Macworld Moving Forward

[Paul Kent]

Here's the statement I released yesterday regarding the news about Apple and future Macworld Conference & Expos:

We are on track for a terrific show this year, with strong attendance numbers and nearly 500 exhibitors showcasing their products at this January’s event.

Macworld Conference & Expo has thrived for 25 years due to the strong support of tens of thousands of members of the Mac community worldwide who use Macworld as way to find great products, partake in professional development training and cultivate their personal and professional networks. We are committed to continuing to serve their interests at Moscone Center, January 5 – 8, 2011. Future events will continue to provide quality education, dynamic product viewing and will additionally focus on the amazing ways people are putting Apple products to work across all endeavors, from desktops to iPhones to games to music.

We look forward to many successful years of Macworld to come.

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I'll start a forum where I can post updates about our plans for the show. Our headspace right now is that we are working feverishly to put the finishing touches on the 2009 show - we want it to be the best Macworld you've ever attended, and based on the number of exhibitors, parties, quality of conference sessions - I think it will be. I will start to talk to you through this forum as our plans take shape for the event moving forward. There will absolutely be a Macworld 2010 - new, improved, dynamic, fascinating and fun.

[Max Claster]

I'm gonna throw in my two cents here and now because I was sadly unable to attend the town hall meeting. Classes started on Tuesday and I ditched my Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday class to be there on day one, so I figured doing so again didn't seem like a good idea since it ends on 5p on Wednesday and I'm at UC Santa Cruz.

That being said, every Macworld dating only back to 2007 has been a long standing tradition with me and my good friend, Daniel Sherman. Daniel and I will wake up at the buttcrack of dawn and make the trek from Santa Cruz to San Francisco, when we get off I-80 on 4th Street, we'll have "Right Here, Right Now" by "Fatboy Slim" playing and starting last year (and sadly ending this year) we'd go to Lori's Diner him with his first-gen iPhone, me with my first-gen iPod touch and we'd refresh Macrumors so we'd get the feed from the keynote; and as it would end, we'd be finishing breakfast and getting ready to enter the expo hall.

We'll then completely comb both expo halls. We'd leave after a long day of Expo-ing and we'd get in the car still very much high on Macworld. We'll gather and then watch the keynote and that will have been our Macworld (though starting last year, I have made it a point to do it in two and will be back there on Friday).

Macworld for Daniel and I is like Christmas, except minus the stress, bad music, annoying relatives and popular among us fellow Mac-nerds. I was absolutely crushed about Apple's withdrawal from the event. Though I realized something kind of important. Apple's keynote is something I have never seen because I simply can't justify spending the cost of a brand new 32GB iPod touch to see Steve Jobs (or Phil Schiller for that matter) potentially announce something lame, let alone something cool. I'd rather bag the iPod touch and watch the keynote afterwards. The Apple booth, is overwhelmingly large and always in the center, but the only cool thing about it is that I get to be the first one to play with the Apple TV, the MacBook Air, the 17-inch Unibody MacBook Pro, the first one to see the iPhone behind its glass case before any of my friends do, etc. Otherwise it's large and not terribly interesting to me as a Macworld goer other than being a central focal point.

Before Macworld 2007, I always thought that Macworld was about what Apple had to bring to the table. I was so completely wrong, it's not even funny. Because Apple is just ONE company announcing new products and innovations out of hundreds. I spend a bulk of my Macworld day not scouring the Apple booth, but scouring the rest of the expo.

So, while Apple's absence is most unfortunate, I don't see why it should mean the end of Macworld San Francisco like it did for New York. As for my ritual with Daniel, we aren't going to be avidly refreshing Safari on our respective iPhone OS devices while we eat Breakfast at Lori's, we're not going to have a keynote to watch (until the next time Jobs or whoever delivers a keynote) and we're not going to have an almost overwhelmingly massive Apple pavilion to possibly play with the next big thing on the day Jobs or whoever announces it. Again, unfortunate loss, but it's not at all the end of the world, nor should it be the end of Macworld.

That being said, Apple's not the only one pulling out of Macworld. Adobe and Belkin are substantial losses as well. Again, we're only talking 3 players out of hundreds, but those guys are kind of big. Take away enough big players and you have an entirely different Macworld.

That said, I've made an observation after having been three years in a row. You have two halls, South and the other one, be it North or West. The other hall has a lot of cool things from a lot of companies that I guarantee most Macworld goers haven't heard of. Macworld is huge for them because it puts them out there. Even substantial names get press and recognition. In 2007, the Roxio booth was fairly small and out of the way. Each year, it has gotten bigger and bigger. Companies like Adobe and Belkin seem to not be able to expand their Macworld presence any larger (being as large as they can without getting to the size of the Apple pavilion). While they can afford to not to go, but not TO go, it seems that given the not-so-great economic times that we have here, Macworld would seem to be a great place for up-and-comings and established companies who need Macworld to promote their new thing and not as much for those who don't need extra press. This may be an obvious no-brainer to those of you who have been many years and who are actually in the industry, but yeah, it seems like a trend that's worth investigating.

In any event, I love Macworld. I think we all do, and while the economy sucks and Apple's leaving, I strongly think that Macworld can still be Macworld-Apple and that said statement can still equal one hell of an awesome event. I'm not sure what exactly to suggest to that end and I know that I'm not at all qualified to make any suggestions to that end, but I will say that Macworld, to me isn't all about Apple, it's about everyone else.

[Paul Kent]

Great post, Michael. Thanks for this. We need to build something worth people's time and money - that is our role - and we are working hard on this. . Relevant conferences, new keynote speakers, product exhibits with unique buying opportunities, and a host of events that are better delivered with an in-person experience - all of these are certainly things we can deliver. Our attendee base has been very supportive this week. Change is good. I'm energized by the opportunity.

[Michael Horton]

Initial reactions to "shock and awe" announcements always elicit doom and gloom response. This is no exception. Granted, Macworld will not be the same, but everything changes and often for the good.

As long as the community wishes to gather in some form or another outside a discussion forum or iChat then Macworld and the like will continue. You do not need a keynote by Steve Jobs to bring the community together. Only a handful of you ever have attended one of those things anyway, and only a handful of those who walk the show floor attend a Keynote.

What brings us together is the shared experience of that indefinable thing that only like minded people understand. Mac users are different. And we know it.

The notion Macworld will go away is up to us, not Apple. All we need from them are great products. What we need after that is each other.

[Neal Pann]

Paul! You're the man! I'm sure you'll make Macworld Expo 2010 an event everyone will want to attend. I'm looking forward to it.