Meteor Monitor:
Author Douglas Adams wows'em in ThoughtShare COMDEX promo
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Douglas Adams, author of all the different manifestations of the "Hitch
Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy," also created a buzPAK about his Top 10
websites. More than 250 people were standing-room only as they craned to
hear him explain how he did it, and to answer other questions at
ThoughtShare's presentation at COMDEX in Las Vegas. The buzPAK will be
posted on ThoughtShare's website on Nov 18. "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the
Galaxy" started as a late night BBC radio show in the UK. But it has since
become an enormous international literary phenomenon, with more than 15
million books sold and numerous adaptations for TV, the stage, records,
tapes, computer disks -- and even bath towels. Fans of the series, which
include a lot of the kind of people who attend COMDEX, will soon be able to
see it on the big screen. Disney is currently developing the movie version
based on a screenplay by Adams.
ThoughtShare is at COMDEX, the huge computer trade show and conference that
wraps up today, promoting and demonstrating PlanBee, buzPAKs and early
versions of its two newest programs, bViewer and bSeeker, the first
contingents of its bZone software group, and handing out 5,000 CDs of
PlanBee and sample buzPaks.
"It was packed," says ThoughtShare president Fred Fabro, "and I'm sure we
would have had more at the Adams promotion if the area could have been
bigger, but we were pressed for space as it was." Adds ThoughtShare
marketing vice-president Guy Steeves, "A large percentage of attendees and
exhibitors at COMDEX heard about Douglas Adams' appearance -- and about
ThoughtShare and buzPAKs as a result. Neighbouring exhibitors have been
commenting on the number of people we've been attracting, but more
importantly, COMDEX staff said that we were ones of the busiest booths per
square foot in the show."
As for Adams, he gave the crowd a run-through of his buzPAK, saying that
any tool that can organize the information chaos of the Internet, as
PlanBee certainly does, is a welcome addition to the software toolbox of
cyberspace researcher such as himself. "Writers used to write something and
then stare out the window for a while," he said, "With the computer and the
Internet, the window and the typewriter are in the same place."
As for what's in his buzPAK, well, you'll have to wait and see; you'll be
able to download it shortly. But we can tell you that in includes a "forum
for some of the world's top minds. Scientists, technologists, writers and
artists talk about evolution, complexity, consciousness, the implications
of technological change, all the really yummy stuff." And he also includes
a link to one of the "smartest, sharpest, wittiest satirist of our time and
he's the best dialog writer I know of." Plus an "incredibly useful resource
of information about movies, directors, producers, actors and writers." And
we can tell you that the buzPAK includes a jump to what Adams calls, "one
of my greatest passions in life."
But, really, it's not the Internet websites themselves that helped to get
people at COMDEX to belly up to the ThoughtShare presentation booth for a
copy of the CD, nor even Douglas Adams. It's the fact that a buzPAK makes
it really, really easy to capture what's useful to the mind of a person
like Douglas Adams that got them there.
Which is, of course, the point Fabro and the rest of the ThoughtShare staff
have been making all along. |
