One of the real honors for me at this year’s BlogWorld was getting to meet and speak with legendary blogger Doc Searls.
For those of you who don’t know who Doc is, the bio on his blog is a good place to start. Among his many accomplishments Doc has been blogging since 1999 and was one of the four authors of the ground breaking blog and best selling book The Cluetrain Manifesto.
Here is an interview Abby Prince-Johnson from WebPronews conducted with Doc while at BlogWorld.
Yeah, I know, I’m a bit late with this one. Somehow Patrick’s interview fell through the cracks but he’s an interesting chap and I wanted to get this out. So let’s just secretly agree we’ll pretend this was posted just before the Expo, not afterwards, okay? 🙂
Q: In two sentences, highlight your background and professional experience to date. One bonus sentence: how’d you get started blogging?
I own the iFroggy Network, a network of websites, and I’m the author of “Managing Online Forums“, a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. I’ve been developing websites for about 10 years and managing online communities for around 8. For me, blogging is an extension of what we’ve been doing for a very, very long time – creating content – but as far as calling it “blogging” specifically; 2004, I guess.
Q: How often do you blog? What platform do you use? Why?
Patrick O'Keefe
I blog multiple times per day. I blog at YanksBlog.com, ManagingCommunities.com, Bad Boy Blog, my personal blog and elsewhere. Right now, I use Nucleus CMS and WordPress and I am very slowly converting my Nucleus CMS sites to WordPress. I like WordPress due to it’s ease of use, reliability and excellent plugin community.
Q: Point us to one or two recent postings on your blog that you think were superb, and tell us a bit about your writing process. How long did it take for you to come up with the topic? How long to write?
Post #1: “Five Things Bad Boy Needs to Do to Improve it’s Online Strategy” on Bad Boy Blog
In this post, I took a good strong look at what Bad Boy Entertainment, a record label and company that I’m a big fan of, could do online to improve it’s strategy and, as such, make more money. This post is the result of my years of watching the company and how it operates, as well as the network of contacts that I have made within it. My writing process was rather straight forward, as I have a great deal of knowledge about this subject. I came up with the topic randomly while working and the article itself took me probably 4-5 hours to write and tweak.
I like this post just because it’s so true. The topic came to me randomly and it took me an hour or two to write it up. The writing process pulled upon my experience managing communities and being the one that people direct their anger at, when they are told that they are unable to do something.
Q: How often do you leave comments on other people’s blogs? How do you find their entries in the first place?
I would say on a virtual daily basis. I do most of my blog reading through my feedreader, Bloglines. So, that is how I find the entries.
Q: Tell us a bit about your talk at Blogworld Expo. Topic, key points you’ll cover, etc?
I have a book signing and two panels, all on Sunday, September 21. The book signing is at 10:00 AM PT. After that, the first panel is at 12:15 PM PT and it’s called “How to Deal with Trolls, Spammers and Sock Puppets.” I’ll be joined by Rick Calvert, the founder of Blog World Expo, John Chow of JohnChowDotCom (http://www.johnchow.com) and Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney (http://www.shoemoney.com). We’ll talk about how to deal with these difficult types of visitors and members. How to view their comments and how to manage them.
The second panel is at 3:00 PM PT and it’s called “Avoiding Disaster: How Not to Use Social Media.” On this one, I’ll be joined by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger (http://www.problogger.net) and b5media (http://www.b5media.com), Lee LeFever of Common Craft (http://www.commoncraft.com) and Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer (http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com) and Doe-Anderson (http://www.doeanderson.com).
I really feel that you learn as much from what not to do and who you don’t want to be, as you do about best practices and examples. So, that’s what this panel will focus on. We’ll talk about ways that you can damage your brand through your actions on social media outlets, such as communities, forums, blogs, social networking sites, social bookmarking and everything in between.
Q: How do you recommend new folk best experience a major conference and expo like Blogworld Expo?
This sounds funny, I guess, since I have a signing and two panels, but don’t get overly caught up in following a schedule and going to panels and being here and there. Mark your must haves and get to them, but for me, the best part of these conferences has been in networking and meeting people. And some of the best networking you do is in the hallways, at the parties, etc. Panels are great, but you don’t want to be running from place to place and forget to actually meet people and network.
I admit that I’m not the most experienced conference attendee, though. This will be just the second tech conference I’ve been to, following this year’s South by Southwest. I attended 1 panel, 1 core conversation and a handful of book readings or portions of them (mainly so that I could see what they were about before I gave mine). And yet, I don’t regret it. I had a great time and I met a lot of people. It was great. I’m looking forward to Blog World Expo being similar.
Q: Easy ones: Mac or PC? Ipod or Zune? Iphone or Blackberry?
