You'd think it would've drawn crowds.
TechCrunch founder and controversial Valley 2.0 icon Michael Arrington was making a rare appearance in New York, moderating a panel at the DigitalLife trade show on Thursday night. And the panel in question, called "The Disruptors," included a few of the start-up world's hottest names: Napster, Plaxo, and Facebook veteran Sean Parker (currently of the Founders Fund); Oovoo CEO Philippe Schwartz; SpinVox co-founder Daniel Doulton; IGA Worldwide CEO Justin Townsend; and Ooma founder Andrew Frame. Considering the resurgence of tech culture and startup spirit in New York in the recent past, this should've been a big draw.
But the makeshift auditorium on the show floor of the Jacob Javits Convention Center was, a bit surprisingly, somewhere between one-third and one-half full. Perhaps it's because New Yorkers are loathe to actually make the trek to the cavernous Javits Center, a space that's a good ten-minute trek from the nearest subway station and has an architecture that evokes some kind of evil-corporate headquarters out of a 1970s movie set in 2010.
And, truth be told, bringing Valley insiders to the stage was an odd choice for DigitalLife. The convention this year was even more overwhelmingly focused on mainstream hardware and home-theater than last year, with a seemingly bigger presence from big companies like Microsoft, Toshiba, HP, and Gateway. Start-ups like Ooma and SpinVox were practically eclipsed on the show floor, and consumer attendees seemed more interested in testing out new video games and HDTV displays than in contemplating the next big thing.
It was too bad, because the TechCrunch-sponsored panel had some very interesting things to say that undoubtedly would have made for a great dialogue had there been a more in-tune audience and a more generous time allotment. Arrington and the panelists seemed to be aware of the gulf between the average DigitalLife attendee and the tech-insider crowd that would already know the meaning of strange names like Ooma and Oovoo. As a result, a whole lot of time was spent explaining what exactly the panelists' start-ups are and why Arrington considered them "disruptors." When they started digging a little deeper and talking about what it really means to "disrupt" an industry, that's when it got noteworthy.
Let me make it clear: I'm sick of the term "disruptor." It's one of those perpetually overused cliches of Web 2.0 that I'd like to see put out of its misery--soon. (Runners-up: "ecosystem," "blogosphere," "enabler," and as other reporters have pointed out, Mark Zuckerberg's beloved "social graph.") It can also be inaccurate, in my opinion, because it implies that phenomena pop up suddenly and change the entire trajectory of an industry whereas I like to think that they arise out of long-term trends and are really evolutions, not mutations. (Overpriced CDs? A growing hacker community eager to swap files? Improved Internet connections making that file-swapping possible? Hello, Napster. Music industry, are you sure you didn't see it coming?)
But aside from all that nitpicking, the "Disruptors" panel featured some compelling inquiries that I wish could've been explored more. Arrington asked each panelist to name what they thought was the greatest disruptor of the past decade, and the answers were an interesting bunch. Schwartz answered ambuiguously. Frame and Townsend both said TiVo. Parker said that Frame's Ooma was "incredibly disruptive," and then admitted that he was on the telephony start-up's board of directors (as is TiVo CEO Mike Ramsey). Doulton's answer was the iPod.
Arrington disagreed. He thought the iPhone was more of a disruptor than the iPod. Doulton was more than willing to argue his point, and the panel showed some truly exciting back-and-forth energy, but in the interest of time, they had to move on.
iPod versus iPhone: which one is the real innovator? That's a debate I'd like to see continued. But with incidences of the word "disruptor" turned down, please. At the very least, a thesaurus could help.
On Tuesday night at an event space across the street from the Jacob Javits Convention Center, DigitalLife convention parent company Ziff Davis Media held its press kickoff event, but it might as well have been a Guitar Hero III party.
Members of the media could obtain their semi-coveted credentials; New York City technology commissioner Paul Cosgrave gave a brief talk officially designating September 24 to 30 as "Digital Technology Week"; and a set of "Hot Five" featured products--Trend Micro's Internet Security Pro, electronic music company M-Audio, the HD DVD Alliance, the Ford Sync voice-activated in-car entertainment system (a project in conjunction with Microsoft), and the latest Guitar Hero video game title from Red Octane--were given the opportunity to show off their wares before the actual convention started.
That was key. At an event with 60,000 expected attendees, many of the 200-plus Digital Life exhibitors would jump at the chance to show off a piece of hardware or software for a few dozen journalists and analysts in advance.
Cosgrave, however, was all about business. Apologizing for the presence of a whole host of other conventions clogging the city's streets, Cosgrave quickly admitted that "the U.N. (General Assembly) kind of preempted us," and instead chose to focus on a few municipal initiatives that he considered highlights of the city's role as a technological innovator: the 311 non-emergency hotline, the NYC TV media initiative, and the current plan to wire the New York subway system with cell phone access.
He then shifted his discussion to online security, an understandable topic for a government mouthpiece. "With that role (as a digital hub) comes a responsibility," he explained, "and that responsibility is in the form of cyber safety."
The first, and longest-winded "Hot Five" company representative to speak was Trend Micro North America President Lane M. Bess; the security company's new Internet Security Pro consumer software was, after all, the one that fit Cosgrave's theme of cyber-defense most closely. Trend Micro, he said, counts the New York municipal government among its clients.
Unfortunately, Bess was somewhat flustered at the lack of attention he was getting from the crowd. "There's more," he said with regard to his brief speech. "I know you want to get to that Hero Guitar thing. My son loves it!"
That just about summed up the evening. Although Red Octane's hot new game, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was only one of the companies showcased, it was clearly the one that everybody wanted to see. (The Ford Sync came in a distant second, to be fair.) Which led to not only a lack of attention toward the other "Hot" four, but also an overload of Pat Benatar's '80s hit "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" on repeat as members of the press crowded in to show off their shredding skills.
The DigitalLife convention kicks off at 1:00 p.m. ET on Thursday.
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