This shot was made at the 2009 Frankfurter Buchmesse ‘Digital Market Place.’ The latest evocation of digital deployment by the trade show is Frankfurt Connect, designed to take the fair’s B2B ethos and services to a new level of international range and scale. Image: FBM, Alexander Heimann
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Boos: ‘The Digital Backbone for Our Community’
Regular readers of Publishing Perspectives will recall our advance report on May 23 at Frankfurt Connect, a new online offering of services and features meant to augment and extend the Frankfurter Buchmesse B2B experience (October 16 to 20) to a year-round presence.
During our recent summer break in publishing, Frankfurt Connect went live online here, and now is something that Frankfurt’s trade visitors in the world publishing community now can explore and examine.
As the product has gone to the Internet, the company’s media messaging has included Buchmesse’s stance as “a place for international encounters, a trading center, a literary showcase, and a platform for democratic exchange.”
Juergen Boos
The trade show’s president and CEO, Juergen Boos, says, “”What do we want at Frankfurter Buchmesse?
“We want to exchange ideas across national borders. We want to present our products and services. We want to revitalize old contacts and forge new business relationships.
“From now on, we will also support all these wishes digitally, with Frankfurt Connect as the digital backbone for our community.”
Those familiar with the Frankfurt site will feel comfortable with much of the look and feel here, the layout, hierarchy, and aesthetics being similarly designed. Frankfurt Connect is built on the Expo Platform event technology (ExpoPass) that’s also used by the IMEX Frankfurt business fair at the Messe Frankfurt complex in May each year.
Oestreicher: ‘To Extend Our Customers’ Experience’
Image: A graphic from the home page of Frankfurt Connect: FBM
With the newly offered site now being accessible, the company is describing it as a way to “bring the players in publishing together digitally and bundle their digital business services in one place.”
As the development goes live, these services are listed as the initial offerings:
- New presentation and interaction options for Frankfurter Buchmesse exhibitors
- Networking features for recommendations and suitable new contacts
- A digital business card for networking on-site
- An interactive hall plan for the 2024 trade show
Users may note that some parts of the above list are carrying “coming soon” notifications, as this work-in-progress is rolled out.
An arrival at the home page offers several of the elements of the traditional site, with options including “Find exhibitors and companies,” “Search for upcoming events,” Browse through products,” and “Network with participants.”
Ann-Kristin Oestreicher
Ann-Kristin Oestreicher, Buchmesse’s senior marketing manager, says, “We have reached the first milestone on our mission to extend our customers’ trade fair presence into the digital world.
“From now on, we will continue to develop our platform together with our users. True to the motto: ‘Frankfurt Connect connects.'”
This ties in, of course, with what Oestreicher stressed in her communications in May about the platform, when she said, “We already have a good platform in place for our customers for the trade fair days in October, but that won’t “>be the final version. We’re working on other services in parallel and will release them after the fair, taking feedback from our users directly after the launch and using that input to further develop the functionalities. We’ll be working on Frankfurt Connect using the ‘agile’ working method in interdisciplinary teams.”
Registration on the platform is here.
More from Publishing Perspectives on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, more on trade shows and book fairs in world publishing is here, and more on publishing and digital constructs is here.