API (as well as the new LoaderManager and a few other classes) so that applications compatible with Android 1.6 or later can use fragments to create tablet-compatible user interfaces.”

Then Bray, whose official title is “Developer Advocate,” continued, “This library is available through the SDK Updater; it’s called ‘Android Compatibility package.’”

This offering’s met with a positive enough reception so far, as you can see from the following tweet:

Keeping developers happy will be key as Google tries to keep the edge Android’s establishing over iOS and other rivals.

"The Nexus One combines an up-to-the-minute platform (Android 2.2), modern hardware, and the pure Android software suite," says Android’s Tim Bray. "It’s a good choice both for people who want to build Android applications using either the SDK or the NDK, and those who want to experiment with modified versions of the Android platform. Note that the Nexus One still ships with Android 2.1 but will download 2.2 soon after you turn it on; make sure you’re near a fast network."

"As well as being an outstanding developer platform, it’s a really nice everyday phone; we’re really happy to have connected the right dots to make this happen," he adds.

Google recently announced that it was discontinuing the Nexus One, after the failure of its web store, but the phone as a device has generally been held in pretty high regard.

Developers will have to sign in to their Android developer accounts to get more details about getting their phones. Bray does note that accessories for it are available in HTC’s European online store.

Steven Soneff, who actually built the SDK for his internship project at Facebook, explained in a post on Facebook’s Developer Blog, "We’re open-sourcing tools and example code that make it simple for the thousands of Android developers to integrate Facebook Platform into their applications and reach a large and ever-growing mobile audience."

And at the moment (this SDK is just a beta version), Facebook platform features that can be taken advantage of include OAuth 2.0 support, the ability to make requests to the Graph API, and the opportunity to publish stories to Facebook using Feed forms.

This development is likely to result in people using Facebook more while on the move.  It might even boost the popularity of Android, too, considering how Facebook has become a central part of many people’s lives.

The Facebook SDK for Android is available from GitHub if you feel like taking a gander.  Developers should probably do so sooner rather than later so as not to get left behind.