I went to Macworld on two days this week.
I haven't read much coverage about Macworld, other than fact that the show floor was small. Compared to the HUUUGE new convention center, yeah it was small, and compared to the shows out in San Francisco, yeah it was small, and compared to the shows from Boston back in the 80's, yeah it was small - but, the energy level of the attendees was LARGE.
Yes. People are excited about the Macintosh.
MOST EXCITED PRESENTER - DAVID POGUE
My award for the most excited presenter goes to David Pogue. He was insanely great! Pogue was at the O'Reilly booth teaching people tricks about iMove. Man, he gave out some pretty cool tricks. He was informative AND funny. I use Final Cut Pro in my day to day business, but I'm going to check out the new iMovie, and try some of the eat tricks that Pogue demonstrated.
GEEK MY RIDE
I spent a lot of time at the Tech Superpowers 'Geek My Ride' booth which was actually a mobile Final Cut Pro editing suite. Lots of people came up and said things like, "Talking on a cell phone and drinking coffee while driving is bad, but THIS, it's crazy!" Ha ha. So many people said that. Tech Superpowers had an editing competiotion where you'd film some video at Macworld and then get 1 1/2 hours to edit it. The winning video was about a rat who found love at Macworld. It was very well done by a guy who never touched Final Cut Pro before. He was used to using Premiere. His video got a lot of laughs, especialy when the rat too the escalator down to the show floor. The other videos were great too. A 12 year old did a nice job, and a music style video was also very good. Let me know if you ever see that picture that the AP photographer too of me.
WGBH INTERACTIVE
I enjoyed the presentation by the WGBH Interactive department. Especially the part about how they put together video for the web.
They said GBH serves TONS of content, said that of site visitors:
35% use quicktime
35% use windows media
30% use real player
They feel that they must make available quicktime and windows media as much as possible and real too if they can.
They have to use Cleaner on a PC to make a Windows Media video.
FOOD
The choices for food are limited to a food court that's half a mile away, over a bridge and around a corner from the hall Macworld was in. It'll be nice when that area gets developed further nasd there are some other restaurants and bars to choose from.
CONCLUSION
I had a great time meeting old friends and others who were interested in the Mac and video. The Peter Pan shuttle busses over to the $10 parking lot were sweet.
I hope Macworld gets a chance to come back to Boston next year, bigger and better.
PS: To get back to the Public Garden area from the convention center, you've got to drive down to South Station, turn left onto Summer Street, then right onto Kneeland.
And don't get me started on the abbreviation for the convention center, BCEC, used on the road signs. Please! Why couldn't they just write 'Convention Center' on the street signs?
Driving around that area made me feel like a tourist.
