Last night, I attended a great tweetup at 21st Amendment here in San Francisco to help kickoff Macworld 2009. During this party, I got to meet some great folks such as John Adams (Twitter), Chris Pirillo, Michael O’Donnell, Leo Laporte, a Christina Warren & a few other folks from TUAW, Cathy Brooks (Seesmic), and several others. It was a great networking session.
But after leaving that night, I was somewhat invigorated to see what the hype is over Macworld, especially since this is the last year of Apple participating in what I believe should be their own event. So upon returning home, I purchased my ticket and when it was all said and done, to my surprise, I just wasn’t that impressed.
Before I go on about my review of Macworld, allow me to base some caveats:
- The ticket that I purchased was only for the expo portion. I never attended the keynote or any other sessions offered.
- I am a PC user, although I do have at least one Apple product and have used them in more than one occasion.
So I was pretty hyped this morning until I read on some sites that were liveblogging about the keynote. Yes, I knew that Steve Jobs would not be there and understood that the company would not be releasing anything major like the next revolutionary device after the iPhone, but there was a sense that the address wound up being rather mundane and less than exciting.Â
The atmosphere at Macworld I felt was equally as unimpressive. It was the first day and I didn’t see enormous crowds packed into the Moscone Center. There were a lot of exhibitors at the expo though which made it pretty good experience walking around. What I did like were the instructional areas that you could sit in and understand how to do things better with your Apple-related products. They had tutorials on digital photography, using video & music, and teaching you software for your computer.Â
When I walked into the expo, I had paid $25.00 for admission (after a $20 off coupon), but I’m not sure if it was entirely worth paying that much. Like I said, there wasn’t anything new or innovative that stemmed from the keynote. Sure, you had iLife and some other great things but does that generate as big of buzz as the iPhone or the new Mac laptops? Sorry…
And since I’m a PC user, I did feel kinda left out of the whole soiree, but I didn’t mind being in that Mac environment. Would I go back, though? Probably not…unless I ultimately decide on whether to convert to a Mac user or simply stay with being a PC’er.
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