2005 Macworld Expo SF Keynote part 2

Okay, it's now been one week since I got back from my one-day trip to San Francisco for the annual Macworld Expo. And during that time, seemingly every pundit in the tech universe has published their thoughts on the possible ramifications of what was announced there. My "official" and largely unimportant view is reserved for macCompanion, which is how I was able to attend. So here's my experience as a "media" member:

Preparations for Macworld Expo start pretty early. Media registration opened on Nov. 19, I applied on Nov. 26, and my application was approved on Nov. 29. Why did I delay slightly? Once you are approved, you start to become bombarded with e-mails from the companies exhibiting at Macworld. This is nice if you have an interest in these companies or their products. But seeing as I was only going to be attending for one day, and the morning would be consumed by the keynote, I would not be able to interview the 50+ companies that e-mailed me (and some that phoned me).

IDG World Expo, which organizes Macworld Expo, sends out an e-mail one week prior that gives all the details: where to get your badge if you haven't received it in the mail already (I had), where to get your badge holder, procedures for getting into the keynote, media center and hours of operation, and show highlights. The e-mail noted:
Steve Jobs’ keynote presentation ... takes place ... at 9:00 a.m. in the Esplanade Ballroom. Please allow yourself enough time to pick up your badge and/or badge holder on keynote morning. If you did not receive your badge/badge holder on Monday, we recommend arriving at Media Registration no later than 7:00 a.m. to ensure you get to the keynote on time. Media Registration opens an hour earlier this year – at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. When you have your badge and badge holder, please follow the Media signs to the Lower Esplanade Lobby. This is the staging area for the media. You must be in the Lower Esplanade Lobby by 8:30 a.m. to ensure admittance to the keynote.

Last year, to ensure that I would get into the keynote, I showed up between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Unfortunately, that meant standing outside the Moscone Center in the cold for quite a while. It also meant standing non-stop until 9 a.m. I wasn't going to do that again, so this year I arrived at about 7:40 a.m. Last year, I waited with a group of other media folk in front of a door marked with a large sign that said 'Media Enter Here.' After an hour or so, we were told that was the wrong door, which caused us to lose our place in line for the keynote. And this year, once again, I went to the door marked with the giant sign that said 'Media Enter Here.' At which point I was told it was the wrong entrance for media, who were supposed to enter at a different door. No, these signs are not stuck in any way. They are on movable stands.

Thankfully, the media registration booth was open as promised and I got my badge holder. It's not enough to have a badge, see, you have to have a badge holder. This is so that you can wear your badge around and everyone can see your status: exhibitor, presenter, staff, media, etc. According to the instructions in the e-mail, I was supposed to "follow the Media signs to the Lower Explanade Lobby. This is the staging area for the media." Except when I tried to head to the Lower Esplanade Lobby, I was directed down the escalator and into a presentation room that had been roped off and was surrounded by Expo staff. 'Hmmm, maybe this is the staging area,' I thought. But there were two giant video screens in the room; both were turned on, and showed a broadcast schedule of music and color bars leading up to the keynote at 9 a.m. That's when I realized, 'That's no moon!' ... I mean, 'This is no staging area, we aren't going to get to see the keynote live!'

I thought perhaps my showing up at 7:40 instead of 6 a.m. was the problem. No, there were other people in the room that had been there as early as possible and had been immediately directed to this media overflow room. What was really happening was that they had separated the real and not-so-important media.

One thing I learned at last year's Macworld keynote is that there are two levels of the media: the group I'm in and the real media. The real media do not wear media badges and do not wait outside in the cold to get into the keynote. They get complimentary food and beverages and get let into the keynote five minutes before everyone else to sit in reserved seats. I'm fine with that, because I understand that I do not belong in the same group as those from the New York Times. But last year we still got to get into the keynote as promised. Apparently there were so many real media people that registered at the last minute they kicked the rest of us into the overflow room downstairs. But there ended up being between 100-200 media people in that room and not all of them were worthless. Meanwhile, I found out from a New York Times writer that the MacTeens.com folk were in the Ballroom for the live keynote. Here's a clue: if someone with a media badge is a teenager, should they be allowed in the keynote while a TV news cameraman is sitting downstairs? Also, I sat next to some MacTeens last year and they were incredibly rude, annoying and unprofessional. From what the New York Times writer told me, that hadn't changed.

One of the other problems I faced last year was that wireless Internet access for media is provided but you must know the name and password for the wireless network, which is provided in the media center. Since I was waiting outside to get into the keynote the whole morning, I didn't have that info and had no Internet access prior to/during the keynote. Since the media center was scheduled to open at 8 a.m. and was right next door to the media overflow room I headed over at 8:10 a.m. to get the name and password ... and the doors were locked. How many years has IDG been organizing this thing? Also, everyone was quite thirsty and hungry but the food vendors refused to sell anything. One even turned around the coffee pots because people were pouring themselves coffee (which they wanted to purchase). Yeah, you wouldn't want to make money with your coffee monopoly.

I resigned myself to my fate and found a good seat facing one of the giant video screens. What I thought was hilarious was that a bunch of other media people had found seats in the front center of the room ... which did not face the video screens. Apparently they were deluded into thinking someone was going to use the stage (David Pogue was going to ... the next day). At some point prior to the keynote starting, the video screens displayed pressoverflow and the wireless network to use to gain Internet access. Everyone with a laptop excitedly logged on, to discover that although they were on the network there was no Internet access to be had. Oh, but the MacTeens were posting live updates from the ballroom upstairs.

At 9:07 footage started streaming in of various people actually at the keynote. Notably, I saw David Pogue, Al Gore and Steve Wozniak. Then the keynote started. Then some dude came in and sat down right in front of me. Seriously, can I catch a break here? This guy shows up for the 9 a.m. keynote at 9:08 a.m.? What the .... !

The good news was that I go to watch the entire keynote as it occurred on a large, quality screen with 100-200 other media. And since there was no satellite feed nor a live webcast this year, that was, indeed, something. But Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field doesn't extend beyond the ballroom, so I probably noticed a lot more than I probably would have noticed live. Like how he said the G5 iMac 'gets rid of all the cables' while the accompanying slide has pictures of it in use ... with many cables. Oh, there's plenty more to come ... in part 3