Well this is the 2nd trade show in as many weeks that has seen me walk away thinking that I have wasted a day out of the office.

Today it has been Internet World 2008 at Earls Court in London.

So I visited as I was expecting to find lots of "new media" companies pushing lots of new web 2.0 collaborative stuff with new ideas and visions of the future. What I saw was a large number of CMS vendors, a large number of spam direct mailing companies and a large number of online payment companies. Sprinkle in a few small web hosting companies and you kind of have it.

This is all very Web 1.0 where companies publish their content onto static servers distributed over a CDN and promote it by spamming you and I with email after email after email.

Now the closest thing I saw to the so called web 2.0 was the V-Bulletin stand but even that is more Web 1.5 than 2.0 isn’t it?

So what gives?

Is the UK Internet industry that far behind the times?

Is Web 2.0 a figment of media hype and imagination?

OR

Is all the innovative stuff being put together by individuals and very small organisations who can’t afford flash stands at trade shows?

On top of all of this, I lost count of the number of stands I saw where just by looking at the display, there was no way of working out just what the company actually did. Come on guys, it’s OK putting a load of scantily clad dolly birds on your stand but a bit of time actually letting us know what it is you actually do without having to engage in conversation with a sales person would be of help

In any event, if this is the future and Web 2.0 is real then trade events like Internet World are clearly a Web 1.0 dinosaur and they’re extinct aren’t they!

Now this is a fantastic idea so I just had to mention it here on the hope that the idea will catch on elsewhere.

The Schwaggin’ Wagon was conceived at a Thai restaurant in Los Feliz, CA. Social Media Consultants Michael Liskin and David Preciado were chatting about how much swag goes to waste after tech conferences. Michael noted that, in addition to children, there were plenty of adults–not just the homeless–who could use some extra t-shirts and hats for free! Why not collect the stuff that no one wants and donate it to charity?

And thus, the Schwaggin’ Wagon was born…

So currently working in and around San Francisco, this idea could really catch on and it would be great to see the idea being rolled out around the globe. I certainly know of a few events I have been to over the last year or so where the t-shirt count was getting silly. So head on over to their website and see for yourself

So my current desktop PC has been running well for the best part of 3 years and has served me well. Indeed some of the components were transferred from the PC that I had before this so it is starting to feel sluggish.

Last year when I upgraded to Vista I swapped out the graphics card based on the Vista score which kept me going a bit longer but we have reached a point where we have to upgrade or go mad waiting for things to happen.

So chips have moved on and so have motherboards so this time, upgrading really isn’t an option in the true sense of the word. The only hardware that will make it’s way into the new PC will be the PSU and a couple of hard disk drives.

So what do we buy?

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