Back in May, I wrote about the first Robotics Virtual Conference held by online robotics media firm RoboticsTrends. The idea is simple – instead of travelling to attend a physical trade show, you can attend online via a web-based interface. The result is not so simple. Vendors struggle to figure out how to present information on their physical robot product in a virtual world, which results in just a mess of file downloads. I think I downloaded 40 or so files (pdfs, whitepapers, and videos) from the exhibitors, but only found the time and energy to go through a dozen or so. The “booths” are attended by one or more employees, almost like a chat room, so you can get some actual conversation in. So you’re talking one-on-one with someone (who’s probably talking to other people at the same time). At a real show, a lot of people tend to mill around and listen in on other conversations, either they don’t know what to ask or don’t want to intrude on a potential sale. So the experience is pretty different. For a first-time event though, I have to cut them some slack. There were very few technical issues, hopefully they’ll have them cleaned up.