I use PCs. I use Windows Vista Ultimate on both my desktop and laptop. My MP3 player is actually a Creative Zen Xtra, but I do have an iPod Nano that I received for free, in a giveaway, that I keep plugged into a speaker next to my bed. Cell phone wise, I don’t use one! *gasp*
Thanks for playing our game, Patrick. Hope you had a great experience at Blogworld Expo 2008.
Yeah, I know, I’m a bit late with this one. Somehow Patrick’s interview fell through the cracks but he’s an interesting chap and I wanted to get this out. So let’s just secretly agree we’ll pretend this was posted just before the Expo, not afterwards, okay? 🙂
Q: In two sentences, highlight your background and professional experience to date. One bonus sentence: how’d you get started blogging?
I own the iFroggy Network, a network of websites, and I’m the author of “Managing Online Forums“, a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. I’ve been developing websites for about 10 years and managing online communities for around 8. For me, blogging is an extension of what we’ve been doing for a very, very long time – creating content – but as far as calling it “blogging” specifically; 2004, I guess.
Q: How often do you blog? What platform do you use? Why?
Patrick O'Keefe
I blog multiple times per day. I blog at YanksBlog.com, ManagingCommunities.com, Bad Boy Blog, my personal blog and elsewhere. Right now, I use Nucleus CMS and WordPress and I am very slowly converting my Nucleus CMS sites to WordPress. I like WordPress due to it’s ease of use, reliability and excellent plugin community.
Q: Point us to one or two recent postings on your blog that you think were superb, and tell us a bit about your writing process. How long did it take for you to come up with the topic? How long to write?
Post #1: “Five Things Bad Boy Needs to Do to Improve it’s Online Strategy” on Bad Boy Blog
In this post, I took a good strong look at what Bad Boy Entertainment, a record label and company that I’m a big fan of, could do online to improve it’s strategy and, as such, make more money. This post is the result of my years of watching the company and how it operates, as well as the network of contacts that I have made within it. My writing process was rather straight forward, as I have a great deal of knowledge about this subject. I came up with the topic randomly while working and the article itself took me probably 4-5 hours to write and tweak.
I like this post just because it’s so true. The topic came to me randomly and it took me an hour or two to write it up. The writing process pulled upon my experience managing communities and being the one that people direct their anger at, when they are told that they are unable to do something.
Q: How often do you leave comments on other people’s blogs? How do you find their entries in the first place?
I would say on a virtual daily basis. I do most of my blog reading through my feedreader, Bloglines. So, that is how I find the entries.
Q: Tell us a bit about your talk at Blogworld Expo. Topic, key points you’ll cover, etc?
I have a book signing and two panels, all on Sunday, September 21. The book signing is at 10:00 AM PT. After that, the first panel is at 12:15 PM PT and it’s called “How to Deal with Trolls, Spammers and Sock Puppets.” I’ll be joined by Rick Calvert, the founder of Blog World Expo, John Chow of JohnChowDotCom (http://www.johnchow.com) and Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney (http://www.shoemoney.com). We’ll talk about how to deal with these difficult types of visitors and members. How to view their comments and how to manage them.
The second panel is at 3:00 PM PT and it’s called “Avoiding Disaster: How Not to Use Social Media.” On this one, I’ll be joined by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger (http://www.problogger.net) and b5media (http://www.b5media.com), Lee LeFever of Common Craft (http://www.commoncraft.com) and Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer (http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com) and Doe-Anderson (http://www.doeanderson.com).
I really feel that you learn as much from what not to do and who you don’t want to be, as you do about best practices and examples. So, that’s what this panel will focus on. We’ll talk about ways that you can damage your brand through your actions on social media outlets, such as communities, forums, blogs, social networking sites, social bookmarking and everything in between.
Q: How do you recommend new folk best experience a major conference and expo like Blogworld Expo?
This sounds funny, I guess, since I have a signing and two panels, but don’t get overly caught up in following a schedule and going to panels and being here and there. Mark your must haves and get to them, but for me, the best part of these conferences has been in networking and meeting people. And some of the best networking you do is in the hallways, at the parties, etc. Panels are great, but you don’t want to be running from place to place and forget to actually meet people and network.
I admit that I’m not the most experienced conference attendee, though. This will be just the second tech conference I’ve been to, following this year’s South by Southwest. I attended 1 panel, 1 core conversation and a handful of book readings or portions of them (mainly so that I could see what they were about before I gave mine). And yet, I don’t regret it. I had a great time and I met a lot of people. It was great. I’m looking forward to Blog World Expo being similar.
Q: Easy ones: Mac or PC? Ipod or Zune? Iphone or Blackberry?
