Macworld Bound

Every year, I find myself scrambling to put together a party list. It was on my to-do list to take care of this today as I’m already RSVPed to TONS of events next week. Instead, at the very moment I started scouring my inbox for the dozens of party invites, someone linked me to their blog via Twitter.

The site has every party that I was going to list so instead of doing all of this work, I’m going to link to him and trust he’ll keep the list up to date but for the sake of keeping things clean for those of you that subscribe to my RSS feed, I’ve quoted his list below but it is subject to change so bookmark his site and share it with your WWDC friends!

Don’t link my site anywhere. Do your part and link THIS PAGE to everyone you know that’s going and leave a comment on his page saying that I sent you. You gotta share the love with these sort of things. [QUAZIE.NET]

[UPDATED] I have included two iCal files that make it super easy to add all of these events as a dedicated calendar on your iPhone / iPod Touch for next week. This calendars won’t auto-update but it has everything listed below.

1. DOWNLOAD LINK: Thanks MacNotes.De AND Maxdzellmer.de

2. DOWNLOAD LINK: Thanks Ben Hughes

Friday June 5th

• Events

• iPhone meetup @the Mansion – 6:30-Midnight @ The iPhone Mansion (map)
• Crypto-Zoo Chase Night – 8-10pm @ 3rd and Howard

Saturday, June 6th

• Events

• iPhone night @the Mansion #1 – 6:30-Midnight @ The iPhone Mansion (map)

Sunday, June 7th

• Events

• SF Mac Indie – 5:00 to 9:00 PM @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• iPhone night @the Mansion #2 – 6:30-Midnight @ The iPhone Mansion (map)

Monday, June 8th

• Parties

• iPorn after party – 5pm-2am @ Gold Club (map)
• ngmoco party – 6-8pm @ W’s XYZ bar (map)
• Loopt Mixer – 7-9pm @ 111 Minna Gallery (map)
• iPhone dev union party – 7-11pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• iPhone Intelligence Party – 7-11pm @ Harlot (map)
• CPCoder Night – 7-11pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• Group Logic/AFP548 party – 8-11pm @ Thirsty Bear Restaurant & Brewery (map)
• Push.io After party – 10pm @ Tempest (map)

• Events

• iPhone night @the Mansion #3 – 6:30-Midnight @ The iPhone Mansion (map)

Tuesday, June 9th

• All Day Events

• Three Wolf Tuesday – Wear this shirt to WWDC on tuesday and possibly get Delicous Library 2 for free – via twitter
• Pandav iBart Giveaway – First 5 to find @Pandav and get iBart live for free

• Parties

• MobClix party – 5-8pm @ Roe (map)
• Greystripe iPhone Developer Meetup – 5:00pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• Parallels Tweetup/Innovation Party – 6-9pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• Appcelerator Titanium Beta Launch Party – 6:30pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• CrunchGear meetup – 7:00pm @ SF Marriot (Map)

• Events

• Apple Design Awards – 7:30pm @ Moscone – Presidio
• Stump the Chumps – 9:00pm @ Moscone – Presidio

Wednesday, June 10th

• Parties

• WWDC Twitter Developer Meetup – 5:00 @ Twitter HQ (map)
• Macworld Party – 6-8pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• Sproutcore Meetup – 6:30 @ Tropisueño (map)
• Mac Ruby WWDC Meetup – 7pm @ Moscone lobby (1st floor)
• WWDC Tweetup – 7pm @ Thirsty Bear Restaurant & Brewery (map) @wwdc_tweetup
• OpenFeint Meetup – 7pm @ San Francisco Marriot (map)
• WebKit Open Source Party – 7:30pm @ Thirsty Bear Restaurant & Brewery (map)
• iPhone Launch Party -8-12pm @ Cartoon Art Museum (map)
• Anti-Launch Party – 8pm @ Eddie Rickenbacker’s (map)
• Cloudmade VIP party – 9:30pm @ Swig (map) @CloudMadeRSVP

• Events

• Developer Artist Meetup – 12:15 @ Yerba Buena Gardens
• Cocoaheads WWDC – 7pm @ Apple store near Moscone (map)

Thursday, June 11th

• Parties

• WWDC Party – 6:30-9:30 @ Yerba Buena Gardens (map)

I just received this in the mail from IDG World Expo:

Dear ADAM JACKSON,

We wanted you to be the first to know: IDG World Expo announced today that Macworld will be moving from its traditional January event dates to February 9 – 13, 2010. The location will remain at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA.

