Ask The Admin

As we are getting hyped for the kick off of Digital Week in NYC we scored an interview with Monica Vila. She is the Vice President of Consumer Marketing for Ziff Davis (That's the company that brings you DigitalLife in all its geeky glory!). She got all of your questions, about DigitalLife, answered below along with some of ours! She also put some of our geeky concerns to rest :). The question most of you sent in about the badges and RFID concerns were laid to bed as well. Check it out:

ATA: We hear that Digital Life brought in over 52,000 people last year. Do you think this year will be a bigger draw?

DL: We certainly hope so! And we are certainly ready for more; this year is without a doubt, our best year yet. Now in our 4th year, we’ve become an event that consumers look forward to, and companies fold into their marketing calendars, as an important event to participate in. More and more companies are using DigitalLife as their venue for making their big product announcements and unveils, which makes for a very exciting show.

ATA: What big surprises do you have in store for us?

DL: We are unveiling a redesigned show floor this year, which will help attendees find themed “hubs” for their particular interest; for instance, this year we’ll have a DigitalKidz Zone, filled with the latest tech toys for kids. The Digital Defense Zone offers parents and families with information and products geared to keep themselves, and their identities safe online. But I encourage attendees to really wander the show floor – the exhibitors always have big surprises planned, from giveaways to contests, to special guests.

ATA: You are the largest show of the NYC's Digital Week - Has this changed your game plan at all? What role are you playing in NYC's Digital Week?

DL: Yes, we are very proud to be the official event of New York’s Technology Week. DigitalLife really serves as the cornerstone of the week, which is a celebration of New York’s embrace of cutting-edge technologies, that benefit the city and New Yorkers at large.




ATA: We know competition can be rough between some of the vendors - have their been any "incidents?" between camps? Any funny stories for our readers?

DL: Ahem…… honestly, everyone has been very civilized! From working with other shows in the past, there are always those little incidents on the show floor – noise levels in adjoining booths are always a little bone of contention – but we feel that our grouping of similar products should make it a genial event!

ATA: We saw last years PC Magazines Best Of 2006 @ Digital Life. Do you have any speculations as to who will be the big winners this year? It looks like Sony was the big winner there - do you foresee them topping themselves?

DL: The breadth of products participating in the show make this a very difficult question! I’m very excited about what Gateway has to offer at the show – though you will have to wait until Thursday to hear more – and I know that the Guitar Hero III booth will be very busy throughout the show. iRobot is introducing 2 new robots for the home, that frankly, I could have used earlier this year! There are also many newer companies on the scene, with incredibly innovative products and services, that I urge everyone to check out.

ATA: Our readers would love to know a little more about the back end of your show. How much bandwidth will you guys have pumping through the Javits Center? Is there Ethernet provided to the exhibitors or are they all required to go Wifi. Is there free Internet access for consumers? What are you using in terms of Badges/Scanners? Is the badge information available to the vendors?

DL: Wow, great question, I can tell you that as of this morning, we had over 70 orders for dedicated T1 lines dropped in various booths with many of them using a router to demonstrate wireless products. As for the badges, we don’t provide scanning technology to vendors. As a consumer event, many of our attendees are under 18 and we don’t want to make any of their information easy to access – so we don’t collect it or provide the technology for it. If our attendees want to provide it directly at vendors booths, that is their decision.

Thanks Monica for the information we will see you @ the Technology Week Launch Party tonight. And as for everyone else who can't be there we will be your eyes and ears so hit us up in the comments with what you want to see!

_TheAnxiousAdmiN_