Greetings and welcome, Robert!

I read Alfred’s original post and, yes, I can absolutely see where you being called irrelevant to Web 2.0 is both incorrect and personally upsetting. It would bug me if I were in your position, so I can’t fault you for that.

What I saw is this (bear with me while I express probable misperceptions): you posted saying you were going to MIX without an invite to lurk outside and protest not getting an invite. Alfred responded (incorrectly in my opinion) by questioning your relevance to Web 2.0.

Not to put words into Alfred’s mouth, but I suspect his real intent was to question your relevance to MIX07 (a developer targeted event), at least to the extent of providing free passes to the event. This latter point, as I indicate in my original post, is one I can agree with.

As for your point about the press being given preferential treatment at other, similar events: I’ll certainly take your word for that. If giving the press special perks at technical/education sessions is normal procedure with Microsoft, then you are absolutely right- Alfred’s target should be Microsoft’s conference team. Given his post, I have to wonder if perhaps he has already done this, and the lack of invites for yourself and Wired are the result. That would explain his response to your “why didn’t I get a free ticket” (my reading of them, sorry) posts.

As a technical attendee, I can say that I feel lucky if I can get funding to go to one conference every two years. And as I mentioned in my original post, arriving there to find that media folks are sitting up front with free tickets is not likely going to sit well with me. My support is with Alfred if he’s trying to convince the Microsoft conference folks to be more thoughtful about inviting reporters to some events.