From: mike 


http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131463-c,tradeshows/article.html

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MIX 07 keynote attendees abandon digital entertainment marketing presentations.

The last thing a company wants to do at a keynote speech is clear a room.
But that's just what Microsoft Corp. succeeded in doing during Tuesday's
keynote at MIX 07 in Las Vegas.

Following a talk by Microsoft's President of Entertainment and Devices,
Robbie Bach, Microsoft introduced a panel of "experts" to talk
about the role of marketing with the growing complexity of digital
entertainment on the Web. But soon after the panel began, several hundred
attendees, many of them Web designers and developers, began streaming out
of the room. By the end of the talk, there were only a few dozen attendees
remaining.

Users of Twitter.com, a Web site where users can chatter in real time about
where they are and what they are doing, were especially gleeful in pointing
out how disinterested attendees were once Bach left the stage.

One user who uses the handle "krohrbaugh" and lists his name as
Kevin Rohrbaugh on Twitter wrote during the panel, "Bailing on the
marketing keynote like most of the rest of the audience; isn't rule number
one of marketing to know your audience?"

Another Twitter user, who according to his Twitter profile actually works
for Microsoft, also reported on the mass exodus. "People are streaming
out of the keynote and it isn't even done. Pretty bad," said Tobin
Titus, who posts by "tobint" on Twitter.

The keynote began innocently enough, as Bach stepped on the stage and
promised to shed light on why, from a marketing perspective, Microsoft is
so interested in building out a Web-based platform and community of
high-impact designers.

As part of this, Bach said he would elaborate how Microsoft is delivering
on what it calls a strategy of "connected entertainment." He
defined that as a strategy to use the Web to provide consumers the ability
to have multimedia content whenever they wanted and on a range of devices.

"These are the things they want to tie together," Bach said.
"Our job is to make sure we can deliver that connected entertainment
experience."

Microsoft has been ramping up its strategy to move much of its
revenue-generating future to providing the latest multimedia experience on
the Web. The company has invested significantly in the past several years
in Web-hosted services, tools for cutting-edge Web design, providing
Web-based entertainment on the PC and its Internet-enabled game devices,
such as the Xbox 360 console.

To prove his point, Bach proceeded to trot out a series of Microsoft
partners and customers who were using the company's technology to build
creative ads and services. But according to keynote attendees, Bach did not
succeed in proving his point.

It's true that some of the applications on display from companies such as
Nissan, Disneyland Hong Kong and BBC Radio were impressive. The BBC
application, which delivered in high-definition Web experience that
provided personalized media clips based on preferences to users, especially
impressed attendees.

Richard Rasala, associate dean of computer science at Northeastern
University, called the BBC application "the best by far" because
it actually provided a unique entertainment delivery mechanism for the end
user, unlike some other examples.

Still, an impressive demonstration does not point a prove, Rasala said. He
said that when Microsoft and other companies create communities around
their technology, it's usually accidental, not created by any ad placed
strategically on a Web page or in a game.

"The Xbox community existed, but the Microsoft ads [in games and on
Xbox Live] then got moved around quite by accident, not by design,"
Rasala said. "It's unclear that many companies can replicate that
pattern by design."

After Bach's keynote, it was difficult to find attendees in the hall that
did not work for Microsoft. Nine out of 10 attendees approached for comment
by the IDG News Service after his talk were from the company.

A representative from Microsoft's public relations agency insisted Tuesday
that the show was at "maximum capacity," defining that as 5,000
attendees. But another member of the press at the show said that a
Microsoft representative reported that there were about 1,500 to 2,000
attendees at MIX 07.
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Maybe Microsof tshow advertise more in PC World, they may get better
articles written about them.

  /m

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