In Regards to your letter <BC089DBB dot DA86%pr at realsoftware dot com>:
> AUSTIN, Texas (December 19, 2003) -- REAL Software, Inc. announced today
> that REAL World 2004, The REALbasic User Conference, will be held March
> 24-26, 2004 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.
Perhaps you good people at RealSoftware have already thought of this,
but for a lot of us there isn't a chance in 24.5 million that we'll
ever attend. (Chance of winning the lotto.) In this day and age of
the Internet and online access it would be great to be able to get
online access to the conference (in a low bandwidth manner - please
for those of us on slow modems).
Ideas:
1. Text of the sessions online for those of us with low bandwidth.
Speakers generally have notes and a typist can be hired to transcribe
the speeches, question and answer periods, etc. My parents ran
medical conferences back in the 1970's and 1980's. Everything was
transcribed - even at small conferences and continuing ed sessions.
Speakers could have their photo, bio, resume, book list, pointer
to books on their website, Amazon or RB for sale, etc. A bonus value!
2. Videos of sessions for those who would prefer the higher bandwidth.
Ooo... iMovie! :) Heck, maybe even sell the conference on VHS, CD, DVD
afterwards for people who want to take it home with them or order the
video remotely - a bonus money maker.
3. Website with vendor and speaker pages - This is the best part and it
can be kept online as part of the RealSoftware.com web site for years,
decades, millenia. Storage is cheap. Servers are cheap and it is a
source of advertising revenue and a marketing tool in and of itself.
4. Attendee comment pages / bulletin board - a great feature for both
people who are there and those who aren't. There are some great PHP
BBS's. Or maybe there is one in RB that shows of RB - Extra bonus point!
5. Web cams (not for those of use with slow modems but others will like it).
6. Send-ins for question and answer periods (via email/chat/webform?)
7. Online moderated discussion/Q&A during the conference.
So how is this funded you ask? What about costs?
1. It won't cost much, not on the scale of the conference.
2. Nothing fancy is really needed. It can be done as cheaply as
you like. Start slow and easy. Later expand if it's warrented.
3. Storage space is cheap - real cheap.
4. Webmasters in rural third-world countries like India, Russia and
Vermont work for pennies on the dollar.
5. The "virtual-conference" could pull in advertising revenues for years.
6. It is a value-added product for vendors. They can get extra presence.
Conference vendors should be over joyed to have a virtual conference
that exists online during the conference and will be maintained for X
years afterwards. I used to exhibit at MacWorld Expo and it would
have been a great addition. This would give additional sales and
links for years. More links like this give vendors better rankings in
Google and other search engines.
7. It is a draw for speakers - part of what speakers want is recognition
and exposure and this gives them more.
Will this make a dent in the number of attendees? Probably not much.
Maybe not at all. People who enjoy attending events will still want
to 'be there'. People who couldn't attend no-way-no-how will then be
able to see what is going on and get some benefit and vendors and
speakers will get a much wider exposure both then and for years to
come.
If you are really worried about it you could time delay when the web
site for the virtual conference goes up so that attendees get first
access to information but frankly I think you, your vendors, speakers
and everyone will benefit if there is more integration between the
'real-world' and virtual-conferences.
So how one might ask is this different from the online discussion
lists and email lists? Not much - if you're not a face-to-face
person. For people who want to be there the conference is great but
people like me won't be likely to go anyways to a physical event. I'm
happy with the online discussion with it's searchable archives.
Thanks for thinking about this,
-Walter
in Vermont
~17,000 light years from Austin, TX :)
Holly's Pencil Portraits: http://www.hollygraphicart.com/
Custom Transfers Shirts & more: http://www.blacklightning.com/
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