MacTribe: There are a number of things I want to ask you about Jupitermedia’s recent acquisition of the media networking and job site Mediabistro. How did you get started with the tradeshow you’ve created in relation to it which you're calling “Mediabistro Circus."?

Alan M: Well it goes back to when I started negotiating with Laurel Touby (founder of Mediabistro) in February of 2007. She was picking my brain about expanding out of just doing parties. So she was asking me tips on how to do it and I gave her some ideas and I said, “Oh, by the way, I already have an idea sitting here for a show but I’m not going to tell you about it unless we do the deal (for obvious reasons).” So when we consummated the deal about a year ago we started putting this on paper: the Mediabistro Circus. The people at Mediabistro don’t like to call it a tradeshow because it sounds too traditional but it really is a tradeshow. It was a huge success this first time out. We are getting set for the next time around, we are about to come back with it in May 2009 to run it twice in the East coast and West coast and if that works we’ll take it abroad also. I think it has a really big upside because Mediabistro has become one of the central websites for information having anything to do with media professionals that can be from traditional websites, print magazines, publishers, television, cable television, it’s all emerging. So I see it becoming a multi track event, perhaps 3 or 4 tracks running simultaneously. Next year we are going to 2 tracks from 1 and I can see a fairly large exhibit hall developing in the coming years.

MacTribe: Do you charge admission for the event?

Alan M: Yes, I think we charged $395 per day.

MacTribe: Were there workshops and exhibits?

Alan M: We did have about seven exhibits on the floor. Remember this show got off the ground in 90 days…from launch to running… just 90 days! That just shows me that 10 months or a year ahead, we’re looking to getting 30 or 40 exhibits for next time around. We’ll go from about 275 paid to 500-600 paid. We didn’t allow exhibit hall only, but we probably will next time. If it’s exhibit hall only, we’ll just have to keep more people in there.

MacTribe: Do you choose the guest speakers and are you developing that list and sort of picking and choosing? What areas are you drawing from?

Alan M: The first show was a test bed all the way around, so we delved into a lot of different areas. As I said earlier, the theme is really Mediabistro. It can touch on any from 20-30 topics and we’ll be constantly expanding the approach along with the types of topics that we’ll have.

MacTribe: In the cities where you run it, is it annual?

Alan M: It will always be in New York City during the April-May period. We’re about to announce the dates that it will run. We’re also going to do it in Los Angeles in the fall of ’09.

MacTribe: Is there a reason for this focus on tradeshows, is it recent?

Alan M: My background is tradeshows. Remember Internet World in the 1990's? I created that. We started with 8 booths and a few hundred people and it turned into 75,000 people at each show. It also ran three times a year here in the United States with an upward of 400 booths at the 3 US shows and we also ran Internet World in 20 countries. Then we sold it in 1998 and started Search Engine Strategies in 2001 and sold that in 2005. I created the tagline, “in person, in print, and on the web.” I was the first person who considered that you could reach people everyday online (in 1993). There have always been companies who had a magazine and a tradeshow. The thought I had was you see the customer yearly with the tradeshow, once a month with the magazine and now, with the Internet, you see them everyday. That was incredibly foreign in ’93.

MacTribe: Is there some dynamic with tradeshows where you get an audience that you can’t quite get anywhere else?

Alan M: Sure. You get to rub elbows and shoulders. It’s a place to see your brethren. We can all find new ideas together, and also deals are made at tradeshows. There are risks and downsides, of course. It depends on what you’re working with.

MacTribe: Have you changed anything about Mediabistro since you acquired it?

Alan M: Yes, we’ve just added several more developers in the staff so they can accelerate adding different services to it, like comments on articles, comments on blogs and more ways to offer the e-learning courses. We’re investing in more ways to focus on the freelancer and an actual place where one can bid on freelance jobs.

MacTribe: Can you give us a vision for Jupitermedia in 2009?

