The 140 Characters conference in New York earlier this week looked like one of the must-attend conferences. It speaker line-up featured everyone from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and venture capitalist Fred Wilson to Tim O’Reilly and Howard Lindzon.
Unfortunately, it looks like Jeff Pulver, who organized the conference, dropped the ball. In a scathing review, the Guardian’s Paul Carr took Pulver to task for the location – three floors underground; terrible Wi-Fi (something that drives conference attendees crazy); no cell phone reception (again, a bad, bad thing), and sessions that only lasted 20 minutes.
Carr was also far from pleased about the cost – $1,000.
Now, Carr’s criticism may be an isolated incident but it does make you wonder if Pulver blew a gold opportunity to establish 140 Characters as the Twitter conference. If he did, it would be a huge surprise given Pulver is no stranger to the conference business. For years, he ran a series of successful VoIP conferences until VoIP started to lose its sizzle.
Since then, however, Pulver has been looking for his next conference “score”. His efforts to jump on the online video bandwagon were less than successful. And it was no surprise that he saw Twitter as a great chance to get back into the conference game.
I’ll give Pulver a lot of credit for putting together an impressive line-up for 140 Characters but it looks he’ll have to execute better.
Did Jeff Pulver Drop the Ball?
Unfortunately, it looks like Jeff Pulver, who organized the conference, dropped the ball. In a scathing review, the Guardian’s Paul Carr took Pulver to task for the location – three floors underground; terrible Wi-Fi (something that drives conference attendees crazy); no cell phone reception (again, a bad, bad thing), and sessions that only lasted 20 minutes.
Carr was also far from pleased about the cost – $1,000.
Now, Carr’s criticism may be an isolated incident but it does make you wonder if Pulver blew a gold opportunity to establish 140 Characters as the Twitter conference. If he did, it would be a huge surprise given Pulver is no stranger to the conference business. For years, he ran a series of successful VoIP conferences until VoIP started to lose its sizzle.
Since then, however, Pulver has been looking for his next conference “score”. His efforts to jump on the online video bandwagon were less than successful. And it was no surprise that he saw Twitter as a great chance to get back into the conference game.
I’ll give Pulver a lot of credit for putting together an impressive line-up for 140 Characters but it looks he’ll have to execute better.