Best, Worst Reports From Macworld’s Keynote.

Macworld is a special event for Apple and Mac users. It’s like Christmas. For about 90-minutes each year, Santa Steve unveils the latest from Cupertino’s North Pole.

Reporting “live” from the keynote, Mac web sites inform the faithful all over the world. Which sites did it best this year?

Was it Bambi and her Blackberry that provided the fastest, most accurate, most in depth reports? Was it the technorati elite site of MacRumors? What about the money laden Macworld.com?

What was your favorite site for updates from Macworld? Who gave the best running commentary? Here’s our look at the best of the Mac sites and how they did supplying Mac users with the annual fix.

We watched Steve Job’s QuickTime movie of the keynote and compared it to the web site reviews of many of the Mac news and information sites. Here’s the awards (for what they’re worth; your mileage may vary).

Fastest Updates
Best by far at providing Mac users and readers with the fastest updates was the digital elite crew of MacRumors.

Though their MacBytes web site no longer promotes or links articles from Mac360, our whole team agreed that no other site came close to rapid, accurate updates than MacRumors.

MacRumors’ countdown timer meant there was no need to click as the page would refresh automatically. Update information was sparse and without much commentary.

Biggest Disappointment
Since the keynote came from Macworld, you’d expect a Mac web site named Macworld to provide a good keynote news experience.

Macworld had news but was often 10 to 15 minutes behind the action with their updates. In fact, sometimes there were gaps where nearly every other site we reviewed had updates, Macworld was still sitting on “old” (10 minutes is old) news.

That said, some Mac web sites choked on hits as Mac users refreshed their browsers by hitting the “reload” button. Macworld didn’t choke.

Fastest Page Reload
This was an important point in checking the keynote updates from various Mac web sites.

Traffic to a Mac site during the keynote, as users look for the latest info, increases dramatically. The site with the fastest page loads goes to MacRumors again.

Macworld’s page reloads were more than acceptable, but similar to normal. MacRumors appeared ready for the show and delivered quickly.

Slow Site Award
This award is highly subjective as “slow” carries multiple meanings. Slow server? Slow updates? Slow page load?

We noticed a number of sites, at various times during the keynote, would load blank pages in our browsers. The Mac360 crew took notes of major Mac sites during the keynote; Tera in Los Angeles, Jack and Carol in St. Louis, Alex was in New York, and Ron in Honolulu.

We all agreed that the two Mac sites a few blank pages during the keynote were MacDailyNews and MacNN.

Both sites are wildly popular and probably had tens of thousands of visitors during the 90-minute or so keynote presentation. Even Mac360 was slow to load pages a few times.

Kudos to both sites for providing minute-by-minute coverage.

News reporting of the keynote events by both sites was very good, though, listed highlights in reverse chronological order, and generally in line with what we saw on the keynote QuickTime movie later in the day.

Widest Macworld Coverage
The Mac Observer seemed to have the “widest” coverage of Macworld, both the keynote and everything else.

What we mean by “widest” is that they offered more information about what else was going on at Macworld, and didn’t limit coverage only to the keynote and press releases.

I often check TMO to find other bits of Mac information not covered by other sites. MacDailyNews is the most fun, free-for-all commentary site.

Most Thorough “Live” Coverage
After a review of the “live” pages from other sites, I’m giving this to Bambi of Mac360. Her seat in the 6th row was about as good as it gets. Blonds sit closer to the front. That’s why Tera says she likes traveling with her.

To make sure we stayed connected and could report in a timely manner, we armed Bambi with everything a modern reporter could want.

A cell phone. A PowerBook. A Blackberry. The PowerBook never got opened. The cell phone was on all the time, just like Bambi.

The Blackberry? Early on, Bambi complained of thumb spasms and cramps (in the thumb, not elsewhere). Most of her reports came via cell phone back to Tera in Los Angeles and Ron in Honolulu who updated the Keynote Highlights page.

Bambi’s ongoing review and details were the best, though reports were not delivered as quickly as MacRumors, they contained more details.

Oddly, Tera (or Ron) chose to display the highlights page in chronological order, whereas most sites chose a reverse chronological order with the latest keynote presentation information at the top of the page.

Worst Keynote Coverage
Mainstream media web sites get this award. It took them forever to update their sites, and news didn’t seem to be available for hours after the keynote.

When news was available, it was simply highlights such as “Apple Announces Intel Macs”, and provided little depth.

This may very well be the best Macworld ever. While all of us want more news, more product announcements, more, more, more; we have to recognize that there’s still 355 days left in the year.

Tera Patricks
It was a great experience to get Bambi’s reports on the phone. We conferenced with Ron who did the updates and refreshed the pages about every 30 seconds.

This was the first Macworld keynote where Bambi went and I didn’t. I’ll be there next year. Traveling with her is a blast. Watch the keynote video. It’s a great show.

Carol Mary Miller
I must have bounced around to a dozen Mac web sites gathering information. What a treat. Mac sites really out did the normal media outlets for news.

Alexis Kayhill
I was eating lunch in a hotel room in New York while checking different sites. Bambi did a good job reporting details. Jack’s right. MacRumors was fastest though information was thin.