Macworld RIP

IDG has announced that it plans to pull the plug on Macworld Boston. Not surprising, really. In the 1990s, the East Coast show rivaled the West Coast version, but after Apple itself stopped supporting the East Coast Show, it went downhill in a hurry. (The constant swinging back and forth from New York to Boston didn't help either.) The last one I went to was Macworld NY in 2002 (I think). Vince Naselli and I did a session on graphic design, and the show's sponsors were trying to turn Macworld into a kind of Seybold. The "exhibition," I was shocked to see, took up a tiny corner of the Javits Center and consisted of little more than people selling iPod accessories. From what I've heard from those who've been to subsequent Macworlds, they haven't much improved. The San Francisco version was always a bigger event (what with it being a stone's throw from Cupertino). Sad, really.