Just got back from Web Expo 2.0 in San Francisco. Zude had a booth and it was packed all three days, and even one night with Robert Scoble stopping by http://scobleizer.com/2008/04/24/exclusive-first-look-at-new-zude-mashup-capabilities/. Zude is a social computing platform that lets users of any technical stripe create and manage their own web presence. Web 2.0 Expo is an enterprise show favoring IT types, so it was pretty cool to see all the people lined up at the booth interested in our consumer web application.
Zude recently attended two consumer shows: South By Southwest and Canadian Music Week, the demographics for which were generally younger than for Web 2.0 Expo. Two interesting observations about the demographic comparisons: the IT community was much more interested in social networking and social media than I had expected, perhaps even more so than at the music shows. And secondly, IT people still love paper. At SXSW the attendees were almost defiant in their desire to stay away from paper, yet at Web 2.0 Expo, we had to run out to Kinko’s a couple of times to reprint data sheets. Old school and new school. Interesting.