As we began the planning process for 2010, the Mac community – exhibitors, attendees, media and fans of the show – made it clear that February would be a more ideal time to hold the event, so we listened. The Conference programs are scheduled for Tuesday through Saturday, February 9 – 13 and the Expo will be held Thursday through Saturday, February 11-13th.

The Macworld team is focused on making Macworld 2010 the most productive, efficient and content-rich event for you, our valued attendee. For 25 years, Macworld has been the pre-eminent event focused solely on the Apple products ecosystem, and in 2010 Macworld will continue to be the most important event for the Mac community to gather face-to-face and see, share, learn, and explore the best and most innovative technology, tools, and toys for the Mac platform.

Free Expo Hall registration for Macworld 2010 will remain open, for a limited time, so tell your friends and colleagues to register today. As we continue to build next year’s event we will be contacting you with updates on new vendors, expo hall highlights and speakers that have been added. We encourage you to continue emailing your feedback and comments to suggestionbox@macworld2010.com.

The journey toward a new era for Macworld has begun and we are more excited about this ride than ever before. The Macworld Team

Hmm.. I’m going to leave the speculation up to the experts on this one. If you’ve already made travel plans for January (all 5 of you) then it’s time to push those dates back.

Gedeon Maheux of Iconfactory posted on his blog a very entertaining post called “Things I Learned at Macworld“. It’s a good read for old and new Macworld Attendees. Some things I’ve mentioned on this blog before and others are pretty funny. I’ve reposted it below.

• Expo food is over-priced – Ya know how they charge like $4.00 for a bag of popcorn at the movies? Macworld is like that but a x1000 worse. A pathetic bologna sandwich and a bottle of water came to $12.50.

• Floris Natural Benefits Soap – The Intercontinental San Francisco had some of this product line in our room and I couldn’t get enough of it. I must try and track down the Jabon hand soap for use at home!

• Craig has groupies – I mean I knew people loved Craig, but I didn’t realize they would actually wait in line to talk to him. Every day on the show floor was filled with people waiting to chat with Mr. Hockenberry, they just couldn’t get enough of him. All of that attention made me realize just how proud I am to be able to work with him.

• Mel’s Diner has the best lemonade – I’ve drank a lot of lemonade in my time, but the lemonade I enjoyed at Mel’s during the expo was, without a doubt, the best I’ve ever had. In my life. The perfect blend of sweet and tart that should not be missed.

• Chairs are precious – Our kiosk at the show only had one chair. I was told that to rent another for the week it would have cost $200. After spending almost 7 hours on your feet $200 didn’t seem that bad. When some bastard stole our one chair on Friday morning, we almost had a freak out. Luckily Travis was able to procure another in short order.

• Rickshaw computer bags – New product. CEO and owner gave me a demo of the bag and had me sold at like the 5th feature. If you are in the market for what could be the best computer bag you’ll ever own, check them out.

• Basil Thai on Folsom – Of all the wonderful places we ate while at Macworld, this little restaurant on Folsom Street was the best. From the appetizers to the wonderful desert and everything in between, it was to die for. Ged gives Basil Thai 5 stars!

• Meeting people – By far the best part about Macworld was simply meeting everyone. Tweeting with people is great, but Macworld reminded me that face to face contact can’t be beat. I met so many awesome people at the expo I can hardly keep track of them all. I especially enjoyed meeting the TUAW crew including Mike Rose, Christina Warren and Nik Fletcher. Other notable Mac heads I met during my week in San Fran included: Arlo Rose, Dan Moren, Rick Yaeger, Chris Pirillo, Rich Seigel, Michael Simmons, Scott McNulty and Arne Fismen.

iLounge.com has the best comprehensive reviews and first look posts of any other site. They cover a ton of Apple and 3rd party products and I’m in love with their site since I first started reading in 2003. I’ve seen their team each year at Macworld and they’re always busy as hell running booth to booth and doing some awesome product coverage. Today, Jeremy Horwitz posted “On iPod, iPhone, and iLounge at CES 2010”

I’m going to re post a few key things:

“As a result of Apple’s decision not to exhibit at Macworld Expo going forward, the vast majority of third-party iPod and iPhone companies we’ve heard from have said that they will not be exhibiting at Macworld Expo, either, and that they are instead considering—under the right circumstances—moving over to the 2010 CES.”

