Well I just returned to Austin. I can say that for me I can count some quick introductions and quick conversations, and I met a few new people.... but that was about it. I can justify the trip much more as a pricey vacation than a business trip, and here are some reasons why:
I spoke with a number of webmaster friends who expressed exasperation in the very high costs involved with arguable value. One friend of mine has a website that he would love for webmasters to promote, but he really had a difficult time meeting any potential affiliates.
I can say for myself I met very few people who promote websites... and the hordes of people around seemed to be very tangential to our industry... either they were around because there were at CES, or they were a friend of a much larger group of people .... did anyone else experience this?
And as far as a place to forge business relationships, this show was terrible. The parties were absolutely mobbed.... so speaking with someone usually lasted about 2 minutes before five other people have walked up to say hello. Another thing about this show --- I would see people at one event... AND NEVER EVER AGAIN.
I could give numerous examples of business relationships I have which i would have enjoyed spending some time with, but no one had booths. I would just "find myself" next to someone at the tail end of a long party... and that typically was the best opportunity Internext gave me for some work.
And what to do with your time in the day? The daytime activity was over at AEE.... where there were many booths, mostly tensely staffed by loopy models and business owners who from my perspective really disliked having to be assembled in the same hall together.
And many of those studios don't even have affilate programs.... As a good example of how inconvenient this was as a forum to do business: you had Helix Studios over at AEE who actually are promoting an affiliate prgram for webmasters. Then over at Internext out of the tiny handful of gay exhibitors, there was EON Studios which has no affiliate program at all.
Someone tell me - what is the webmaster show here?
I also urged a friend of mine down in Laredo to come to the show at the last minute. Because I've learned the ropes to attending shows, he was fortunate that I was right there to give him specific instructions on what to do, and what lines to get in (anyone try explaining a "SuperPass" to the uninitiated?) ... I cannot imagine what just a new business owner who learned of the show and decided to attend solo would have gone through.
After Sergio registered, I opened the itenerary to point out the seminars to him, and circle ones I thought would be especially useful for him. Well... I looked first for "sessions for the newbie" like I remembered attending.... there were none at all. Then since I knew he'd need to learn how to take credit cards... so I recommended that he visit the ccBill booth to learn about billing solutions. No luck there either.
I could also go into how I dropped 200 bucks for Hustlaball VIP tickets.... mostly because my roommate had heard all about it and wanted to go. Here again... nothing personal to the guys who put it on.... but the show was a big dissapointment. For me the show started by waiting for thirty minutes in the VIP bar waiting to buy a nine dollar drink. That jerk bartender guy passed me over three times. Things just declined from there. Shall I express exasperation over people offering me free passes after the show started? By that time overpaying and repaying was pretty much the custom of the week. One AEE vendor generously offered me a superpass to the show, but after wating in three lines at registration I paid for mine... and as well as Pickles's pass that ChadKnowsLaw had very kindly offered me from his message board contest. (last year I won a pass on GWW for Internext... remember that registration line? And they had no clue about it either) I really suggest that any individuals offering Internext passes at future shows think hard about it... we never get them, but AVN does get their money.
Over on plebian side of the Hustlaball, I listened to several conversations of CES people asking "where all the porn stars where"....oh they were at some other Channel 1 party that I hadn't heard about. Ugh... you can only try so hard. You have to ask yourself... "why am I doing all this?" and I thought I was smart for just walking on by those blackjack tables at the Venetian with $100 minimums.
Steve
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