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It's well-known that CeBIT is a flagging enterprise, losing almost half of its visitors and 2,000 exhibitors in the last five years or so. I have a news story up in Wired Technology that covers some of the cool stuff on show there, but also the dwindling buzz that's leading organizers to chop a day in 2008 and look at making it a more trade-focused event. These are similar lessons to those learned stateside, first by the E3 video game show last year (This year it will be relatively tiny, be design) and CES, which was so mind-numbing this year it got kidney-punched by the announcement of a single product at another show.
All-encompassing tech shows are yesterday's news, the whiskered vanguard of a tech-industry revolution that went into cruise control long ago. The Inquirer agrees, and isn't shy about it, either:
The story goes on to discuss Sartre and the meaningless of existence: "It doesn’t take long for small cracks to become rubble in the fickle world of exhibitions."
The future is in focus and specialization: games at GDC and Leipzig; Mobiles at 3GSM and CTIA; and so on. CES 2007 was a cross between a gigantic Sears and a dollar store packed with LED and Hello Kitty rubbish. We're not at CeBIT in person, but from what other say, it sounds little different there. Deutsche Messe plans to fix CeBIT by tightening focus and, perhaps, kicking consumers out of their show, E3-style. Is it too late to save it?
Show time for CeBit is over: End this ancient drear-fest [Inquirer]