“…we went directly to the iPod and iPhone development community to determine their plans for Macworld and their needs going forward. The broad consensus amongst these companies was that they were not going to exhibit at Macworld Expo. Many of them knew what happened at Macworld Boston, Apple Expo Paris, and MacExpo London, trade shows which became sad ghost towns while draining lots of money from overly optimistic exhibitors’ pockets. Without Apple around to draw crowds, and with limited marketing resources, companies are trying to figure out the right next step.”

“We are convinced that the best option is CES 2010, and we have absolutely, openly been in contact with CEA and members of the iPod and iPhone community regarding that show.”

“Our strong hope is that CEA will make it possible for everyone from small App developers to large accessory makers to exhibit at the 2010 CES show, and we think that we have some great ideas for how to bring the community together and make this happen. My personal belief is that CES will wind up offering iPod and iPhone companies fantastic exposure at a time when they will really be glad to have it”

It would seem that iLounge is announcing it’s coverage of CES2010 and that it will not be covering Macworld 2010 at least not in the capacity that I’ve seen the past 6+ years. Unforunately, iLounge is kind of a big deal for iPod and iPhone accessory makers and iLounge announcing that they’ll be pulling out means that a large chunk of exhibitors will be doing the same. This is a very sad development in the Macworld 2010 show. I don’t know if IDG was ever contacted by iLounge directly but I think a good thing IDG could do would be to make iLounge and other sites like Engadget, Gizmodo and Macworld.com “Media Partners” so they get some free promotion in exchange for doing what they were doing anyway which is covering new products at expo. Now, I’m not saying that those companies would accept the offer and still end up going to CES2010 but it might be something they consider.

Other than my tiny thoughts, it’s unfortunate that we won’t see iLounge covering this year’s Macworld and I have a good feeling this is going to be a big deal as 3rd party companies hear of this news.

The short recap of Macworld 2009 would be that it totally rocked! I had the best time at Macworld this year and so did dozens of old and new friends. I have to say that 2007 continues to be my favorite expo. No it wasn’t because Apple released the iPhone. It was because the people, the atmosphere, the parties and companies showing off new products made that expo a whole lot of fun! I have to add that 2009 takes a close second.

MacworldBound has become a very influential engine for Macworld Expo. I don’t think IDG feels that way but I certainly can see the value in real time for people attending Macworld. Our biggest day of traffic was Tuesday with 25 thousand unique visitors. It leveled off to a cool 1,000 unique visits by Satruday morning. 60% of the traffic was from California and many of our visitors came from people searching for common things like, “when do I line up for the keynote?” or “how much are tickets to Macworld?” The rest of the year, my traffic will come from “Macworld 2010 dates” and other things regarding Macworld in 2010.

This year, I started Macworld festivities early. I live in San Francisco now so it wasn’t so hard. Friday consisted of a co-working session at Sugar Cafe followed up by burritos in The Mission. Saturday was a slow day that pretty much involved dinner with some close friends who haven’t been to Macworld since 2007. Sunday I gathered 15 people together for mimosas at Sugar Cafe before we left for the city tour. The 5th annual city tour was SO MUCH FUN! I went to some new locations, eliminated walking and I think we only walked 1.5 miles this time around compared to previous tours that had more than 5 miles. I took everyone all around San Francisco and it was a TON of fun. I can’t wait to do it again next year. Sunday night, 28 of us had dinner at Bucca Di Beppo. We filled an entire wing of the restaurant and ate nearly $600 in food.

Monday was our trip to Apple headquarters which I’ll probably need to get a bus next year because we stuffed 3 cars full of people and I had to turn 5 people away because we just couldn’t fit everyone. Monday night consisted of more drinks with friends but I called it an early night to prepare for the big Tuesday Keynote. Tuesday, my 5th annual Apple Store Keynote meetup was awesome. Everyone got coffee and donuts and we took some photos. 4Am was a perfect time to lineup and we got some great seats at the keynote. That night, there were some great parties but I decided to sleep because I was exhausted. This was my 4th day of partying and needed my rest.

