Are You Gonna Miss the One Conference You Don’t Want to Miss?

It is amazing to me the amount of emails and questions I get asking me what conference I would recommend if someone could select one or two to attend per year. Each year my answer changes a little based on how my experience was with the last years conferences and the feedback I heard from the many attendees.

Now I enjoy the various conferences, most of them, for various reasons, but the one thing that always bugged me was the crowding of panels, lack of communication among panel speakers prior to the sessions, and not properly setting up the panels to have clear discussions about a single topic.

It wasn’t until I attended IM Spring Break, put on by Search & Social, that I found myself on more targeted panels, with plenty of time to present and answer all questions. We covered topics that were more targeted, like an in depth look at Delicious and how it can be used to get keyword suggestions through its user’s tags and a complete session on how to create compelling social media content that would perform and get the results you wanted.

Maybe it was the fact that the organizers of the event were speakers themselves and respected enough in the industry, that they were able to get the top experts from around the world to speak for them. Maybe it was the fact that the sessions were targeted and had only 2 to 3 experts max, with plenty of time for Q&A afterwards. Maybe it was less commercial and thus filled with attendees who really had a passion for internet marketing. Maybe it was the all night round tables we ended up having because of the limited tickets and conference setup.

All I know was when I left a Search & Social conference I felt re-energized, excited, and had a ton of new things to try. And it was this that made me start recommending their conferences as the one not to miss no matter what.

Search & Social has since merged with 10e20, myself, and Second Step Search to form BlueGlass Interactive, Inc, but that has not stopped the amazing conferences to stop coming. And the best part… the quality doesn’t suffer. The tickets are still limited, the sessions still very targeted with lots of Q&A time, and the speakers are still some of the top internet marketing experts in the world.

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BlueGlass LA is being held in LA at the Marina del Rey Marriott Hotel and has one of the best conference lineups I have seen.

BlueGlass LA is definitely my number one must attend conference for the year, and that is not just because I am attending or speaking, but because it has the best speakers, the best history for results, and the best sessions.

Don’t take my word for it, check out what others are saying about BlueGlass LA:

http://www.seobook.com/blueglass-la

http://lalawag.com/2010/06/10/tony-adam-helps-launch-blueglass-la/

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2010/07/blueglass-conference-to-debut-in-la/

So if you have not registered yet, you should definitely get your ticket now –> http://blueglassla.eventbrite.com/

Speakers include:

Tony Adam

Tony Adam, Sr. Marketing Manager, MySpace

Tony Adam has been involved in technology since 2000 and received a B.S. in Computer Science from Mt. Sierra College in 2004. Specifically, as it relates to Search Engine Marketing, Tony has been working in the industry since 2003 and has worked with many organizations from early stage startups, SMBs, and Fortune 500 companies like PayPal and Yahoo!. He has also had a great deal of experience with product development, social media, sales/business development and technology.

At Yahoo!, Tony was an SEO Program Manager where he worked on SEO and led the charge for content promotion via Social Media for many of the 40+ Yahoo! Media properties, such as: Yahoo! Games and Sports. While at BillShrink as Director of Search Marketing, he headed up Traffic Acquisition by leading SEO, social media and content production and distribution.

Currently, Tony is Sr. Online Marketing Manager for MySpace, where he is focused on traffic and new user acquisition. He will head up strategy via SEO to promote various content and profiles on MySpace, along with leveraging social media for the promotion of that content.

Adam Audette

Adam Audette, President/CEO, AudetteMedia

Adam is president and CEO of the internet marketing boutique, AudetteMedia, Inc. AudetteMedia specializes in advanced SEO and works with premier brands including University of Phoenix, Charming Shoppes, Zappos, Gannett, Kroger, and Amazon. A frequent speaker at search conferences worldwide, Adam has been active in the search marketing industry since 1996. You can read his blog at http://www.audettemedia.com/blog and follow him at http://twitter.com/audette.

