I am in Los Angeles finishing up a pleasure trip to visit some of my children who work in the area. I fly back to New York City tomorrow. While airborne I will be preparing a few upcoming posts for this blog.

I also want readers to know that I will continue to keep you posted about Jupitermedia's dealings with the Mandalay Bay Convention Center and associated hotels. We are readying a legal action that I outlined in an earlier posting.

I remain steamed about the unethical and smarmy treatment Jupitermedia received from the Mandalay Bay and feel it is my duty to remind trade show operators to stay clear of running any events at either the Convention Center or the associated hotels.

I am also contemplating creating a Web site to post the whole history and which will hopefully attract postings from other organizations that have had similar problems with the Mandalay Bay group of properties.

One of the beauties of the Internet is that it is allowing people and organizations to get out their messages far and wide for very little cost. Of course some of these messages are nothing more than vendettas or quixotic jousts, but in many cases a solid message is part of the deal. There will be those who think I am perhaps part of the former category, but I think not.

I have been a Blackberry user since 1999. I have been a cell phone user since before most of this readership was born (I was one of the first cell phone subscribers in New York City --- 1983. In those days you could only get a cell phone for a car and the price was $3,600! I still have the phone number from 1983 and the original "414" exchange).

I have always been biased against Palm and the use of Graffiti. I long ago predicted that the Blackberry keyboard concept would win out over the Palm Graffiti system. The fact that Palm went to a keyboard as have other manufacturers certainly seems to be making my prediction accurate. Regardless, the idea of having a PDA (keyboard)-cell phone device has been my ideal.

I had been waiting for the Treo 600 for months. I particularly wanted to get one with a carrier that offered GSM (world phone service).

Eight days ago I finally got my Treo 600 and I can tell you that it is beyond my wildest expectations. It offers everything that I could have hoped for and more.

I realize that the purpose of this column is to comment on "Internet Media." And there is a connection between writing about the Treo and the purpose of this blog.

The Treo 600 is another piece of the evolution towards convenient Internet ubiquity. Wi-Fi will be added to the Treo 600 in the coming year or so. When that happens I will have all that I need for quick emailing and Web site scanning and of course have a terrific cell phone that is not a burden to carry around. And I also get a terrific device that watches my contacts and meetings.

I am sure some readers will feel the Treo 600 is bulky, but at about 6 ounces I find it a fine fit.

My next posting is back to business, but I needed to share my Treo exuberance with anyone who might listen --- thanks for your ears!

I read a terrific article in the Sunday New York Times about eBay - December 21 (Go the link and put the term eBay into search to find the article --- of course within a few days one will only be able to read this article by paying for it, which sort of defeats part of the benefit of blogging and linking!).

The gist of the article is not entirely new. That is that many businesses have and are springing up in and around eBay. This particular article indicates that over 30,000 people make their living by providing such related services.

One such company is profiled in this article. The company is AuctionDrop. Sellers who do not want to sell directly via eBay drop their items at AuctionDrop and AuctionDrop takes care of selling, shipping, etc. AuctionDrop is opening a number of such depots and has significant venture capital backing.

As an aside, readers know I have been writing about our new trade show called Internet Planet (Growing Business Online). Needless to say, AuctionDrop is just one tiny example of what we will be discussing at Internet Planet. Whether an organization evolves around a powerful eBay or it is an existing company that is 50 years old and is creating new directions via selling online, we are witnessing an amazing revitalization of Internet growth worldwide.

Today Jupitermedia announced another new show: INTERNET PLANET. I founded Internet World as a trade show in 1993 - it no longer takes place. It died because it did not evolve (fortunately I sold the company associated with this show in 1998).

Internet Planet is in fact the evolution of what Internet World could have been. It is focused on a vertical slice of one of the most compelling aspects of the Internet and its relation to the business world today. And that is that one cannot grow one's business today without taking into account a significant online presence.

The tagline for Internet Planet is "Growing Business Online." That is another way of stating what I mentioned in the paragraph above.

Check out the business press and you will find this theme over and over again in commerce stories in virtually every periodical. This theme is relevant for both profit and non-profit organizations -- for a museum as well as a local pie company -- for a conglomerate or a local bank. An organization cannot be successful today (and grow today) without making a significant online investment.

