Report on Interact 96
I was invited to speak at the intiaa 96 conference (for the Internet industry) on The New Digital Economy and a "Lifestyle Futures Forum" (for the general public) the topic I chose was Internet Futures. Also I enjoy wandering around IT shows seeing what is new and talking to exhibitors.
Arriving at the new Melbourne Exhibition Center (Melbourne's answer to Sydney's Darling Harbour
Exhibition Center) my first disappointment was to find I had been removed from the reorganised
intiaa 96 program. After apologies from intiaa, I wandered down to the Interact 96 exhibition.
Exhibition
There were 128 exhibits covering 10,500 square m., with large stands by Microsoft, Netscape
and the Victorian Government. There was an obvious attempt to make this a multimedia show, not just
another computer show. There were exhibits by several multimedia authoring and content creating companies.
Some of the more interesting stands had combinations of IT companies and a major client with their
application.
The most interesting piece of hardware on display was NEC's TouchFinder Multimedia Kiosk. These look much like every one else's touch sensitive screen kiosks. The difference was that the units placed around the venue were running an enhanced version of the Interact 96 web pages. The idea of having the same information on a web service and a kiosk appears obvious to me, but this is the first time I have seen it done.
When I finally found the NEC stand there was no kiosk and no NEC staff at it. What there was
looked like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise staffed by school girls. These were students of a
local ladies college showing their computer skills in a hi-tech style class room
equipped by NEC.
One well kept secret is that the Yellow Pages (yes the people who do the business phone book) are
providing the Alta Vista mirror site in Australia.
Access One, who are one of the two ISPs supplying services
to ACS members, appeared to be doing okay with their low key marketing style.
Worldnet had a prototype of their coin operated
Internet kiosk on display. This looks like a video game machine, as it is designed to survive
the environment in a pub.
The award for the least thought out display would have to go to Telstra with the Internet Cable
Modem display. Unlike Optus Vision who could provide a
Web page with details, Telstra couldn't. Also Telstra is currently providing modems which allow
only 19.2kbps transmission from the customer and still appears to be thinking in
terms of pay-per-view movies as an application for the technology, not the Internet.
*
Note: Audio recordings of sessions are
available from
Wired Audio
(interview with Tom Worthington)."Internet Futures" at 3:00pm, Sunday 27 October 1996, Melbourne Exhibition Center.
Thinking this may be part of a strategy to avoid non-Victorians, such as myself, copying the strategy I wandered down to one of the Victorian Government stands at the exhibition to ask where on the web the strategy was. After being referred through three people on two stands we found it. The text of the document doesn't actually say Victoria21 anywhere and contrary to good Web design practice the logo (which incorporates the words Victoria21) doesn't have any alternate text. So search engines can't find the Victoria21 strategy. This illistrates a problem with the whole strategy.
Overall the conference appears to suffer from the same problems as the on-line version of the Victoria21. There is an attempt to implement new technology in the same old way. The lesson of the Internet is that this is a technology which you need to use to understand and which has its own PR and information infrastructure built in.
In his report on the W3C in Australia Symposium Roger Clarke asks what can Australia get out of participating in these sort of initatives. The same needs to be asked of the Victorian Government about Victoria21. There appears to be the lingering cargo cult idea that if we can attract large successful overseas IT companies to Australia, some how their success will pub off on us.
What was lacking from Interact96 and from most government schemes in Australia is help for the small start-up company which just might become the next Microsoft or Netscape and the realisation that our IT expertise is more than sufficient to do it.