Loren Baker

Loren Baker, SVP on Online PR, BlueGlass

Prior to assuming his position at BlueGlass, Loren co-founded Search & Social, an agency specializing in innovative search marketing and social media engagement tactics. Loren is a pioneer in the search marketing industry. He is the Managing Editor of Search Engine Journal, an AdAge Top 10 blog that he created in 2003 to cover search marketing news and tactics. Over the last decade, Loren has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, universities, financial institutions, and startups. He has successfully assisted them with the development of their strategic online marketing campaigns.

Loren has been featured on CNN, NPR, PCWorld, BusinessWeek, ZDNet, PRWeek, TechCrunch, Mashable, and AdAge and is a regular speaker at SMX, Pubcon, and other conference series. He was a member of advisory panels at Yahoo and Microsoft Search.

Greg Boser

Greg Boser, President and CEO, 3 Dog Media

Greg Boser (aka WebGuerrilla) is an internet marketing consultant who has specialized in search engine optimization since 1996. Having served as President of WebGuerrilla, LLC for over 10 years, Greg has now launched 3 Dog Media, a new full service internet marketing company that supports more client needs than traditional SEO. 3 Dog Media provides a fresh look at how to maximize Web 2.0 in any vertical, while grasping every SEO opportunity.

Greg Boser has been quoted in Newsweek, WSJ, as well as having been a former moderator for WMW. You may also recognize Greg from his weekly radio show ‘SEO Rockstars’ on WebmasterRadio.FM. Greg has been speaking in the conference circuit since 1999.

3 Dog Media specializes in SEO, SMM, Reputation Management and WordPress Development.

Jessica Bowman

Jessica Bowman, Founder, SEOinhouse.com

Jessica Bowman, founder of SEOinhouse.com, is a leader within the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry and a long-time advocate of in-house SEO. You will benefit from Jessica’s knowledge of how to create a sustainable SEO strategy, take your SEO program to the next level and leverage your existing resources to produce the maximum return on SEO investment.

For companies that are new to in-house SEO, Jessica gets SEO programs up and running quickly, systematically and profitably. Her diverse experience in project management, website usability, and process analysis, enables her to give meaningful insight into your online marketing strategy and makes SEO an asset to your organization. Led by Jessica, SEOinhouse.com offers a wide range of services that include: SEO Audits & Roadmaps, SEO Training, SEO Process Development, Social Media and Link Building.

Michael Brito

Michael Brito, VP of Social Media at Edelman Digital

Michael Brito is currently the Vice President of Social Media at Edelman Digital. His principal areas of expertise include digital marketing, social media and integrated brand marketing communications through the social web. He currently provides strategic counsel, guidance and best practices to one of Edelman’s top global accounts.

Michael joined Edelman in November 2009 after two years of working for Intel Corporation where he served as a global social media strategist focusing on the consumer segment. He was instrumental in driving social media programs, campaigns and initiatives emphasizing authenticity and long-term relationship building with influencers and consumers. He is currently on the Interim Board of Directors for the Social Media Club, a business advisor for Izea, Inc. and is the founder of Silicon Valley Tweetup. He is a frequent speaker at BlogWorld Expo, MarketingProfs Dimgital Mixer as well as a guest lecturer at local universities in the Bay Area to include Cal Berkeley, Stanford and Saint Mary’s College.

Lawrence Coburn

Lawrence Coburn, CEO and Co-Founder, DoubleDutch

Lawrence Coburn is the CEO and co-founder of DoubleDutch – the first geolocation platform for the enterprise.  Previously, Lawrence founded RateItAll, a top ten consumer review property.  He is also an Editor at The Next Web’s geolocation blog, and a mentor at io ventures – a San Francisco based startup incubator.

Brent Csutoras

Brent Csutoras, SVP of Viral Marketing, BlueGlass

A regular speaker at some of the largest and well known conferences such as SMX, Pubcon, SES, and InfoPresse, Brent has also been featured in Forbes, interviewed for Entrepreneur, and was recently recognized as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Online Marketers of 2008 and 2009.

Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin, CEO and CO-Founder, SEOmoz

Rand Fishkin is the CEO & Co-Founder of SEOmoz, a leader in the field of search engine optimization tools, resources & community. In 2009, he co-authored the Art of SEO from O’Reilly Media and was named among the 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30 by BusinessWeek. Rand has been written about it in The Seattle Times, Newsweek and the NY Times among others and keynoted conferences on search around the world. He’s particularly passionate about the SEOmoz blog, read by tens of thousands of search professionals each day. In his miniscule spare time, Rand enjoys the company of his amazing wife, Geraldine.

Vanessa Fox

Vanessa Fox, Founder, Nine by Blue

Vanessa Fox, called a “cyberspace visionary” by Seattle Business Monthly, is an expert in understanding customer acquisition from organic search. She shares her perspective on how this impacts marketing and user experience at ninebyblue.com and provides authoritative search-friendly design patterns for developers at janeandrobot.com. She’s also an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners, Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, and host of the weekly podcast Office Hours.

She previously created Google’s Webmaster Central, which provides both tools and community to help website owners improve their sites to gain more customers from search and was instrumental in the sitemaps.org alliance of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search. She was named one of Seattle’s 2008 top 25 innovators and entrepreneurs. Her book, Marketing in the Age of Google, provides a blueprint for incorporating search strategy into organizations of all levels.

Todd Friesen

Todd Friesen, VP of Search, Position Technologies

Todd Friesen is an SEO strategist and consultant. He was most recently Vice President of Search Strategies at Visible Technologies, overseeing the TruView and Search departments. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calgary and is considered to be an SEO pioneer.

He entered the SEO world in 1998 and has since worked with top-name clients like Sharper Image, Nike, Neiman Marcus, and Accor Hotels North America on natural search optimization. Prior to joining Visible Technologies, Todd was the Director of SEO for Range Online Media where he managed SEO campaigns for large B2C online retailers such as Macys.com and CompUSA. He is an expert in search engine marketing, a former administrator at Webmasterworld.com, and a former moderator for Search Engine Watch Forums. He is co-host of the popular SEO Rockstars show on WebmasterRadio.FM, as well as a regular speaker at SMX and other conferences. He also participates on WebmasterWorld’s conference advisory board.

Ben Huh

Ben Huh, CEO, Cheezburger Network

Ben is a former journalist turned dot com entrepreneur who has a knack for
nailing the zeitgeist. He has been credited with bringing Internet memes to
the mainstream and popularizing Internet culture. The success of his
business is attributed to his knowledge of memes, viral content, and crowd
sourcing. Ben graduated with a BSJ from Northwestern University’s Medill
School of Journalism.

JR  Johnson

JR Johnson, CEO and Founder, Lunch.com

J.R. Johnson is the CEO and founder of Lunch.com, an online community that helps people share and discover relevant information, opinions and ideas.  It is based on the premise that finding our common ground with one another online will help to make the world more tolerant and understanding.

Before starting Lunch, Johnson launched the user-generated content website VirtualTourist.com in 2000. Under his leadership, VirtualTourist grew to one of the largest online travel communities in the world earning multiple honors, including Time Magazine’s‘Recommended Travel Forum,’ Newsweek’s ‘Favorite Website,’ and one of Travel + Leisure’s ‘35 Best Travel Sites’.

In 2004, Johnson launched OneTime.com, an online meta comparison tool focused on booking flights and hotels. Both websites were trending over 8 million monthly users and in 2008 when Johnson sold them to Expedia.

A Southern California native, J.R. attended the University of Southern California and graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Entrepreneurship, he also holds a Juris Doctorate from S.M.U. Law School. Being a pioneer in the field of user-generated content and a frequent speaker at industry events, Johnson co-founded the Lunch for Good series, a program designed to encourage offline discussions and thought leadership around issues core to the future of online participation.

Jordan Kasteler

Jordan Kasteler, SVP of Content Development

Prior to joining BlueGlass, Jordan co-founded Search & Social, an industry leader in search engine optimization and social media marketing.

