Google’s I/O conference for developers is expected to be quieter this year. But Google Glass, which the tech giant introduced in a surprise demo last year, could be a big draw, as analysts anticipate an update on the ground-breaking product.

The question is, beyond glasses, what else will Google bring to the product market?  TV?  More smartphones?

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A large public square is at the heart of Danish firm BIG’s proposed overhaul of Miami Beach Convention Center, home to the annual Art Basel/Miami and Design Miami trade fairs (+ slideshow + movie). (more…)

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Conference Hound’s quarterly Houndex(sm) reports that 56% of U.S. conference attendees plan to attend another conference in the next six months, up from 53% in the last quarter.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 16, 2013 — Conference Hound (conferencehound.com), the global conference discovery platform, published today the Conference Hound Index or Houndex for Q1 2013. The Houndex is the result of extensive online interviews of adult Americans and is intended to serve as a quarterly leading indicator of attendee intent for the conference and trade show industry.

The survey was conducted by Survata, an independent online market research service. Nearly 1,400 adult Americans participated in online interviews for the study. Respondents were first classified as ”conference attendees” or not, based on whether they have attended a conference or trade showing the past 18 months. Of these “conference attendees,” 56.0% indicated that they plan to attend another
conference in the next six months, up from 52.7% in the prior period. Furthermore, for CVBs and the travel and hospitality industry 55.7% of those planning to attend a conference in the next six months indicate their intent to travel over 100 miles from their homes to attend a conference or trade show, essentially flat vs. 4th quarter. The Houndex survey is conducted on a quarterly basis and is intended to provide the industry with leading market insight on conference attendee intent.

The Houndexsm remains highly consistent with generally accepted industry numbers that we’ve seen with regard to the incidence of conference attendance in the United States.” says Bruce Carlisle, CEO and Founder of Conference Hound. “this is our second quarterly Houndexsm release. In addition to the Conference and Trade Show industry Publishers, including, the Wall Street Journal in a recent article heralding the age of “Conference-Mania”, have begun to use the Houndex relative sense of the future state of the industry from the attendees themselves.

Independent online market research service Survata allows companies like Conference Hound to conduct extensive, broad based surveys. The company’s methodology qualifies an extremely large online audience that is representative of the U.S. adult population in sufficient numbers such that data from individual industries can be collected within acceptable margins of error.

About Conference Hound

Conference Hound is the global attendee-centric conference discovery engine that helps attendees find conferences, trade shows, festivals and connections all over the world by a variety of criteria including date, industry, city, venue, speakers, colleagues and social network friends. Conference Hound helps attendees connect with the conferences that enable them to grow their careers, enrich their
professional lives and to have fun, while making the most of the conference-going experience. Based in San Francisco, Conference Hound is a seed stage company. The global platform currently offers more than 165,000 curated and filterable conference listings. Conference Hound also includes social connection information for speakers and attendees and the site includes a growing database with more than 6,000 conference speakers. In addition, the platform provides localized leisure and entertainment opportunities, editorial coverage of conference culture and and a variety of branded tools for conference organizers. http://conferencehound.com and follow on Twitter @conferencehound.

Survata is an online market research service based in San Francisco, CA. The company conducts online interviews across a network of online publishers that allows Survata to mimic the U.S. web audience. The publishers’ visitors complete the surveys in exchange for access to premium content. This model of collecting responses makes survey research faster, more cost-effective, and more representative of the U.S. population. Survata clients include multiple Fortune 500 companies. Learn more at http://survata.com. You can contact Survata at (415) 729-5506 or contact@Survata.com and follow on Twitter @Survata

About the Houndex

This survey was conducted for Conference Hound by Survata in March 2013 via online interviews of 1,396 U.S. adults. The margin of error for the percent of conference attendees who plan on attending another conference in the next six months is 3.1%, meaning one can say with 95% confidence that the percent of conference attendees who plan on attending another conference in the next six months is between 52.9% and 59.1%.

Credit and Usage

The data in this release may be republished and rereleased by any media outlet provided that the following attribution is included. “The quarterly Conference Hound / Survata Houndex sm is published quarterly by Conference Hound.” If the Houndex is re-published in digital format, a hyperlink to http://conferencehound.com/articles/conference-hound/houndex-report-first-quarter-intent-to-attend-conferences-up-3pct-vs-fourth-quarter-2012/7353 must be present.

Lots of publishers have special covers or even special issues of comics for conventions, and now comiXology, Red 5 Comics, and the folks who run this weekend’s Emerald City Comic Con have come up with a new spin on the con exclusive: A digital comic that is available to anyone who has a badge—and no one else, at least for a few days. Every ECCC badge will have a download code for the comic Atomic Robo: Along Came a Tyrantula, a one-shot comic by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegner, and the comic will go on sale to the general, non-con-going public on March 6.

Atomic Robo is a comedy sci-fi series that is a fun read and not burdened with continuity, as Clevinger and Wegner tell their story in self-contained arcs. The title character is a robot scientist, designed by Nikola Tesla, who is one of a team of Action Scientists who work for Tesladyne Industries as sort of a rapid-response team for various types of emergencies.

European firm cutbacks leave room for U.S., Asian companies.

The Western Hunting and Conservation Expo (WHCE) and Mule Deer Foundation’s National Convention returns to Salt Lake City, Utah for the 7th year. The four day Expo will be held February [...] Read …

February 10, 2013 by Mike Thimmesch It’s great to hear visitors to your trade show booth say things like, “You’ve got just what I need!” or “We love working with your company!” or “Your booth …

Just back from my first two trade shows of the season, and I am sad. It would seem, dear friends, that despite our resolve to not suck at these things, we just can’t seem to get it right. Last year we saw Angry Birds staffing booths, coffee cups greeting visitors and what happens when you…

Ever pull off the highway and saunter up to a hotel’s front desk hoping for a room, only to hear that it’s full because of a convention? Frustrating right? But for the local economy, it’s a good thing.

The Travel Convention is the largest conference of its kind in the UK travel industry, and is hosted in a different overseas destination each year, offering a stimulating mixture of business sessions and networking opportunities.