Internet World 2008

The exhibition 'Internet World' took place at the end of April, at Earls Court in London. Internet World is a major exhibition for people who make their living from internet services and attracts businesses from all over the world to learn about each other. Darren and I went to our first exhibition with Blue Box Software to watch and learn.

The exhibition was divided between seminars from the directors of major players in the industry, and exhibition stands of the marketers, designers, or software developers keen to raise thier profile. There were two seminars that stood out particularily for me.

Richard Ambrose: Head of Safety & Trust @ Ebay UK.

Cynical remarks about the kind of organisation that needs a safety and trust division where widely whispered as Richard Ambrose began his seminar on 'the challenges of maintaining trust in online communities.' For a company that makes half a billion dollars (profit globally) each quarter I found their policy on protecting the consumer almost Fordist.

"with over one hundred items listed every second, it is impossible to screen everything"

Or anything, it seems, as Richard explained; Ebay UK relies on the vigilence of their online community to spot the unethical, fraudulent or illegal items listed. Ebay have plenty of initiatives to make Ebay a safer, more trusted place to trade, such as removing the ability for a seller to give a buyer bad feedback. The overall impression I got from the presentation (being once an avid and succesful ebay bargain hunter) was that Ebay perpetuate ignorant fears about the unregulated and rather amateur internet industry. Such a large player in the market should act like the super brand they are and not hang on to the car boot 'ethos' it once had.

Andy Hobsbawm: European Chairman @ Agency.com

What less would you expect from a global agency chairman than an engaging and entertaining, well delivered seminar? Amongst all the colourful metaphors and powerful portfolio examples there were some real insights to be considered, from the internet driven redundancy of traditional 'push' advertising campaigns, to the opportunity of the web industry to work with the majority of the world brands not using the web to it's full potential.

Nice examples were:

"At no point in the past have a pair of 14 year olds in New Zealand with a chemistry kit been able to damage a global brand like Ribena" refering to results of a school experiment on the level of Vitmain C in Ribena (nil in this case) published on the web and circulated through social networks quicker than any damage limitation PR stunt ever could.

"The billions spent by Dell in advertising mean little when 8 of the 10 page 1 results in a Google search are about awful customer services, dissapointing products or general poor reputation" referring to the old fashioned blanket approach to marketing, forcing the consumer to accept the promise on face value, rather than ask a couple of million people around the globe if they really are 'lovin it'















So overall an encouraging event for anyone born in the times where tacit knowledge of the web is a given, and plenty of potential to make the most of this in the future :)