I use PCs. I use Windows Vista Ultimate on both my desktop and laptop. My MP3 player is actually a Creative Zen Xtra, but I do have an iPod Nano that I received for free, in a giveaway, that I keep plugged into a speaker next to my bed. Cell phone wise, I don’t use one! *gasp*
Thanks for playing our game, Patrick. Hope you had a great experience at Blogworld Expo 2008.
Erin (@QueenOfSpain) informs us that her pet gizmo, her Nokia N95 cell phone, was lost at the TechSet party at BARE during Blogworld Expo. Hopefully it wasn’t someone with light fingers but rather a simple moment of confusion followed by someone staring at this orphaned phone, wondering what to do with it.
One way or the other, she is offering a reward and I know you’ll unquestionably get seven years of good luck if you can help her reunite with her phone! Questions? Please feel free to contact us too.
***edit by Rick***
If you are able to return this phone, BlogWorld is also kicking in a free full access pass to BlogWorld 2009. Please pass the word and lets try to get Erin her phone back.
Thank you
Rick
BlogWorld attendees were first to see this data courtesy of Technorati’s CEO Richard Jalichandra who opened the 2008 BlogWorld & New Media Expo with the highlights of this report. Today Technorati has released part 1 of 4 of the complete report. Three more segments will be released this week.
My biggest take away from this report?
More bloggers are able to make money from their efforts. As the medium builds in readership
Blogs are Profitable
The majority of bloggers we surveyed currently have advertising on their blogs. Among those with advertising, the mean annual investment in their blog is $1,800, but it’s paying off. The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month. Note: median investment and revenue (which is listed below) is significantly lower. They are also earning CPMs.
Bloggers are sophisticated in using self serve tools for search, display, and affiliate advertising, and are increasingly turning to ad and blog networks. Many bloggers without advertising may consider it when their blogs grow – the inability to set up advertising will not be a factor.
I think this is what Technorati means by the medium going mainstream. Obviously we agree here at BlogWorld.
One of the smartest social media experts I know Marshall Kirkpatrick doesn’t.
Erick Shonfeld at Techcrunch doesn’t believe the self reported earnings from bloggers:
The $6,000 a year I can believe. The $75,000 figure is harder to swallow, especially with only 100,000 visitors a month. But directionally there is no doubt that blogs are bringing in more cash.
I am not statistician but maybe serious bloggers who earn income are more likely to respond to the survey?
More thoughts at CNET, Mashable, VentureBeat, A VC,
WOW! This was an amazing weekend. My head is still spinning. I met so many great people, who said so many nice things about the show (how it was the best conference ever, the most organized, the best looking), our staff (how helpful and professional they were), the speakers (just how overwhelming the list if rockstar speakers were, how great the sessions were, how people couldn’t decide which killer session to choose from), the exhibitors (the cool swag, the great blogging tools they had, how many exhibitors there were, the sponsors (Jones Soda was a smash! with the blogger branded sodas), the attendees (how they asked great questions from the exhibitors and were so interested in what they had to offer), everyone loved the parties! So many more kudos from all of you.
Honestly I have exhibited and attended hundreds of events, organized dozens of them and never seen a group of people this happy and fulfilled with any event. People didn’t want to leave. There were tons of people on the show floor as the Freeman crew was rolling up the carpet after the exhibit hall had closed. Lots more just chatting in the new media lounge, then a few hundred more in different gatherings all over Vegas Sunday night. I tried to meet up with all of them but after the 5th bar I was worn out and had to get some sleep.
A huge thank you to all of you who spoke with me and gave your feedback. We work really really hard on BlogWorld and it is a labor of love for me personally. To hear so many compliments from so many people really means a lot so again Thank you everyone of you.
More posts and well deserved individual thank you’s to come but for now I just had to share the overall feeling of joy and satisfaction I am feeling today. It would never have happened without each and everyone of you contributing your excitement, experience, knowledge and enthusiasm. You are all what made BlogWorld such a great event this year.
THANK YOU!
Most people don’t realize how much work happens before the show starts so I thought it might be interesting to give you all a look at what goes into setting all this up. I took a little video Thursday afternoon. Feel free to flame by video skills, as they are terrible. Here are a couple of the large banners you will see when you come in:
And for all the very kind folks who volunteer to help “do something” every year at BlogWorld, this is the job that always needs to be done, that no one wants to do bag stuffing:
Glamorous isn’t it?
Yeah, on first read this seems like a daft sort of posting because the Las Vegas Hilton is immediately adjacent to the Las Vegas Convention Center. Except the LVCC is over three million square feet, more than a mile across, and you can’t get from the north side to the south side without stepping outside. So, this entry to help Blogworld Expo attendees staying at the LV Hilton to quickly and efficiently walk to the show.
