4 reasons I'm excited about the SF AppShow

I’m extra excited about our next SF AppShow this Tuesday May 25. In addition to looking forward to seeing you all and taking the stage again, here are the top four things I’m excited about:

  1. Our amazing guest host is my friend Gina Smith. Before I’d met her in person, I used to watch her on Good Morning America and World News Tonight. She was ABC News first Tech Correspondent, and covered the web 1.0 boom for them. She’s also the author (with Steve Wozniak) of NYT bestseller iWOZ: From Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple and Had Fun Along the Way.
  2. Another friend is presenting: Mike Smithwick. He started writing Distant Suns for the Amiga in 1985, and I first met him during my days as an Amiga engineer. More than 25 years later and Distant Suns is still going strong, and he has new announcements to make Tuesday night. It was a great coincidence that he applied to the show without even realizing I was involved.
  3. The wraps are finally coming off the secret new project from best-selling author Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon, Anathem) and my friend Jeremy Bornstein at Subutai Corporation.
  4. It’s cool that we have custom iPad bags from Rickshaw Bag Works, and that we have Intel as a sponsor, as well as SugarSync and Appency PR, and a lineup of other great media, presenters and guests.

Please grab a ticket and join us for cocktails and appetizers starting at 5:30pm!

iPad hype exceeded only by results

Dale Larson in line for iPad launch

Imperative: dress well for iPad line. Dale Larson in line for launch at the San Francisco Apple Store. (photo by Andrew Mager)

As I suggested in a previous post (where I completely failed to guess the name of the iPad correctly), the results of iPad sales seem to be the only thing exceeding the hype around iPad.

According to Quantcast, iPad constituted 5% of all mobile web traffic consumption on launch day.

In fact, they’re selling so fast that Apple has been forced to delay the international launch of iPad (just six days after insisting the launch would not be delayed by US success).

It’s interesting to note how important new iPad apps are in driving iPad sales. Folks continue to underestimate apps.