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T A B L E__T A L K

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R E C E N T L Y

Metal madness
By Andrew Leonard
The battle for heavy metal on the Web
(02/13/98)

Friction or fact?
By Andrew Leonard
Trendy theories of a "friction-free economy" hit some bumps
(02/12/98)

Just pay for it
By Andrew Leonard
Technology may bring the Olympics to your desktop someday -- but not for free
(02/11/98)

21st Challenge
By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau
Ticklers for every situation
Plus: Haiku error message winners
(02/10/98)

Windows on their world
By Karlin Lillington
On site at Microsoft's museum and shop: Where the Windows never cease
(02/09/98)

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BROWSE THE 21ST FEATURES ARCHIVES

FESTIVAL IN SEARCH OF A MEDIUM | PAGE 2 OF 2

Instead, it's the potential of the Internet that got him and many others excited. That's in contrast to last year, when discussions of the probable importance of online content and the weakness in the CD-ROM market had delegates anxiously attending sessions with titles like "The Winter of our Disc-content." This year, the word "online" was ubiquitous in the sessions -- but it still had hardly found its way down to the exhibitors' products in the vast halls beneath the Palais.

Despite multimedia's current becalmed state and a drop in attendees, Milia has increasingly become the domain of suits, ties and furiously chirping mobile phones. This year the best-attended sessions were the ones that talked about business models rather than the nature of interactive art.

The optimistic view, chanted like a soothing mantra at Milia, is that "content is king." But of the few products that are being received royally in the marketplace, most are increasingly vicious action and strategy games. Much to the surprise of many delegates, Milia's organizers this year aggressively wooed the games industry, no doubt hoping they would be flattered into taking pricey booths in the halls of the Palais (and indeed, Sony, Eidos and others took the bait).

But the gaming world is alien to many of Milia's tonier multimedia developers -- as became especially clear at Milia's final awards ceremony. Previews of the mostly violent games evoked a bemused silence, and the jury's decision to give the overall grand prize to "F-22 Air Dominance Fighter" was not popular, garnering only scattered applause. Last year's choice, Peter Gabriel's "Eve," delighted the Milia crowd; this year, most had expected Bröderbund's "Riven" to take top honors.

A glance around the halls confirmed that Milia is risking losing its international focus as it becomes more dominated by French exhibitors and attendees. Most ominously, many of the American companies that are driving much of the technical innovation in interactive media didn't show. (Arguably, the most thrilling technological developments this year were in the Palais restrooms, where a nation famed for squat-and-go facilities had installed toilets requiring a bizarre jumble of button-pressing to get the seat, draped in a hygienic paper liner, to lower.)

Instead, Milia's hall was crowded with developers showing depressingly similar products. Even the porn kings who used to dot the exhibition no longer feel the need to attend -- their numbers were reduced to a single publisher called MacDaddy, which set up house across from a French educational house. All day, men surreptitiously looked sideways at MacDaddy's lingeried nymphettes while pretending to learn about everyday life in ancient Egypt.

Some hope for the beleaguered publishers came from speaker Esther Dyson, who opined that there's no single catch-all blueprint for a successful new-media business model. Dyson proposed an analogy to the restaurant world -- where "the question is not what business model you choose but whether you do what you do well," and the success of McDonald's does not threaten the table d'hôte establishment. Of course, at the moment nearly all the online restaurants -- haute cuisine and fast food alike -- are giving away meals for free.

Bruised by a punishing marketplace, Milia's melancholy attendees may find no more refuge in Internet publishing than in discs. But as long as the conference makes its home at Cannes, at least they'll always have a luxurious place to nurse their wounds.
SALON | Feb. 17, 1998

Karlin Lillington is a technology writer in Dublin whose work appears regularly in the Guardian, the Irish Times and other publications.