If you’ve been to Vegas for one of the really big shows, like CES, you’re probably used to walking through conference halls. Since we’re not that big (yet) you can’t do that: many of the halls and areas are closed off either for other shows or because they’re setting things up for other shows. So here’s how to go…
From the lobby of the Hilton, you can either walk through the interior towards the Convention Center (it’s signed), which drops you off at point 1 (on second image, below). If you go there, walk just a little bit to point 2, so that on the side of the LVCC you see a sign “skywalk to convention center”.
It’s probably easier, however, to walk out the front door and then go outside and around to the “Garden Patio”. Walk through there and you’ll end up in the same driveway between the Hilton and the Convention Center. I marked that point 2.
From there you can either take the elevator or escalator up one floor (it’s marked “Skywalk to Convention Center”), then walk down the long, long walkway until you’re in a central atrium area. That’s the north hall, however, not where we’re actually holding Blogworld.
That’s why from that point you need to go downstairs and out into the sunshine. Now just walk away from the Hilton (south), across Desert Inn Road and to where you’ll see the South Hall and Blogworld. The route I’m suggesting is marked in yellow on the below image, with the destination marked as “3”. The green route is an alternative all-outdoors route, but don’t be fooled, it’ll add 5-10 minutes to your walk. The convention center is really, really big:
Walking Routes from Hilton to Blogworld at LVCC
Congrats! You found us. Just go upstairs and we’ll be waiting for you!
Thanks to Brett Bumeter for tweaking and improving the second image to help make this more coherent!
You’re coming to Blogworld and New Media Expo 2008 here in Las Vegas. In fact, you might already be here. But how do you keep track of what’s going on, who is meeting up at what bars or nightclubs, what parties are happening, and even which talks at the conference are worth joining and which aren’t?
I’m glad you asked!
If you’re technologically adept, one smart strategy you could use is to utilize Twitter Search (aka Summize) and have a bookmarked search for “blogworld”, “blog world”, “#bwe” and “#bwe08”. That’ll catch all the public tweets that are related to the show, even from people you don’t follow. Very useful!
For major geek points, if you’re on an iPhone you can just “Add to Home Screen” your saved search and now you’ll have a handy little icon for this search, making it even easier to keep track of what’s happening.
In addition, some of us seem to be magnets for activities, so it’d probably also be smart to follow Rick Calvert, our fearless leader, at @Blogworld and you might also follow me – @DaveTaylor – too.
Are you also someone who is going to be twittering about the activities and events here at Blogworld Expo? If so, please leave your Twitter handle in the comments below this message.
If you aren’t here, well, you can enjoy this amazing event vicariously through our twitterstream but if I were you, I’d beg, borrow or steal and get here to Las Vegas instead!
First of all a huge thank you to Joe Morin and Brett Tabke from Pubcon for making this happen. Second a Huge Thank You to the folks from MGM/Mirage, Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil for their generosity in donating all of the tickets and for being such a cutting edge company that realizes the influence of the Blogosphere and new media.
This program was a huge success at last year’s Pubcon and I was immediately jealous when I saw what they had done. Completely by coincidence Joe and I met about a month ago at New Media Expo and he said we might be able to pull this off for BlogWorld. About three weeks of hard work and organization from Joe and Brett and off we go.
So here is the deal, the tickets are free to all BlogWorld attendees on a first come first serve basis. Every show is certain to sell out so sign up ASAP. I would highly recommend going to the Thursday night showing if you can as there will be fewer bloggers in town then vs. Friday.
All the MGM/Mirage folks are asking is that you write an honest review of the show you see. It is not required but if they are cool enough to give you a $100 + ticket I hope you are decent enough to follow up and write the review on your blog. They don’t want puff pieces. They want your honest opinion if you loved it let them know, if you hated it, then explain why.
When you post your review, please link back to this post.
Here is the Blogger’s Night Out Schedule with all of the available shows and times:
Thursday September 18th
7:30 p.m.
8:00 p.m. (tickets must be picked up by 6pm or they will be released back to general sales pool)
Friday September 19th
Between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Blog World attendees can ride the coaster for free with their conference badge – up to the first 200 attendees each day. Be sure you bring your badge if you want to ride the roller coaster!
Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat
Between 12:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. BlogWorld attendees may obtain free admission with their badge. Be sure you bring your badge if you want to get in!
7:00 p.m.
7:30 p.m.
Now how do you get your tickets?
Go to this website and sign up, you will get an email verifying you have registered. Click the link and log in. You will then get an email from Brett asking which show you want tickets for. Just reply with your request.
The pubon folks will be at Blogworld Thursday afternoon and all day Friday. You will need to pick up your tickets directly from them.
Counting the roller coaster there are over 1,000 tickets available. This is a huge program that MGM/Mirage has put together for us. So if you feel inspired to just thank them in general please be sure and link back to this post with anything like that as well.
Recent Comments