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday were a complete blur full of checking out new products, hanging out with old friends, partying with new friends and still managing to fulfill my day job activities. MacworldBound has been a great project of mine. I have met some amazing people and dozens of people I met told me that MacworldBound and my events through the week helped them fall in love with Macworld and The Mac Community. 10 people this year told me, “your site and events have made me want to come back next year. Thank you.” That’s what it’s all about. I’m not doing this for Apple, IDG World Expo or The Macworld name. I’m doing this for Mac Users and if we can all come together once a year, party, geek out and build relationships, I’ll continue covering Macworld and doing events.

I owe so much thanks for my friends who come here every year to hang out. I can’t list everyone but boy was it awesome to see all of you and catch up. I owe all of you a beer one of these days. Macworld C&E, it’s employees and namely Paul Kent did a fantastic job this year. Everything was more organized and I didn’t experience any hiccups. You guys make it happen and ever Macworld attendee needs to recognize how planning Macworld is a full time gig for tons of people. I want Macworld to succeed in every way and I’m available any time to help any way that I can.

When I left Apple back in 2005, I knew that Apple wasn’t about us and they were on their own path. They didn’t care about the community and I was fine with that. We have so many switchers these days that are just PC users that have Apple computers. They don’t understand or know about the community and Macworld is the gateway drug to that community along with Mac User Groups. My blog is here to inform, educate and involve new Mac users to show them they’re not alone and Apple isn’t their only lifeline to the Mac World. I hope I’m able to continue this passion for years to come. Thank you all.

Photo Credit: Yonner1

Starting Tuesday, everywhere I went there were people passing me wearing the bunny ears. I finally found that Peachpit Press was the culprit. The lovely Peachpit people did something completely off the wall and I assume they just had somehow gotten a good deal on bunny ears but their simple idea turned out to be a huge hit. If it had not been a hit, I guess they would have had a lot of bunny ears on their hands. I hope the company does it again next year.

Here is the Flickr Group that has 40 photos of people rocking the ears. (Flickr)

Chris Pirillo spoke at last week’s Macworld 2009 and his presentation called, “How Community Works: Past, Present, and Future” did a fantastic job dissecting the Mac community and how Apple’s involvement with Macworld isn’t important in the big picture. I loved it and all of those that think Apple’s exit is a horrible thing should watch this.

Chris’ video can be applied to those building a community or those trying to salvage a dying community. It’s really good and Chris sums up things perfectly. We Mac users will decide if Macworld happens again. Apple doesn’t decide that. We do.

There are a few Macworld Attendees sticking in San Francisco until late Saturday / Early Sunday. I thought we could do a small get together and then I thought a great wrap up to this great week would be a trip to The Computer History Museum (Wikipedia Page).

The Computer History Museum is a museum established in 1996 in Mountain View, California, when The Computer Museum (TCM, in Boston) sent the majority of its historical collection to Moffett Field, California, so that TCM could concentrate on computing-related exhibits for children. Thus, it was originally the West Coast division of The Computer Museum, named The Computer Museum History Center[1] until it shortened its name in 2001, dedicated to preserving and presenting the stories and artifacts of the information age, and exploring the computing revolution and its impact on our lives.

We all meet at Moscone South at 10AM on Saturday morning and head down to Mountain View where the museum is located. Admission is free and there are tours every couple of hours. The museum closes at 5PM but we’ll be done earlier than that. I only have 5 spots available. RSVP below by commenting. See you there!

Yesterday I announced a party taking place on A FREAKING BUS! and I wanted to followup with a photo of the bus and a reminder that we’ll be circling Moscone every 20 minutes from 3-4PM picking people up. Once the bus is full, we’re going to take the party bus around the city. I hope you’ll be there!

Reports are beginning to come in and it’s still too early to say what Macworld 2010 is going to be like. Is it going to be amazing and continue the growth we’ve since in the last 5 years? Is Macworld going to be significantly smaller, more intimate and a little scaled back? Will IDG World Expo cancel the show before it even happens.

I don’t feel that latter will happen. Paul Kent of IDG has stated many times that IDG World Expo is committed to Macworld in 2010 and they’ve already announced dates for next year’s conference and dubbed the event, “the start of a new era.” Some things have already started changing for the better but some other developments have come up in the past 24 hours that I’d like to discuss.