This theme is both old and new. The idea of needing a Web site developed rapidly in the 1990s. However today the sophistication needed to grow one's business online is astounding. The nuances are extreme. The skills and services are rarely found at any one organization.

Jupiter Research has been studying these areas since 1995 --- our analysts are second to none in this arena. Jupiter Research is perfectly equipped to plan a comprehensive seminar program for the focus of Internet Planet.

The readership of our various networks of Web sites (internet.com, earthweb.com, devX.com) is neatly suited to the verticality of what Internet Planet is all about. We will use our 300 million monthly page views (and 22 million monthly unique visitors) to drive across the idea and to promote the inaugural Internet Planet.

Exhibitors will find Internet Planet to be the perfect marketplace to show their wares and services. All in all, Internet Planet will be the next evolution in Internet business-focused trade shows.

I am excited about this opportunity and will use this blog to keep my readers posted about developing Internet Planet. I will also offer thoughts on Internet media ideas as well.

My previous post was written from the floor of the SES show at McCormick Place in Chicago.

My reporting should be considered biased (when it comes to our own shows!). But read the OnlineSpin section from Mediapost. This column says it all in spades.

And the New York City show in early March (it used to be held in Boston) should be even bigger and better than the Chicago show.

I am excited about the Internet business for the first time in three years --and I am really excited about our own properties. One cannot emphasize enough how valuable our content is and how our huge vertical focus allows us to leverage the readership into our events, our research and graphics areas.

We have a really neat announcement coming shortly about a new show whose "time has come." Stay tuned.

I am writing from the floor of our Search Engine Strategies show at McCormick Place in Chicago.

Many of you know that I was the creator of Internet World (1993) and later sold that series of shows (1998).

The Search Engine Strategies show is run three times per year in the United States and four additional times in other countries. The US shows remind me of the early days of the Internet and the growth of Internet World.

The Chicago show has about 6,000 square feet of exhibit space (most companies take space of 100 square feet). What is dynamic and spectacular is the number of paid attendees craving information about "using search" as well as products and services dealing with search and paid search.

Once again an event like SES proves the point that a focused show on the right topic can produce a winning combo for both the attendee and the exhibitor.

The excitement at SES is intoxicating! Certainly this is refreshing. And 180 degrees from the experience I had with cdXpo and Comdex in Las Vegas three weeks ago.

SES also proves the power of having a focused Web site such as our SearchEngineWatch.Com. This site attracts nearly 100,000 page views per day. It provides terrific editorial material daily and also is a great vehicle in which to promote upcoming SES events and our related Jupiter Research services that concentrate on paid search.

A focused event on the correct topic along with integrated Web site marketing is the wave of the future for trade show marketing. If a company lacks this combo, it is sure to fail at the trade show game.

Without Prejudice

As the dust continues to settle about the duel between Comdex and Enterprise IT Week during the week of November 17 in Las Vegas, I want to warn all trade show operators about the perils of working with the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.

I have been in the trade show business for nearly 30 years. And during that time I have never come across an organization that treats a trade show organizer as shabbily as MBCC treated Jupitermedia.

Jupitermedia is going to take legal action. My hope is that when the papers are filed that all trade show operators including the IAEM (a trade association devoted to the trade show industry) will see that the MBCC is a place to stay clear of if you are planning a function of any type in Las Vegas.

The main gripe is that MBCC blatantly undercut our efforts to sell hotel rooms for Enterprise IT Week. We were given a convention rate of $199 per night per room. The norm in the trade show industry is that the show rate is a better rate than what the hotel will offer to the public and other parties.

Unfortunately the MBCC and hotel decided to compete with the supposed "best" rate and almost immediately upon signing the contract began offering rooms at the Mandalay Bay hotel at rates ranging from $99 to $139 during the period we were being forced to sell hotel rooms at the higer rate of $199.

To the uninitiated, a trade show organizer, if fortunate, can get the show space essentially at no cost if it is able to sell its block of rooms. Of course the MBCC decided to make sure we could not achieve the "no cost" level by making sure that very few if any attendees would book at the $199 rate.

Now we will take this matter to court and make sure that trade show operators understand what they might be up against if they decide to do business with the MBCC and related hotel properties.

If anyone has questions about this situation, please contact me for more details. In the meantime, we look forward to our legal action and beware of doing business with any Mandalay Bay property.