Just as there are many songs about singers and many books about writers, there are many conferences about producing events. I recently came across an event that actually understands the current digital evolution in event media: VirtualEdge 2009 has assembled an impressive program of event producers and technology leaders in a program that emphasizes business imperatives over technological flash.
I spoke with the event producer. Michael Doyle is a B2B veteran with experience in both print and event media. VirtualEdge 2009 reflects the coming transformation in event media. Especially impressive is a slate of speakers that includes Nielsen, Ziff Davis, and United Business Media. These are companies that are on the front lines of B2B event media evolution. The concurrent technology showcase has a unique format, with individual meeting rooms with interactive demonstrations. They’re developing the audience for this event as a community, Read more…
Some interesting discussion around this topic, below. Of course virtual components of live events have been around for over a decade. The biz model has been elusive. I remember sitting through a disastrous demo of an audio simulcast tool in 98. The product had horrible latency (audio delay) problems. Me and my colleagues sat there yelling at a PC for ten minutes. It kept echoing back at us, until the guy doing the demo disappeared into a fog of echos. That company disappeared in the dot com bust.
I did some checking around on the ZDE platform. It’s apparently based on tools developed by Stream57. I spoke with them and they seem to have a lot experience with live webcasting. I also spoke with someone who has worked with them and they said they do a good Read more…
At B2B Presence we pontificate in a self-serving way on the benefits of face-to-face media, and take pains to point out the shortcomings of webcasting and other “virtual” events (would you be happy with a “virtual” vacation?). However, we’re not blind to the glorious digital sunrise and we’re frequently scanning the horizon for signs of the inevitable convergence of live and virtual media.
Now comes Ziff Davis Enterprise, a company that frequently “gets it” before many others. This recent press release on their new tool to bridge virtual and live events is extremely promising. They appear to be leveraging this in their custom event business, so I would expect this to start small. The proof will be in streaming—we’ll keep an eye on this.
The rise and fall of ZDE’s custom events business is a story that deserves its own mini-series. This group, under Martha Schwartz and then Kirk Laughlin grew to mammoth Read more…