Node.js@Airbnb: Building a full-stack mobile solution with Node.js and Backbone

Building a mobile site that is both responsive and powerful can be a difficult balancing act to pull off. Airbnb experienced the growing pain a lot of companies go through: website visitors get very unhappy when they reach a site and all of the assets that power the rich site (JavaScript, CSS, etc) take far too long to load (remember when Twitter had this problem?).

Spike Brehm (https://github.com/spikebrehm) from Airbnb (https://plus.google.com/104921152556362912598/about?gl=us&hl=en) will talk about why they built Rendr (https://github.com/airbnb/rendr) and show how it allows them to strike the proper balance between snappiness and feature-set. Rendr is powered by Node.js and Backbone, integrates with an existing Airbnb infrastructure and uses some interesting techniques to ensure the Airbnb site is fast, powerful and friendly to search engines.

Airbnb's in-house chefs will be cooking food, and beer and other beverages will be provided. Matt from StrongLoop (https://twitter.com/matt_pardee), the new organizer of the group, will kick things off by previewing upcoming plans for the group and talk about how we can continue to provide fantastic talks to the Node community.