Jordan received the Social Media Club’s Best Social Media Content Guru award in 2009, is a regular speaker at various Internet marketing conferences, and a regular contributor to SearchEngineLand and SearchEngineJournal.

Laura  Lippay

Laura Lippay, Director of Technical Marketing, Yahoo! Media

Laura Lippay was most recently the Director of Technical Marketing for Yahoo! Media, where she and her team were responsible for determining monetizable Search and Social Media opportunities across dozens of the top internet properties in their verticals and working with internal product teams to act on them. Laura was also responsible for evangelizing SEO and Social Media, and building the in-house program to ensure long-term successes. Laura conducted regular SEO training and Social Media events at Yahoo and is a speaker at multiple conferences including Search Marketing Expo, Search Engine Strategies, Online Marketing Summit, and more. Prior to working at Yahoo!, Laura was the SEO specialist at CNET Networks, where she helped develop the in-house SEO program. Previous to CNET, Laura was manager of interactive media (loosely subtitled The Goddess of Chaos and Harmony) at The Linus Group, a Bay Area marketing firm. And before she got into the online space Laura traveled the country as a performer for The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Andy  Liu

Andy Liu, CEO of BuddyTV

Andy Liu is CEO of BuddyTV, the largest independently held TV site on the Internet. Prior to BuddyTV, Mr. Liu served as President and CEO of NetConversions from 1999-2004 prior to its sale to aQuantive and served as VP and GM of its Site Optimization unit from 2004-2005. He is also a founder of a non-profit that is focused on technology in developing countries and is very passionate about entrepreneurship.

Mr. Liu brings deep experience in building companies, site optimization, viral marketing, SEO, community building and product development. In 2003, he was named to Puget Sound Business Journal’s “40 Under 40.” In 2010, he was named Best Angel Investor by Seattle 2.0 in 2010 having invested in over 20 early stage deals including Cheezburger Network, Bonanzle, Judy’s Book, and Evo Gear.  Mr. Liu received his MBA from Wharton.

Dave McClure

Dave McClure, Co-Founder, Startup2StartupFinance4Founders

Dave McClure likes to hang out with entrepreneurs, and occasionally help or invest in their startups if they let him. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. Many years ago he used to do real work like coding or marketing or running conferences, but these days he mostly does useless stuff like sending lots of email, blogging, and hanging out on Facebook and Twitter. Dave also likes to play ultimate frisbee when his knees don’t hurt.

Melanie Mitchell

Melanie Mitchell, SVP/Search Marketing Strategy at Digitas

Melanie Mitchell is the SVP of Search Strategy at Digitas. She is responsible for managing the Digitas Search Engine Marketing Knowledge Center (SEO/SEM) that ensures industry trends, new strategies and tactics, and best practices are continuously shared, enabling Digitas to stay on the forefront of this ever-evolving industry for the agency and their clients. Prior to this role, Melanie was VP of Marketing at Folio Investments, Inc where she was responsible for all search/online/offline marketing and PR; VP of SEO/SEM at AOL where she developed strategy, processes, procedures, tracking technology, reporting and managed the team tasked with driving traffic to AOL.com’s open web business via paid and organic search; and was a Sr. Marketing Manager at VeriSign/Network Solutions where she managed direct response marketing campaigns through online, PPC, SEO and strategic alliances for both Network Solutions and NameSecure.com.

Melanie has over twelve years of experience in web site promotion and over ten years experience in search marketing for major sites across several industries including travel, local, entertainment, finance, ecommerce, news and sports. She has managed SEO and PPC campaigns both in-house as well as from the agency side. In addition to her online, search marketing and advertising expertise, Melanie has a strong background in offline/print marketing and meeting planning, having spent 5 years working for a number of nonprofit agencies in the DC area planning large scale meetings and conventions.

