Photo by aslakr licensed under a Creative Commons license

So here’s the really big news from the show, at the end of the month the mighty Yahoo! will be flying me out to San Francisco to show Chatsum in their 2006 Design Expo. I’ll be at the Sunnyvale campus from 29th July to 1st August and then in downtown San Francisco until the 6th.

If anyone wants to meet up between the 2nd and 6th or knows someone or something they think I should see just drop me a line at:

george [ at ] chatsum.com

Already on the list are Wendy burgers, the Golden Gate Bridge, The Sausage Factory, Purple Skunk Skate Shop and the trams! What am I missing?

Now that the thank yous are out of the way, I thought you might like to know how the show went. In a word: brilliantly!

There were over 1,000 visitors per day with VIPs including Prince Philip, Gordon Brown, Terence Conran, the Duke of Gloucester and the venerable Tom Coates.

I got to meet both Prince Philip and Gordon Brown and show them Chatsum. Prince Philip thought our font sizes were too small but admitted he has that problem with the whole of the Internet; Gordon Brown left saying he’d remember the name ‘Chat-sum’, only after he’d probed me on its economic value.

Next came the news that Microsoft are interested in talking to us, firming up a rumour we’d heard from our Brazilian users - they’re so ahead of the game. Now all we need is for that Google rumour of theirs to come true too!

I also had some really good conversations with people from the BBC, Design Council, Skype, The Guardian, BSkyB and Cambridge University all of whom I’ll be getting back in touch with as soon as I get a chance.

I’ve left out the really big news because it deserves its own post and I need to find a nice picture to go with it but stay tuned, it’s not often I have news bigger than meeting the Queen’s husband.

I just want to send out a very big thank you to everyone that uttered even the smallest bit of chat during the RCA show - I passed and can now write MA (RCA) after my name!

Extra big thank yous go out to Lee, for providing the longest stints of guaranteed chat - clocking in at around 14 hours a day for most of the show, and to PolarBear and NightHawk for their fantastic Chatsum Wikipedia article that got me some serious points during my final presentation.

I’d also like to thank SeanEtCetera for his undying enthusiasm running up to and through the show as well as pushing out the borders of Chatsumland with his secret Chatsum Dictionary page.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!