This years Macworld in San Francisco’s Moscone Center was a true bonanza. My experience this year can be summed up to the following activities: useless products, truly innovative products, free stuff, raffles, and more raffles.

Thousands of people from around the world come to Macworld this year. Young and the old from all facids of life come together to appreciate the Apple craze that spreads like wildfire. Mac fanatics were all over the place wearing over the top clothing that made me think they just came from Burning Man. Sometimes you can spot a celebrity or two at Macworld (Sinbad this year). Bloggers where everywhere with their pads, notebooks, and video cameras. Live streaming idiots where showcasing their favorite technology picks, and I even saw iJustine herslelf making her rounds with her infectious smile.

Its crazy how much business has been created around apple products.  I was truly amazed at the quantity of new complimentary products to apple that were showcased at the expo. Some products made me scratch my head and wonder “what were they thinking?” For example, portable ipod speakers that come come apart via  magnet, and at its highest volume you can hear the faintest noise.

Raffles are a big part of these expos. People get their VIP looking passes scanned before they are handed raffle tickets. Many exhibitors give away free stuff like software or useless iphone accessories. You can tell where these raffles are taking place due to the usual large crowd surrounding a booth.

I was impressed by Google’s :..::. youtube booth, which reminded me of Heinekens Brewery video booth in Amsterdam, where you can go in the booth and create a video and email it to your friends. The youtube booth allowed you to create a video and post it on your youtube account. This was a fun way to get people to interact with youtube. People that didn’t even have an account were excited to create one just to upload their video.

Sling Media showcased their award winning sling box which allows you to stream your cable tv to your computer or iphone. They lethargicly explained their product to every visitor. It seemed like they were tired of going over the product and answering questions like “Can it search videos on the internet too”, which it can’t.

Apple of course showed off their ipod and iphones as well as their new iWork and ilife software products that will be in Apple Stores later this month. They are now competing with Google’s Picasa software that has face recognition software to organize photos.

I only had time to see 50% of the exhibitors, but it is definitely worth checking out Macworld at least once in your lifetime. If your a PC user, this event may convert you to a Mac.

We are considering joining next years Macworld fiasco as an exhibitor for various Clipta products coming out this year.

Tags: apple, Clipta, Google, ijustine, iphone, mac, Macworld, Sling Media, Youtube

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