Alan M: I think you’ll see an expansion on the media side with us moving into other areas. We are growing very rapidly. For instance, most people don’t know we have a community called Graphics.com, that’s where our magazines reside, and we have significant websites there. Well over 20 million pages a month on Graphics.com. We have a marvelous site called Ads of the World which is sort of like a YouTube site and a forum for people to discuss ads and graphics. We are going to be announcing an acquisition very similar to Ads of the World, which is another large community around the graphic design area. So I think right now we have the biggest design readership in the world, but we’re not getting credit for it. Mediabistro is going to grow significantly in the freelancer space. Right now in our freelancer marketplace we have a place for people to post their portfolios, but we will add a place for people to bid on jobs in the next year. So that’s got to be expanded. We made a big move under the Mediabistro brand into the mobile space. We now have "Mobile Content Today", we’re about to launch “Mobile Marketing Today”, that will be launched very soon, and we’ll be launching “Mobile Devices Today” by the middle of August, and we’ll also be launching “Mobile Apps Today” and we also have a trade show coming called “Mobile Content and Marketing Expo” in San Jose, CA Oct. 6 and 7. We are already reserving space in New York for the Spring.

MacTribe: We’ve heard rumors about something you’re launching in the future called “Jupiter Digital.” Can you tell us about it?

Alan M: We’re launching Jupiter Digital sometime this year. The best way to describe it is a Home Depot of digital content. It’s going to be the first place in the world where you can get massive pieces of digital content. We own about 12-13 million pieces of digital content, 10.5 million pieces of clipart, 800,000 royalty free images, several thousand pieces of music, about 500,000 flash animations. Many of those things aren’t available individually, you have to subscribe to them and the subscriptions aren’t cheap. However, we’re going to launch with all of them on there, millions of pieces! It’ll be the first website in the world where you will be able to buy a single piece of clipart, a single image, a single piece of music, a single flash animation, or a single flash movie.

MacTribe: What is the launch date of Jupiter Digital?

Alan M: Late 4th quarter.

MacTribe: Will Jupiter Digital include user generated content?

Alan M: Yes. It would still probably be successful even if it didn’t have user generated content because of the number of individual pieces of content we’re selling on it; music, illustrations, flash animations, you have to have a real skill to create that stuff. We already have such a massive library and this library has never been available by the piece so this sort of fits in between. And if we add user generated content, which we will, I think it will become the place where anyone would go to buy the material.

MacTribe: You’ve made predictions before and have a pretty good batting average there. Can you make one here for our readers?

Alan M: Well I do believe another show we’re running on the Semantic Web relates to this. The Semantic Web will cause the greatest level of creative destruction we’ve seen in the Internet space. It will make everything else look like a puddle, compared to a tsunami. That may take beyond 2009. The fact that Microsoft bought PowerSet the other day is a very good indicator. They paid $125 or $150 million dollars for a company that has no revenue whatsoever with the promise of being able to perform a search in ways more sophisticated and better than Google. I predict that is coming. Someone’s going to become a multibillionaire, whoever finds the best way to come up with some type of browser and ease of use of the semantic web. I would say those are two great trends, I’m not the originator, but… the third great trend is already here, and will even become more significant but it’s going to disappoint a lot of people. Namely: user generated content.

MacTribe: Why will user generated content end up being disappointing?

Alan M: I think that with user generated content websites, more than 99 out of 100 cases will never be able to make any money from it, so a lot of people are going to go bust and lose a lot of money because they are chasing user generated content and you can’t easily make any money off of it. I think we’re going to see it with MySpace, not being worthless, but proving that you can’t make money easily. Facebook, as well, the audience is too broad and I don’t think people using those types of services would necessarily want to spend any money or even look at ads. It’s not the same thing as Google, it’s not even close. In theory it’s close because you are looking at a subject area that matches it up but I think people are using Facebook, MySpace, etc. for other purposes. I think Facebook could be one of the biggest busts of all time.

MacTribe: You’re known in many ways for your analysis of current trends in technology and business, as your own popular blog gives evidence to. Where do you draw inspiration from to gauge the various swings in your industry and others?

Alan M: I read opinion pieces on innovative business along with magazines like Technology Review. I’m a prodigious scanner of information. Bells go off when I see a fascinating article or story. I also think I have good intuition.

MacTribe: Where do you get your insights?

Alan M: Genetics (laughs)! You recall the story with the hedgehog and the fox comparison? Doing one thing really well versus multiple things really well…and I think that I’m a little of both.