Hard Cider: The Mac Press.
Spoiled Rotten? Pampered? Coddled? Treated Like Royalty? You
Bet! But Don't Come Down Too Hard On US .... It's Only Twice
A Year
For the most part, if you are a member of the Press covering
Macworld, you will be be coddled, massaged and pampered. Nothing
but smiles and encouragement will greet you as you walk the
floor of Macworld. Ebullient Apple employees will welcome
you to Steve Jobs Keynote like Moonies inviting you to join
them on a little 'retreat'. And you won't have to wait in
line, in the cold, with the common riff raff, competing to
get a seat inside the Keynote hall. Nope, not if you have
the magic card and holder, announcing to all and sundry, that
you have the ability to make or break their company with a
few pithy words in the publication you represent. The Press
are ushered into the Keynote early, given the first crack
at seeing and handling Apple's new products, and generally
made to feel they 'like us, they really, really like us'.
Does this go to our heads? Of course not, but I don't know
why my shoulders are so sore these days.
All joking aside, it is a lot of fun to be covering Macworld
this year. Though the economy is bad, and attendance by developers
is sparser this year than in years past, the floor has been
pretty busy, people are enthusiastic, and the mood is upbeat.
There are lots of interesting little hardware and software
products, that are of high quality. 'Little' is the operative
word, as many of the most interesting products announced here
at Macworld are, indeed, literally small in size (including
a one gigabyte solid-state FireWire hard drive that is about
the size of eight sugar cubes stacked in a square).
But back to the topic of this article .... reporting on Macworld.
I don't know how many of the consumers of Mac news realize
that, once you get beyond the heavy hitter publications, most
of the members of the online community of Mac publications
are are struggling financially to stay afloat during this
current downturn in the economy, and the drying up of advertising
dollars. Seeing all the reporters working away at filing stories,
and covering the products and trends that you, the readers,
love to hear about - most of them on shoestring budgets (if
that) - ,gave me a sense of appreciation for a concept that
Jobs brought up some time ago. That, of the overall Mac community,
as an ecosystem.
Apple may only have a 5% market share, but the Mac ecosystem
is huge. Apple's success is not just built upon the the creative
dynamo that is Steve Jobs, or the incredibly talented people
he has surrounded himself with. Nor is it solely due to the
developers, big and small, that bring you all the inventive,
useful products that make the canvas of your Mac come alive
in your hands.
A vital, and perhaps the most important part of the ecosystem,
is the unbridled, exuberant, perpetually renewable, creative
energy of you, the end user. You are the oxygen that gives
life to the creative impulses of Apple, the product developers,
and humble publications like ours.(Ok, not always so humble).
Walking around the floor of the Expo, you can't help but be
struck by the pulsating creative glow of the people that make
up this ecosystem. It's is a privilege to be among them.
So thanks for frequenting our publications ... for watering
our roots, and harvesting the fruit. We plan to make our publications
even more useful for you in the coming year, as we give and
take from the Mac ecosystem. Now go read the rest of the article,
I've got something in my eye that I have to take care of.
The Most Exclusive Club At Macworld - Well Almost. There
Are The VIPs At The Top Of The Food Chain
Click on images to see a larger version
This is the entrance to the hallowed Media
room. Inside you'll find hard nosed beat reporters of
the Fourth
Estate, clacking away on their writing instrument
of choice, cigars clamped between clenched teeth, malt
whiskey in a tumbler at hand, and the air laden with
half said cursing and the hoarse bellows of "copy,
copy."
OK, maybe that was the Macworld of 1950.
The facilities for the Media were very well organized
this year. Everything was in one room which made it
easy for the Media to do what it likes to do best in
these type of situations .... move between the food
table and their work space, with ease.
You don't have a media badge? You don't
get past this woman! It is amazing how things change
from year to year, relating to how relaxed, or how strict
the organizers are about monitoring access. At Macworld
last year you could not find the people who were controlling
access to the Media facilities.
This time the blond haired women (I know
it is disgusting to call her that ... I promise to get
her name tomorrow ), gives everyone who enters the room
the eagle eye. Woe betide any media person that doesn't
have their Media badge showing ... it's not pretty!
[ Her name is Carey Fletcher. She is a
temp worker hired by IDG (the organizers of the Expo).
She also worked the Seybold show, and is trying to decide
whether to go full time, or take off for Kashmir]
This is looking in from the doorway. The
Media have a huge room in which to work, and there is
a surprising amount of people covering the Expo this
year. Usually the number of Press dwindle by the third
day of the Expo (we consider Wednesday the third day
this year... 3 days after Steve Jobs christened the
conference in his sermon Monday morning.). However on
Wednesday afternoon the Press Room was jam packed with
reporters. At the far side table, you can see reporters
working away. We call these 'Working Press", as
opposed to those you will find on the other side of
the curtain wall who are, shall we say, working on something
else.
The reporters at this table come from publications
that have good expense budgets ... they all have brought
their own personal laptops.
Power hookups and Ethernet or Airport connections
are supplied by the good people who run Macworld.
There is a pecking order. If you have one of the
new Titanium PowerBooks (especially if it is one of
the Combo drive ones) you sit at the head of the table.
Then come the owners of the icy white iBooks and finally
at the end of the table (far below the salt), are
the people, like this guy in the foreground, who have
those little colored toys. Those iBooks are really
so not in..
Showing up with a Windows laptop will guarantee that
you are shunned and ostracized by the community in
this room. You will be told that any seat you attempt
to use is occupied (even when it has been sitting
idle for hours). And believe me, you will end up filing
your reports from that thin blue carpet you see before
you. There are always a few of these lepers trying
to hide in the corners of the Press room.
This is the table for those reports
that come from publications that can't afford laptops.
They work mainly using one form or another of desktop
Mac. Have you ever seen a reporter lugging around
a desktop machine at one of these computer conferences?
They all have very diminished life spans ....very
sad
Actually the machines are provided for
the use of reporters on a first come first basis.
I suppose there is a sign-up sheet or something ...
I don't know ... I brought a laptop ... with an Airport
card ... and two batteries ... and ... and ...
Ok this is why the Press really come to
the Media room. This table, piled high and groaning
with victuals, attracts us like a magnet.
What this doesn't look like a table groaning
with food to you? Well it was 5 minutes ago before the
media denizens decscended on it like a cloud of locust.
These are the stragglers picking over the leftovers.
Don't they know how the game is played.....?
The food is actually quite good and you
can't beat the price .... it's free. There is cake and
cookies, lashes of good hot coffee and as much caffenie
laden cola as you can handle. It is fun to watch some
of the reporters, from more technical journals, try
to drink each other under the table.
These tables have no Ethernet cables.
They have no power outlets. They have only one real
advantage over the tables shown in previous pictures
.... they are in close proximity to the food table.
When you are traveling with the 'Working Press' you
do not want to be the last person in line for chow...
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