Advertisment

The Internet Gala

author-image
VoicenData Bureau
New Update

alt="Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister (or CEO, as he calls himself) of Andhra Pradesh, in his inaugural speech at the India Internet World."

align="left" border="0" hspace="4" vspace="4">None needs to

be convinced about Internet as a big opportunity. How to make it happen and the means of

achieving it are the talk of the town. At a time when the all round mood over Internet is

upbeat and with an Internet policy expected to be announced any day, an exhibition (event)

dedicated to Internet furtherance is like icing on the cake. India Internet World 1998 was

one such event.

Advertisment

alt="Knowledge is power. In quest of which, the ex-Prime Minister, PV Narasimha Rao, visited the show."

align="right" border="0" hspace="4" vspace="4">Organized by

Micromedia in association with Mecklermedia, the exhibition-cum-conference was held during

25-28 August in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. Mecklermedia is an Internet publishing firm

which has organized over 30 such events in the last 18 months in more than 25 countries

around the world.

Micromedia is the Indian networking

company Microland’s Internet media division whose main charter is to increase

Internet awareness through trade shows, conferences, on-line information services, and

research. India Internet World was the division’s first event.

The idea of organizing such an event had

been cooking for several months. One of the main factors which triggered it was the

opening up of Internet services to private companies. The show space, the topics of the

conference, the speakers, the media centre, and several other components of the event were

meticulously planned.

Advertisment
alt="The milling crowds at the show.">
alt="The milling crowds at the show.">

The event showcased 40 exhibitors covering

3,000 sq. ft., six keynote speeches, six panel discussions, and 60 main conference

sessions spread over five streams—business on the Net, Internet—the new medium,

intranet/extranet, content world, and ISP world. The Internet show took off with the

inauguration by chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu. The exhibition timing

was divided into three parts—special hours, business hours, and public hours. The

whole event evoked a lot of responses in the form of media participation, discussions and

debates, excited crowd of public visitors, and business queries. It would not be wrong to

describe the four days of the show as hi-tech madness. Only that, there was a method in

the madness. The agenda of the whole show was to spread awareness, and the orientation of

the conference was 40 percent business-to-consumer and 60 percent business-to-business.

alt="Sabeer Bhatia: The star attraction." align="left" border="0" hspace="4" vspace="4"> face="Times New Roman">Though at the end of it, the picture that one gets is that the show

generated a lot of excitement. Youngsters literally cramped the exhibition hall to

experience this new phenomenon called Internet. Seldom was an Internet kiosk or an

Internet terminal in the various cyber cafes free. Many were seen registering their names

in various web-based E-mail sites.

Advertisment

The presence of Net experts and

celebrities like Gene De Rose, William Melton, Chris Moore, and Sabeer Bhatia added spice

to the conferences.

At this nascent stage of the Indian

Internet market, India Internet World catered to two types of audiences. One, the Internet

curious—those who are aware of the Net but a little sceptic about it—and two,

the Internet committed—the ones who already know the benefits of Internet and want to

actually use it better.

MS Rangaraj, vice-president and chief

technology officer, Microland, who played a major role in planning and managing the show,

says, "The success of this exhibition will be measured in two ways. One, by finding

out if the four stake holders in the show—sponsors, delegates, exhibitors, and

speakers—have derived value out of it. Two, by tracking the kind of visitors to find

out whether it really created awareness". If one is to take up the first parameter,

then the exhibition was a fair success. Many of the industry exhibitors agreed that the

exhibition was really good as far as spreading brand awareness was concerned. When it came

to value in terms of real customers, many were not sure. Delegates feel that the show was

well-managed. And many speakers noted their surprise that the audience were more informed

than what they had expected.

Assessing the spread of

awareness is a far more complex process. As of now, it looks from the large number of

visitors, that the exhibition-cum-conference was a grand success. However, to look at it

from a more appropriate perspective would be to find out whether the right audience came

to the show. Although this would involve tracking visitors which may take a long time it

is the only way of finding whether India Internet World has accomplished what it had set

out to do—speed up the use of Internet in India.

Advertisment