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 proportions. Someday someone will have to capture the entire story in a business school thesis. ZDE continues to innovate. I spoke with someone there recently who surprised me with a long discussion about a business built on the development of widgets. And in February they announced a “new suite of Alinean-powered interactive, web-based, self-service calculators and sales tools.” That deserves a second look.

Extra Credit: Anyone who can point to other examples of live + virtual event media will receive a free subscription to B2B Presence. Do the math: that’s a savings of over infinity. Leave comments.