Yesterday, Macworld Conference & Expo VP Paul Kent hosted the first ever Macworld Town Hall. I feel that it was a little too short but some excellent things came out of the show. Here are some facts about Macworld from Paul Kent.

-MWSF 2009 has 500 exhibitors and 90% of the products on the floor are not in Apple Stores

-Intiut, Mackiev, Shure, FastMac, OWC and over 60 companies have signed up to exhibit in 2010

-4.2 out of 5 satisfaction rating for last year’s conference in a poll of 2008 Macworld Attendees.

-David Pogue is going to host the “anti-keynote” next year

-John Gruber is developing “gruber’s list” a feature presentation for next year

-85-90% of speakers have verbally confirmed that they’re coming back next year

Macworld 2010 is scheduled to take place January 4th-8th, 2010 at The Moscone Center in San Francisco. I have faith that next year’s event will happen and I suggest all participants of this year’s conference need to start making plans to be here next year. If you believe in The Mac Community, you need to be at Macworld 2010. This is bigger than our budgets and economic situation. This is for the Mac Community, Apple and The Macworld Legacy to ensure that future generations have a chance to enjoy this yearly Mac gathering. This is not so IDG World Expo can make more money. This is for the community.

Macrumors has posted that CES is targeting exhibitors at Macworld and promising a “mac only” section at next year’s CES in an attempt to poach them from Macworld Expo. Although this is a crappy tactic, it’s something I’m not surprised to hear this news. Let me state to any Macworld exhibitors who are watching, there is no value in exhibiting at CES. Mac Bloggers won’t attend for a small “mac only section” and the big news sites won’t stop by the dinky little Mac section. You’re going to be shadowed by Sony, Microsoft, Intel and the other big guys and CES is only going to give you enough exposure to make you not feel pathetic for abandoning your core audience at Macworld. That’s just my opinion but Mac users are fanatical about their products. Exhibiting at Macworld puts you in good with the Mac community even if your product isn’t good. When you turn your back on Macworld, you’re turning your back on the Mac community. I’ll be doing a report as we get closer to next year’s conference documenting which companies abandoned us to go to CES.

In a very rare move, IDG has actually opened up Macworld 2010 registration. I encourage EVERYONE who reads this site to pre-register now. It’s free and you’re only registering for an exhibit hall badge. I can’t tell if exhibit hall badges will be free next year or if this is only an introductory price but let’s show IDG that we are committed by registering today. You can register on MacworldExpo.com.

If you are a Macworld Fan or future Macworld Attendee, I encourage you to write IDG World Expo and offer up your thoughts and suggestions. IDG is giving you the chance to give feedback and they’ll be listening. You can email them here.

I also suggest that everyone reading this join the 1 year old Macworld Expo Online Community and join in the conversation. You can join here.

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One final portion of this report. I’d like to address a couple of things people suggested during the town hall.

1. “We want a la carte conference package where we get charged on individual sessions.” I think that would rock but it would be far from what Macworld has done traditionally. I’d like this too. $49 per session and you could choose from all 75 sessions. That would be fantastic but I feel Macworld may make less money from that kind of pricing plan.

2. “Is there an opportunity for macworld to do smaller conferences in more geographic locations?” Paul Kent responded with a neutral stance but I can say that Macworld announced Macworld on Tour back in 2005 and I signed up but they cancelled the event a month before it was supposed to take place. I don’t know what happened but it was cancelled and I’m guessing it’s from a lack of registrations for the event.

3. “We want Macworld New York again!” Wouldn’t we all. Macworld is very expensive to plan. Moving the conference to New York is certainly an option but it appears that people in the audience were speaking about having two conferences like it was back in the day. We’re trying to save this conference. I don’t think adding MWNY back in is an option right now unless we make both conferences smaller and more intimate. I want to focus on keeping San Francisco’s conference alive before we focus on moving things back to Javitz.

4. “Let’s do a schwag fest the day before Macworld where we all show up and trade Apple Schwag.” That’s a good idea. I might do that next year. A Macworld flea market is a good idea. Just wash your shirts first before we start trading. I don’t want a stinky newton shirt with sweat stains.

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Well, let’s see how things go from here. I’ll be paying close attention to IDG’s steps throughout the next few months. Every move they make in the next 8 months will decide Macworld C&E’s existence in the long term.