Melanie is a speaker at Pubcon, Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Search Engine Strategies (SES), AdTech, Searchnomics, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), and other noted roundtables as Business Wire and the National Women’s Business Center. She is also on the Advisory Board for Webmasterworld’s Pubcon.

Melanie graduated from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Marketing.

Jason Nazar

Jason Nazar, Co-Founder and CEO, Docstoc.com
Jason is the Co-Founder and CEO of Docstoc.com, the premier online community to find and share professional documents. Before starting Docstoc, he was a partner in a venture consulting firm in Los Angeles where he worked with dozens of startups. He holds a BA from UCSB and his JD/MBA from Pepperdine University, where he was the Student Body President of both Universities.

Neil Patel

Neil Patel, Co-Founder, Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. Through these 2 companies he has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Micah Baldwin, CEO,Graphic.ly

Micah is CEO and Chief Community Caretaker of Graphic.ly, which provides an immersive social experience and marketplace around digital comics and associated merchandise. Previously, Micah was VP, Business Development and Chief Evangelist for Lijit Networks, the sixth startup Micah has been involved in (having sold his last startup, Current Wisdom, in the beginning of 2007.

Micah got his start as a university fundraiser, being one of the first to fuze online activities and marketing strategies into alumni fund-raising. In 1996, he sent one of the first email campaigns to help drive alumni fundraising. Over his career, Micah helped universities such as The Catholic University of America and the University of San Diego see their annual giving programs grow by more than 150%.

Focusing on business development, online marketing and advertising, and product strategy, Micah was instrumental in the growth of companies such as MyPersonal (now Synacor – IPO), ServiceMagic (acquired by IAC), Indigio Group (acquired by Bridgeline Software) and other less successful startups, such as Kozmo.com.

Micah has helped author several books on internet and search marketing, and started the #followfriday meme on Twitter, which has become part of the fabric of the social web. A frequent speaker and with appearances on CNN and articles in many of the leading blogs, including Mashable and ReadWriteWeb, you can read about Micah’s philosophy of success through failure here on this blog.

Dave Roth

Dave Roth, Director of Search Marketing at Yahoo

David Roth is the Director of Search Marketing at Yahoo!, Inc. In this capacity David guides SEM and SEO strategy across all Yahoo! properties, overseeing programs, managing infrastructure teams, and establishing internal best practices and campaign management standards. He has been in the search marketing industry since 1999, recently working with Carat Fusion, a full-service advertising agency, as the Director of Search Engine Marketing in the San Francisco office.  Previously, Roth worked with Avenue A/Razorfish, eonMedia and Inceptor. Roth holds an MBA from U.C. San Diego, and a BA in Sociology from U.C. Berkeley.

Marshall Simmonds

Marshall Simmonds, Chief Search Strategist, New York Times Company/About.com, Co-Founder and CEO, Define Search Strategies

Marshall D. Simmonds is a pioneer and leading expert in the search marketing industry. He speaks at conferences worldwide and specializes in educating organizations on bringing search marketing in-house and into the daily work flow.

Mr. Simmonds was responsible for building About.com into the most successful search engine optimized content network on the Internet.  Acquired in March, 2005 by The New York Times he was named chief search strategist and is responsible for strategic initiatives, maximizing traffic and search engine exposure for NYTimes.com, Boston.com, IHT.com and About.com.

In addition to his work with The Times, he co-founded DEFINE SEARCH STRATEGIES,www.DefineSS.com an enterprise search consulting business, funded by The New York Times Company. Most recently he created SearchCLU the network diagnostic and search engine optimization tool.

As a leader in the search industry since 1997, Mr. Simmonds has worked with a multitude of clients including; Hearst Digital Publications, Time Inc Interactive, Newsweek, ConsumerSearch, TV Guide, ToysRUs, ESPN International, NHL.com, Real Age, David’s Bridal, Beliefnet, Daily Candy, Oprah.com, Madison Square Garden, National Geographic, Rainbow Media, Littlewoods.co.uk, Consumer-Source/Apartment Guide, Hewlett-Packard, Gerson Lehrman Group, Lime.com, TechTarget, CBS, The Canadian Broadcast Company, The Pilot Group,  Readers Digest, Contours Express, Medialive, Gawker Media, Intel, Citigroup, Home Shopping Network, CitySearch, Yellow Pages, TicketMaster, Match.com, Entertainment.com, Hotwire.com, LendingTree, Hotels.com, Expedia, Evite, Ciao!com (.de).

