Virtual Insanity
Snap’s Partner Summit set a new digital conference bar
This morning I attended a technology conference. That in and of itself is not interesting, I’ve attended hundreds of those. And while it was a virtual one, that’s also not the interesting angle here as we’re now months into that being the norm, unfortunately. What made this one stand out was that it was both virtual and actually good.
I’m speaking, of course, about the Snap Partner Summit which the company hosted exclusively online today to talk about their latest and greatest. And while I did have a badge for the event, that was more for show — quite literally — to share and help get the word out, it seems. The event was open to all because it was a one-way street. All you could do was watch.
Again, that was a good thing. It was a presentation, not some sort of faux interactive thing. And the aspect that struck me most was the quality of said presentation. Even though I was there — well, here, but you know what I mean — watching it on my computer, it still had the feel of a keynote to which all others are held. Which is to say, an Apple keynote.
But again, in this virtual environment, I actually think it was better than an Apple keynote, because of killer production value mixed with their use of one of Snap’s core competencies: AR. All of the virtual flourishes swirling around the presenters didn’t feel tacky, or worse, silly. It felt natural. It felt right.
From the ASMR opening that beautifully morphed a sun into the Summit’s logo to the pull back to reveal CEO Evan Spiegel taking the “stage” on a virtual beach surrounded by presentation screens. Reading that sentence again, it sounds like the corniest, most new age, bullshit thing imaginable.
But it worked! It really worked. They had multiple camera angles. It was beautifully choreographed. Video tee-ups segued into videos. Videos faded back into the virtual stage. The content kicked off with undoubtedly the hardest topics imaginable: the COVID-19 lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, but it somehow all worked.
Too many of these virtual presentations are an attempt to cram a presentation not meant to be virtual into a digital box. See also: Sony’s PlayStation 5 event which “took place” just a few hours later. It wasn’t bad, per se. But it wasn’t at the level of Snap’s.
And so I’m very curious how Apple will do with their first fully virtual WWDC keynote in a couple weeks. Again, Apple are the masters of such events in the physical realm, but I think Snap just gave them a new bar to clear in the digital world.
Apple, because of their history with such events, will presumably have a far greater audience for their keynote. And they have experience with filming these things in order to share later (and, in recent years, live). Are they simply going to do the keynote as if they were doing it in front of an audience? Or, like Snap, are they going to use the opportunity to show off some of their AR prowess?
It will be different. Tim Cook won’t be able to play for claps. Craig Federighi won’t be able to play for dad joke laughs. Phil Schiller won’t be able to play for gasps. So do they keep it tight and moving? Do we finally dispel with the half-dozen-too-many demos? Do we come in under two hours? Snap’s 52-minute keynote today felt downright refreshing.
Anyway, color me impressed by Snap’s Summit today. If we truly are in a world where large gatherings are forever altered, I think they’ve shown a way to do this type of thing. My hot-take wondering if Snap can turn digital event organization into a business was only half in jest. It was that good.
The only weird thing — and it was truly bizarre — you couldn’t watch the event on Snapchat.
