WOW.
My mind is blown from attending BlogWorld & New Media Expo in NYC last week.
And I’m not just saying that. Because, really, it’d be good marketing and sales talk to write about how BlogWorld blew my mind, and I could write a bunch of hyperbole about AMAZING sessions that will MAKE ME MONEY YESTERDAY and how it’s the best thing since sliced bread (and what’s so amazing about sliced bread anyway?), and that’d be all well and good, but you’d probably smell the BS, seeing as I work with BlogWorld on the Virtual Ticket and am not exactly unbiased.
But that said and sensationalist BS aside, I’ve got to say that this was the best conference I’ve ever attended. And this is with me trying to remain somewhat neutral and unbiased. (Seriously.)
Here’s the single biggest reason why it was awesome: This event has realized that blogging is not the only new media activity worth engaging in. Rick and Dave even announced from the stage, during the Wednesday keynote, that BlogWorld & New Media Expo will no longer be called “BlogWorld.” It’s now just the last part, the “New Media Expo” part. Why? Because blogging is just one of three areas they’ll be focusing on in future events. The other two are podcasting and Web TV. And this spectrum is more realistic, more representative of the ways the web and new media work best.
I thought the NYC event was so great because I really saw all of this multimedia stuff coming together. It wasn’t all blogging this time. And it also wasn’t just a trifecta of blogging, podcasting, and Web TV in their respective corners, all receiving isolated attention, either. What made this event so cool was the crossover.
There was a session about how all bloggers (in one corner) should be podcasting (moving into that other corner). I talked to Jonathan Fields, who, despite being a prominent blogger and author of the written word, is starting a TV production. I talked a bit with Cliff Ravenscraft, who is known as a prolific podcaster, about how he’s realized the importance of accompanying his podcasts with detailed show notes… which essentially means he’s blogging more than ever. There were several sessions about how writers and authors can increase their reach by offering their content in audio versions.
Audio and video is being transcribed more than ever. Pat Flynn’s strategy of “being everywhere” (which he talked about at BlogWorld LA 2011) is… well… everywhere in BlogWorld’s culture now. You can be a blogger, podcaster, or Web TV person. But you can get more mileage if you’re more than one of those things at the same time, or all three.
What I saw at this event blew my mind and has me thinking of moving into more modalities. I’ve been a blogger for years, but I recently became a podcaster too. Maybe video is next?
This is what we need in a conference. We need new ideas, not just a rehashing of the same ideas. And that, my friends, is why I thought BlogWorld NYC was so amazing this year.
Now, if you missed all of this amazingness because you couldn’t go to NYC (or if you did go to NYC and still missed stuff because there’s too much going on at once), you can still get it. My partner Lisa and I masterminded the Virtual Ticket this year — the “at-home, on-your-own-schedule” version of BlogWorld. The Virtual Ticket contains recordings of almost all of the conference sessions (slides and downloadable audio), plus more than twenty bonus interviews that Lisa and I conducted on-site.
Until the end of June 22nd, you can still get the Virtual Ticket for the pre-conference price of $347. BUT, if you were there live, you can add the Virtual Ticket to your registration for only $97 by emailing registration@blogworldexpo.com. But if you want to get the Virtual Ticket, do it now. On June 23rd, the price is going way up.
It was awesome. Can’t wait to see what the Vegas event is like.
P.S. For the sake of completeness, I should mention that I also thought BWE was amazing this year because I got to watch Derek Halpern be good-naturedly mocked by a waiter and took a hair-raising bike taxi ride with Pat Flynn and was given a salad during a time of need by Jason Van Orden, but I don’t think BlogWorld had those things on the official schedule. Maybe for Vegas.
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