• Blogworld 2008 – Observations

    Posted on September 23rd, 2008 by and currently 8 commenting.

    I spent last weekend in the always fun Las Vegas where I had the opportunity to speak at Blogworld. It was my first time at the event and I must say that it was an interesting time with a lot of good people and great conversations.

    Here are a couple of completely random thoughts:

    1) Dot com names are still weird. Walking the floor I met some great people that have some very new, innovative products, but I couldn’t help but get hung up on their names. Zemanta? TechZulu? GooseGrade? Disqus? It sounds like we’re still in the dot com boom.

    2) The blogosphere can be considered mature now, right? And we’re all still trying to figure it out. There were so many great sessions and intelligent questions that all boiled down to a couple of common things: How can I get more traffic to my blog? What about content? and How can I monetize my blog?

    3) Blogging is a tactic. A good one, mind you, to open the kimono and start conversations. But it’s still a piece of a larger puzzle. Ninety-two percent of word of mouth happens offline. So how do we utilize blogs to support offline efforts and vise-versa? And I’m not talking support traditional advertising. Let’s think bigger than that.

    Next weekend both Geno and I will be at BlogOrlando and we’re looking forward to it. Give a shout if you’ll be there, too!

  • http://www.goosegrade.com John Brooks Pounders

    We tried to find more straight forward domains but none were available. Personally I’m enjoying the branding opportunities the “goose” in gooseGrade is giving us.

    Thanks for talking to us and we can’t wait to launch, hopefully you’ll check us out. :D

    -JBP

  • http://orangejack.com Rob Williams

    Looking forward to seeing y’all at BlogOrlando.

  • http://www.zemanta.com/blog Andraz Tori

    Hi,

    is Zemanta really such a strange name?

    :)

    bye
    andraz from Zemanta

  • http://brainsonfire.com Spike

    Yes, yes it is.

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  • http://brainsonfire.com Robbin

    So Andraz, is there a compelling story the name Zemanta? Just curious.

  • http://blog.herestogirlfriends.com/ Carolyn S. aka @wadesmom

    I attended the “What Women Want” session where Spike spoke (Spike Speaks – it has potential)and was blown away by the creativity of the Fisk-a-teers campaign. Years ago I attended the very first Comdex where attendees were wearing backpacks and Birkenstocks. BlogWorld reminds me of that experience – still young, excited and exciting and finding its way. I don’t think the blogosphere is exactly “mature”; maybe late adolescence

  • http://zoomalbumellen.typepad.com Ellen Marden

    Great points Spike! Your presentation was fabulous. Great to meet you…and thanks for taking the time with me to brainstorm…much appreciated. I love those fisk-a-teers!