Internet World show 25/04/2012

Earl's Court Exhibition Centre was hosting the 20th Internet World show this week, as well as two other events at Earl's Court at the same time - Information Security Europe and Service Desk and IT Support (IT Service Management).

This had a lot to offer for people using website hosting, development, e-commerce, content management, social media, mobile data, Search Engine Optimisation, digital marketing and web analytics.  

There were some blank spaces in the exhibition hall, suggesting that times are hard even in this sector of the industry.  I saw a couple of presentations that were very poorly put together; one guy was pointing out details from data listings in a tiny font size that only he could read, and another just ploughed through features of his solution with no attempt to tie them to anyone's needs.  One of the handouts had only a US toll-free number on it; unlikely to gain many calls from Europe.

Despite that, there was still plenty to interest the visitor, and I enjoyed these:

• Brightstarr, using Sharepoint to give consistent customer branding, and lots of other good things
• Dave Coplin of Microsoft Bing on the subject of the digital consumer, and how things like location-based searching will change the ways in which we use information
• Frank van den Berg of Dutch-based Salesupply talked lots of common sense about web localisation; his firm wasn't in the exhibitor list so far as I can see
• Rick Osterloh of Skype on the changing mobile ecosystem, and a fascinating insight into the potential impacts of lower data pricing;  he also described experiences of 4G communications (known as LTE - Long Term Evolution technology) in New York

More about the show here.  Despite the soaking received from Wednesday's downpours on the way there, it was worth the time spent.