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November 2006: Eurowebtainment in Berlin - October 18th to 20th 2006 - A report.
Held at the imposing, modern Estrel Hotel in the southeast of Berlin from the evening of 18th to the 20th of October, Eurowebtainment offered a meeting place and showcase for international web and wap businesses in the adult sector. Several of the stands there were duplicated at Venus, 20 minutes by taxi across town, which may have diluted the trade fair's must-see-ness but it still seemed well attended when ETO visited on the Friday.
While there, Ekrem Yagci of Inter Max Internet s.r.o. (a Czech part of the Inter Max Group) talked about their change of approach to their mobile chat and dating businesses. They've been moved to the Internet because too many slices of the profit pie were leaving the firm when they were mobile-only services. They've also launched a web site where users can upload videos for their private enjoyment or to share with friends and -we think- paying customers. This could be the very site they were promoting vigorously, VOD-Cash.com, but as it's only in German and we 'sprechen Sie nicht Deutsches', we can't say for sure.
More certainly, on the Password by Phone stand we were told that it'd been great to meet existing clients as well as a few new faces and that there had been a steady flow of visitors to the show's twenty-or-so exhibitors across both days.
Having seen her at 3GSM in Barcelona in February, and at every other telecoms/web-business event ETO's attended over the last year, it was a surprise to learn Olivia Dal Cin isn't the Spanish lady we'd taken her for. Rather she's AOE's London-based sales queen and was keen to talk about their upcoming Expo and Webmaster events in Budapest. "We're focusing on quality", she told ETO. "Quality of visitors, of venue, of location. Budapest is a wonderful city and we'll be hosting some great parties there as well as the expo. Bronze passes are free to the trade this time, there's the Miss AOE feature and on Saturday there's the webmasters tour of the city -and its bars! Sponsors, exhibitors and visitors return time after time to AOE as it's a show they come away from with new and extra business." She was also thrilled with the corset she'd just picked up at Venus, but there's no news on whether that'll be making an appearance in Hungary.
Florian Bayer and Daniel Demmer from Liechtenstein-based Netvision were similarly excited with their fantastic-content.com and Prague Girls brands. They also do white label live and recorded 'cam sites for affiliates, complete with age verification and free-minute promotional schemes. They'd launched Vienna Content at Eurowebtainment, which is an image-gallery and video-bank site with fetish, glamour, amateur and hardcore material for web, mobile and print use. We were taken aback to hear they have web-cam models as young as 16 and aren't at all sure about the legality of viewing them in the UK, even though the girls only go as far as being topless. We wouldn't want to argue that one in court, which makes us wonder what geographic as well as age verification there's on the site, and the web in general. Presumably topless 16 year-olds are ok somewhere!
On safer ground, Table Football and other games were a hit on the PartnerCash stand, where we were told that the show had gone ok for them, before we let the CEO of Greece-based Amaze(.gr) beat us at Air Hockey. Our 'best freebie of the show' award goes to the miniature flashlight torches from maxlicence.com, which is another online image resource for webmasters in need of adult content.
With a large area of circular tables with stands at the periphery of the main room, the atmosphere was relaxed and businesslike and throughout the two days of the show various formal discussions and workshops were run, including web page design and layout, trademark law and several speeches on the mobile Internet. Something for everyone then. Speaking of quality information with a broad appeal, it was also good to see many copies of ETO being read around the fair. Details of next year's spring and autumn Eurowebtainment events will appear in the magazine when they're available.