Does Web 2.0 hurt conferences?
Over the years I've found myself spending less and less time at the exhibits of
the various conferences that I attend. Though I like seeing what's available,
I really don't have much need for the new hardware that ordinarily gets displayed
at these. And anyway, these items are usually directed toward institutions rather
than at individuals. When it comes to software, that's pretty much the same situation
- I'm not the proper market for software that arranges a school's class schedule
(once, if I remember correctly, the holy grail of educational
software), and I'm really not very interested in software for creating and
grading exams. There are still software houses that exhibit their latest edutainment
CDs, or try to sell us subscriptions to their educational web sites, but with
the fees asked for setting up a stall at these conferences, it can become as expensive
to exhibit as it is to build the CDs and sites, so with each year we see fewer
of these as well.
But I've got a hunch that what's really going to take a bite out of the earnings
of these conferences (well, I suppose that if they even break even they're happy)
is the integration of Web 2.0 tools into education. Certainly there are lots of
these tools on the market, but it's mostly a free market, and there's very little
reason to try and promote them at conferences when ease of use and word of mouth
make them readily available. I haven't seen anybody exhibiting a new blogging
tool, for instance, and doubt that I will. But schools are going to use these,
and are also going to realize that they can do so for free, or for a very small
fee. Even when (well, okay, "if") these tools become heavily integrated
into the schools, their developers still won't be buying exhibition space at conferences.
And that could ultimately cause a significant loss of revenues for conference
organizers.
Go to: The tedium of real time.