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The coronavirus just took down Facebook’s F8 event. Who’s next?

The developer confab was to be the first major event of 2020’s developer-conference season—assuming there’s one at all this year.

The coronavirus just took down Facebook’s F8 event. Who’s next?

[Photo: Flickr user Anthony Quintano]

BY Harry McCracken1 minute read

It turns out that Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress was not the only big tech event to fall victim to the coronavirus. Facebook has canceled the 2020 edition of its F8 developer conference, citing “the growing concerns around COVID-19.” The event—which was to take place on May 5 and 6 in San Jose, California—will be replaced with live-streamed content, local meetings, and other elements less susceptible to risks and fears associated with the coronavirus.

https://twitter.com/waltmossberg/status/1233103306819538944?s=21

In recent years, F8 has been the first event in a busy season of tech-giant developer conferences—which, along with educating engineers, also serve as a platform to announce major products aimed at consumers. Two Google developer conferences are coming up: Cloud Next on April 6-8 and I/O from May 12-14. Microsoft’s Build is scheduled for May 19-21. Apple hasn’t announced dates for WWDC yet, but last year it took place from June 3-7. And Amazon’s Re:Mars, an AI event, is currently set for June 16-19.

Will any of them take place as planned? Facebook’s difficult decision could prompt other big companies to pull their own respective plugs sooner rather than later, before too many would-be attendees have booked travel. These events have become so instrumental to the industry’s rhythms that it’s not clear what would happen if they just went away. Or whether things would just go back to normal in 2021, assuming that the world is feeling less alarmed about the coronavirus by then.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harry McCracken is the global technology editor for Fast Company, based in San Francisco. In past lives, he was editor at large for Time magazine, founder and editor of Technologizer, and editor of PC World More


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