Dave Snyder

Dave Snyder, SVP of Organic Search, BlueGlass

Dave is one of the most respected names in the world of Internet marketing. He has spoken around the world on the topics of search marketing and social media, and has consulted for some of the worlds largest companies on the topics. Dave parlayed his gifts as a former teacher and writer into his current role as a thought leader in the arena of search marketing. He is also one of the publishers of SearchEngineJournal and DailySEOTip, where he shares his unique perspective on concepts related to search marketing.

Dave’s strengths lie in both organic and paid search marketing, and he excels in utilizing social media for brand building and online reputation management. Dave is considered one of the foremost authorities on link marketing.

Mark Suster

Mark Suster, Partner, GRP Partners

Mark joined GRP Partners in 2007 after having worked with GRP for nearly 8 years as a two-time entrepreneur. Most recently Mark was Vice President, Product Management at Salesforce.com (NASDAQ: CRM) following its acquisition of Koral,where Mark was Founder and CEO. Prior to Koral, Mark was Founder and CEO of BuildOnline, the largest independent global content collaboration
company focused on the engineering and construction sectors,
which was acquired by SWORD Group (PARIS: SWP). Earlier in his career, Mark spent nearly ten years working for Accenture in Europe, Japan and the U.S.

Mark received a BA in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He grew up in the U.S. and is also a citizen of the UK.

In the current portfolio, Mark sits on the Boards of Ad.lyBedrockBurstlyGumGum and Ring Revenue and is a Board Observer of Qualys.

David Szetela

David Szetela, CEO, miClix Marketing

Clix Marketing is one of the few agencies that specializes exclusively in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, creating and optimizing clients Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter advertising campaigns. Clix is also one of the few agencies paid according to their performance as a percentage of profit or a commission per sales lead generated.

Szetela’s 25+-year career working for small magazine publishers as well as Apple Computer and Ziff-Davis Publishing has provided him deep experience in direct response marketing. His articles on PPC advertising have been published in MediaPost, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land, MarketingSherpa, on his company’s blog, http://www.clixmarketing.com/blog. He is the Principal PPC Editor of the paper and online publication SEMJ.org and the PPC expert faculty member for the online certification company Market Motive. He is also a frequent speaker at Search and Advertising industry events like Search Engine Strategies, SMX, PPC Summit and ad:tech, and he hosts a weekly radio show called PPC Rockstars, distributed by Webmasterradio.fm and iTunes.

His book on PPC Content Advertising, Customers Now, was published in November 2009, and his Wiley/Sybex book, PPC Advertising on One Hour a Day, will be published in May 2010.

Chris Winfield

Chris Winfield, CMO, BlueGlass

Before joining BlueGlass, Chris co-founded and served as President of 10e20, one of the leading boutique social media marketing agencies in the world.

Chris has helped many of the world’s largest magazines and newspapers increase traffic, develop natural links, and increase profitability. He has taught global corporations, such as Viacom, NBC Universal, Thomson Reuters, Intuit, HomeAway and AT&T, to leverage social media in innovative ways. Chris has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, The Boston Globe, Entrepreneur Magazine, and over 200 other media outlets. He is also a regular speaker at numerous Internet marketing conferences including SES, SMX, Pubcon, DPAC, LegalTech, DM Days, RMC, Elite Retreat, and IBM 2.0.

Comments

One Response to “Are You Gonna Miss the One Conference You Don’t Want to Miss?”

  1. Rakesh Solanki on July 9th, 2010 1:52 pm

    This is great opportunity to me that i saw all of these people. Specially Loren, i am huge fan of his articles.

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