Best Swag Ever?

[Snook]

We all love the vendor swag. (Free stuff handed out at the booths)

I remember some of the shows where booths were so loud and fun, throwing swag out like candy and some years where you couldn't squeeze a free pen out of a booth. Last few years have been good overall but nothing as loud and crazy as some of the old days.

I've gotten shirts, hats, and gadgets galore. My best last year was an awesome pair of ruby coated binoculars (Thanks to Extensis)

What has been your favorite or best swag at MW?

And for the old timers, which crazy booth do you miss most?

[J.D. Dreyer]

Never been to a west coast Show... But in NYC Intego and Macromedia were pretty nuts with Q&A prizes. In 2000 I got a free Pro Mouse at the Keynote... Still in the box today. does apple do giveaways in SFO?

[Shawn King]

Naw - Apple stopped giving stuff away at the Keynotes years ago. :(

[Bruce Horn]

I won a Handspring Visor. Unfortunately it broke, they replaced it under warranty and the replacement broke but it was fun while it lasted.

Also a Brother label maker and a Maglite at Comdex, but this was the best at MacWorld.

[Foley Lynn]

The best booth ever with the best swag ever was Power Computing circa 1997.

IIRC Power Computing had a bigger booth than apple, and the decked it out like a bunker. All the Power Computing employees walked around in army fatigues, and they rented a fleet of black Hummer H1's that ran them between Moscone and the Argent. Tons of energy, in stark contrast to the shell-shocked Apple employees.

The got legendary concert poster designer Frank Kozik to design (well, re-purpose really) a limited edition set of awesome posters. I got two of them, and one is on the wall in my office to this day.

[Joshua Docherty]

my BeOS shirt... (i actually had to buy it, so its not really swag)

[J.D. Dreyer]

OKay - This years swag... Shirts - some... Desk Gadgets... I have a few stress devices from and some Pod speakers Paralells... And DataPilot was giving away a USB reader when you bought a Phone kit. Which by the way was a lot better than the ones you can get at the AT&T stores.

I just wasn't willing to sit for a ton of demo's - I mean the big houses like Adobe and Quark were kinda lame with the beach balls - not what I expected when Licensing cost SO,so much. I like the Project X product from Marware - but I think future releases will be more geared towards the pro's.

Out of anything I was impressed with was the "stretch" covers for the iPhone. I gave up my bulky $30 clear gear for this simple product for free - AND IT WORKS! - I'm nuts about scratching my Powerbook Pro - So I will buy a set for that too. The rest was Meh. The stuff I would buy was very limited on the floor. I was looking for more - "Hey, Come buy our stuff" kinda demo's and I got - it's here, buy it or not - where's the party? from most vendors. Which sucked because I was looking forward to coming back with an awesome product in hand to tote around the office... nope,zip,nada - next year or at WWDC maybe.

[Ken Vitto]

GizMac Accessories gave out cool colored flashing pendants and finger lights this year. 2 years ago, I was given a great keychain light from Drive Savers...it still works and I use it often...I guess I am easy to please :)

[Bruce Horn]

The most useful swag I got at this year's conference was a little soft plastic headphone cord winder from Etymotics. I have tried a number of such devices for my iPod Shuffle and found that none of them worked well enough to continue using. This one is shaped like a somewhat angular dogbone and has two little slots to keep the ends of the cord in place.

[Dred242]

This may sound silly, but I really liked the SkullCandy silver or gold neck chains that were handed out at the SkullCandy booth. It was a nice surprise to see SkullCandy (maker of audio headphones) on the exhibit hall floor.