So day 2... I slept through a good bit of it due to Bourbon Street blues. Lots of fun down there, but the smell is sorta weird.
Barry apparently was blogging all day while I took a nap. I was thinking of some of the non SEO marketing that was going on.
Size of Conference:
I think I overheard Brett Tabke say there are about 1,100 people at the conference. I believe there were around 800 people at the last one. Some of my friends have booths and said the conference is slow and some said the conference is going good. Food at the booths is key.
Buttons:
PR Web has buttons with numbers on them. There are three matching sets out of a ton of buttons. If you find your matching number you win a few hundred dollars. Fairly cheap good viral type marketing there.
Drinking:
Lots of that going on.
Food:
as a big eater :) I notice food often. Nobody at any of the booths had any food. They might just be feeding tire kickers, but someone should have food at their booths for those hungover people who have not yet ate.
Spam:
I think DaveN had different spam shirts on each of the 1st two days.
Where to Spam: Meet the Engineers:
Google had a meet the engineers session. A different engineer sat at each table and fielded various questions. People were on some of them like hawks and the accoustics in the room were not good. Demand sorta outstripped supply, but some of the engineers also took time to chat in the bar afterwords, which was good on them.
I got 3 sites manually reviewed and booted from Google while asking questions. I am joking, but one of my buddies said some people were asking specific questions about their own casino URLs. Not a good idea IMHO. Those of my friends who did talk to the engineers said the SEO answers were usually a bit generic.
As time passes Google is making SEO harder and harder and advertising easier and easier. If you heard any cool nuggets today you would want to share please post them in the comments.
Collectors Item:
Google had good food and gave away huricane glasses that change color when you hit the bottom of them. So long as I do not break it before I get home I will give one away on this blog soon.
Google AdWords coupon status:
They appear to be a bit harder to get than in the past. I have grabbed one $100 coupon so far. I will continue to try to grab more as time passes. Here is the redemption code of the first one: 304555452508. It is for new accounts only. Of course whoever reads this first and redeems it first wins it, and if you tried it and it was already redeemed please comment on the blog.
Name Tags:
Most name tags say
name
job
company
mine says
Aaron Wall
Aaron Wall
Aaron Wall
I can't tell you how many people have loudly asked me why I was not putting SEO Book.com on my name tag. I like not taking myself seriously, and when people ask that they help market my site. hehehe.
I also liked Shak's dot communist tag :)
Personal:
I am usually a bit quiet and reserved in person (perhaps due to a bit of social anxiety from not leaving the house as much as I should). I find it cool how many people have said hi and chatted with me.
It is also interesting meeting people in person. Sometimes you guess them perfectly, and sometimes people are way different on and off the web.
Test Sites:
Many of the best SEOs use a variety of sites to collect algorithmic feedback. By running your own sites of various size and quality you can help grab a ton of market research data about what the search engines are doing, of course some people tend to find facts that match what they want to prove.
Converging Business Models:
It is interesting to talk to various people and learn how business models at different companies are converging.
