MacworldEncore: blessing or curse

Okay, I was cruising the RSS feeds earlier today, and noticed that Merlin Mann had just posted a new video to 43folders.com... of his Macworld session.

Now normally, I'd be happy to just watch away, gleaning any free knowledge he decided to bestow, and I figured this must be some supplement to what he actually said at the session. You know, a "value-added feature," as the kids (who dream of being used car salespeople) would say. But no, it's the actual full talk, verbatim, plus the overhead presentation. The only thing it truly lacked was a video of Merlin walking around and making eye contact with the crowd. I should know, because I was there, because I PAID to be there.

Now, I can hardly complain about making knowledge freely available out there on the grand frontier of this here interweb, but here's the part that rubs me wrongly: why in the world did IDGExpo not tell anyone at the time of registration that these would all be available FOR FREE after the fact, before we registered? I might have been able to save the $200+ for the Users Conference, had I known that I'd my choice of ALL the sessions afterwards. Sure, "being there" holds the benefit of being able to pose direct questions, but it's really hard to ask more than one or two without monopolizing everyone else's time. Plus, um, Merlin has groupies. Lots of groupies. It's REALLY difficult to ask him anything and still get him out of there before he passes out from hunger.

Ah, I think I just answered my own question, didn't I? If they told us the sessions would be available afterwards, we WOULDN'T HAVE PAID for all of the stuff we registered for.

I keep trying to give IDG the benefit of the doubt in my mind, but time and again, something like this rears its head where it's a living, breathing example of Grey's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." I guess I should have seen this coming: from the registration that offered no auto-reply to let me know they had taken my money (I had to call their International line, which actually was incorrect for Canadian callers, because, um, hell I don't know...), to the registration page that looked straight out of 1998 HTML (nice table there, guys), to no way to see all session at once to determine best value, to no published iCal calendars (until Yours Truly made them, and then got picked up "on the wire"), to our Power Tools speaker telling us int he session that there would be a separate line for us for the keynote, when, in fact, that was reserved solely for Platinum Pass members, which only applied to some of us, so I trusted him, and his second-hand hearsay and got to the line WAY too late to be worthwhile, etc., etc., etc. Groan.

Now this all makes it sound like a terrible experience. It wasn't. Do I regret going? No, in fact, the experience as a whole (including the trip to San Francisco) was wonderful, but to know that I could have gotten an equivaent or better experience (it was WAY stressful to run from one session to the next, for fear of losing value... did I mention this was all on my own tab, out-of-pocket?), via the cheapest possible pass (say, a MacLab session, where a hands-on class with the app of your choice is offered, which is still difficult to make available online) that still gives access to the keynote, and a free Exhibit Hall pass (via free online codes). Well, I feel like I bear the "sucker" brand across my forehead for thinking that I was somehow privy to a once-in-a-lifetime seminar experience. I don't mind taking responsibility for when I'm told all the options, but I wasn't. Neither were a lot of people, I'd wager.

I've told IDGExpo to contact me, because I want to hear their side of it, but I am doubtful of a satisfactory explanation beyond "Oops. Our bad." I'd still advise Mac users to attend the event, even trying to get into the keynote room (though be ready to be in line BY 4 a.m.... yes, that's a five-hour lead time, and yes, you'll need it), but I now know to tell them to otherwise save their money and take in the wonderful Exhibit Hall and take in all of the free demos/training/seminars/hands-on that will never be posted.