Why there were no webbies at Internet World

I went to Internet World yesterday at Earls Court. Sounded a good idea in principle, only thing is there was somewhat a lack of web people at this supposidly web event. Before long I qucikly found out why I was the only webby in the building apart from my mate. It was linked to the International Direct Marketing Fair, this should have sent some warning alarms but I am in that freelance honeymoon period so choose to not realise. As I was walking through I noticed this was infact more of a fair for Marketing through out. As we walked past the seminars (held in scattered tents which looked like should have held hot dog stands, in the middle of the fair which was odd to start off with) and paused it soon became apparent that this was being directed to jargon loving marketing people. So not so much of the Internet World and more of the Internet for Marketing dummies then.

I am possibly being a little harsh and many will say well what should you expect from a free internet expo. Thing is I don’t think I am the only one that simply can’t afford the price of say @media or a return ticket to SXSW. The fringe lone freelancer has enough trouble without finding enough to go to these events. Yes, when you work in a company there is a possibilty your boss is nice enough to fund these event jaunts. Being self employed I just don’t have the cash currently, believe me I would love to have enough to do that but I think my husband would rather eat for a few months. I was left with the vague hope that Internet World would offer me something that would be be better than nothing. Possibly not the best thing I know, but all a lot can afford when it comes down to it.

The quality of the content was to put it midly behind time. It was all CMS and no content quite literally. First part of the day I was walking around with Natalie Lambert, who I work with a lot and is leans more to the marketing and SEO side. Part of the reason was to find out what digital marketing could be done, the answer was nothing that we hadn’t thought of as there plainly was nothing new in any of the joint fairs. I saw about a maximum of 4 stands that even touched on the word accessibility and counted more than I care to remember all singing and dancing CMS systems that only worked on Internet Explorer. The most hilarious point for me and proof of the time warping nature of the event was one stand of CD makers touting their latest mini CD postcards – great are you going to pay for my powerbook to be replaced when I put that in then. Let’s just say that woman ended up glaring at the token webby being annoying.

It just all made me think that there was a big chance to preach to the unconverted being missed. It seemed like a snapshot of the internet from years gone past with a slap on of jargonese web 2.0 without understanding what the words even meant. If the crowd intended was infact marketing then this is one audience that need to be made aware of the words accessibility and of modern web practices. Not just to be given a hollow meaning of the label web 2.0.

For the second venture to the dark side of the internet, we were joined up by one of my clients. This proved rather an embarressing trip around jargonville. My intentions were good, to expose a client to the cutting edge of the internet whilst meeting up to talk about projects. I think there is a phrase about the best laid plans or something…. It all went distinctly south wards as this client ended up battering jargon off with a big stick and being thoroughly perplexed about the flared trouser backwardness of the whole thing. Good job this client is intelligent enough to not use these so called modern companies as a batton of using IE only on my head. It was odd to think that a client knew more than any of the self styled experts in the building.

I don’t think it is too much to hope for that there can be a free web event that actually is worth going to for any level of person. The entire label of Inernet World should have been a flag ship for UK internet companies not just a cluster of unaccessible marketing focused clone CMS systems that only work in IE. It is a simple fact that everyone would love to go to the big events and most just don’t have the cash to do so. It seems a shame to me that there is no middle ground that webbies can go to apart from local web groups. Don’t get me wrong the value of these is emmense but being exposed to a range of sources you haven’t got a clue about is really important especially as a freelancer. It was a good day out of the office in sense of getting to London in the sun, but pointless from one of the reasons to go there, well unless you count getting two stress toys.

What should have been a flag ship of community driven, accessible inventive uses for the internet was just a corporate marketing wet dream. The entire experience has had a duplicate affect on me by both angering me and making me even more determined to cut through the jargonese and reach those that have this as their only source of what is the internet. It was just one big missed opportunity to get to the people who should be being targetted with the message of a professional jargon free accessible web. You know the web that actually works in browsers that aren’t IE and doesn’t use tables for content and CSS just for links.

We both found ourselves mutter “well doh it just common sense that” to the supposidly expert speakers in a seminar about online shopping. It was not what I expected to be doing considering I am the first to admit you never know enough or have finished learning from others. This is not because we both know about the internet, it literally was the abc pre-school version of the internet. Least the weather was good and the company great.

Quick side note to add is that upon looking I now discover that infact the Internet World website itself does not even validate. Note to self to validate check all event websites from now on and NOT GO if they do not. Mutter.