WWW6: closing session

the closing session started with a speech from john gage of sun microsystem, who told us once more, how Java is going to change the world ...

gregg vanderheiden of the trace center - who was honored this morning with the yuri rubinski award - talked about access, the theme of this conference. he explained that other means of access to the Web than keyboard and display, would not only help the disabled people, but that there are many other situations where for example aural interfaces could be of common interest.

and then finally came to anxiously awaited talk of bob metcalfe. during the closing session of the fourth World Wide Web conference in boston in december 1995, bob forecasted that the Internet will collapse in 1996 and if not, he would eat his InfoWorld column. as we all know, the Internet did NOT collapse in 1996 - so what would he gonna do ? after another humorous talk, which included a very brief wrap up of this year's conference, he finally came to the point. first he tried some excuses by telling us that there were some major interruptions in the availability of the Internet for large user communities and that some of his other predictions actually had come true. then he proposed a voting: the audience should decide whether he had to eat his column or not. of course, there was a clear vote for that he HAS to eat his column. since it was obvious what the verdict would be, bob had brought a large cake which actually had his column printed on it, but we - the audience - certainly did not accept that. so bob put a mixer on the desk, poured some juice in it, shreddered his column, but it in the glass, operated the mixer for a while, and - in front of the crowed - actually swallowed his column ! this was not only brave, but the ONLY way out of the mess he had put himself into. BRAVO BOB, that was great marketing for yourself !

after this, robert cailliau presented the awards for the best tutorial and the best paper. the conference ended with an invitation to the seventh World Wide Web conference in brisbane, australia, which will take place in april 1998.

to the WWW6 trip report main document