PHILADELPHIA -- Internet Alley at the 2000 Republican National Convention was most certainly that -- an alley.
In fact, like a back alley -- a gritty place where those without a comfortable home gravitate, in search of camaraderie and a place to hang their hats.
For all its hype, the place was rather disappointing at first glance.
It had the feel of a dormitory, complete with stacked pizza boxes, piles of scattered paper and people popping next door to ask each other questions (perhaps even for stories they were writing about Internet Alley).
Welcome to 'Dilbertville'
While mainstream pubs such as The New York Times and Tribune Media worked from baseball diamond-sized spaces in the giant, white airplane hanger-like media tents -- their reporters hidden by long drapes of blue fabric that seemed to hang from the sky -- Internet Alley looked more like "Dilbertville."
Women.com sat next to Salon.com, separated only by a mid-thigh-high divider that couldn't possibly have blocked out the noise.
In fact, reporters at left-leaning Salon and the conservative Insightmag.com could have been co-workers, so close were they seated across the blue carpeted walkway.
Others conducted Web talk shows in hobbled-together "studios" constructed from a chair, microphone and computer.
And, like animals at the zoo, all of the reporters here were on display. No majestic curtains to shut out these folks as they practiced some of the most innovative and unusual coverage of the show.
On Wednesday afternoon, the air conditioning petered out for a bit, leaving everyone sweaty and worried about their high-tech equipment.
Hey, there's Sam ... and Newt, too!
Alongside truly new ventures such as Grassroots.com and Voter.com were old media trying to look new. One of the biggest draws was ABCNews.com, where a pancake-make-upped Sam Donaldson conducted interviews and chats that were broadcast solely via the Web.
A crowd gathered around every night, blocking the aisles -- not, it seemed, to hear Donaldson's guests, but to catch a glimpse of Donaldson himself.
Though Internet Alley took up just a tiny space -- less than half of one of the four giant media tents -- it was, without a doubt, the biggest buzz-generating section.
Walk though the area at any time of the day and you'd glimpse the likes of Newt Gingrich, George P. Bush, rappers and wrestlers stepping over stray wiring and newspapers on their way to an interview.
Not only did some old-media ventures gather there to show off their tech-savvy, but many politicians did, too.
A refuge for pols
North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer, who prides himself with helping to wire his state -- and admits to surfing Yahoo! and eBay.com during boring conference calls -- said specifically tailored Internet coverage will spark more interest in politics.
"I think the reason people are turned off is they're not given what they want, and the Internet is the way to give it to them," said Schafer, who had just completed an interview in Internet Alley.
Larry Purpuro, the RNC's Deputy Chief of Staff, agreed, adding that he thinks Web reporters will make up half of all journalists at the 2004 conventions.
Gone are the days, he said, when the only news coverage of the conventions comes from "anchors who shut off the speeches and tell the viewers what they should have heard."
For the first time, in fact, enthusiasts and insomniacs could get convention news where they wanted it ... and when they wanted it, through archived video and transcripts of speeches and other happenings.
Some snafus, too
But the coverage hasn't been without its glitches.
As Lynne Cheney said about fly fishing when introducing her husband Dick, the Republican vice presidential candidate, Wednesday night: "It's not a sport for the impatient."
Especially for those watching the latest experimental political news -- coming from head-mounted computer cams, 3-D cameras and live video streams.
Apple Computer and Xybernaut didn't hype the rollout of their head-mounted camera system for Insightmag.com's online coverage, partly because they weren't sure things would go smoothly.
And they were right. Insight had trouble getting the cameras to stream with just a short delay and had to use them instead to gather news and send it to the site later.
No experience required
Still, the company's shantytown studio -- made possible by a Sony home video camera and a blue couch that looked like it came from Ikea -- delivered many successful live streams of interviews with a four-second delay. A sales account executive with no professional video experience ran the camera.
In another case, some visitors to Pseudo.com, the only Web property besides America Online to land a skybox, had trouble getting the plug-in they needed to watch content from the company's 360-degree Web cams while conducting chats.
"Can't see what's going on. Anything exciting?" one of the viewers asked in a chat room while trying to get a glimpse of happenings on the floor.
"Yeah... Mrs. Bush naked. Lol. She's partying with Dan Quayle," joked another in reply, one of the many examples of a chat room rant straying off-topic.
Many of the news outlets said this convention served as a trial run for both the Democratic convention and possibly future events once the new gimmicks are ready for prime time.
It's all about access
At the very least, the Web outlets gave specific interests groups better and more substantial access to the event than ever before.
In addition to interviewing Spanish-speaking politicians from many of the border states, Terra.com roamed the Latino communities of Philadelphia getting reaction to the speeches and transmitting it in Spanish to the site.
Web radio station Policast.com brought the convention to political junkies through one-man-band broadcasting.
Though it was certainly imperfect, and at many times inane, the coverage from Internet Alley put users in control of convention news like they've never been before.
"Until now, what most people saw at the convention is what the people at the conventions wanted you to see," Insightmag.com senior editor Jamie Dettmer said.
