BLOGGERS BANQUET

This past weekend was exhausting but informative. Blogging has come a long way-beyond the guerrila reporting from remote locations or exposing big business, or just as a means to post your vacation pics. Now blogs are the gateways to making/breaking the latest products/services, allowing the masses immediate access to reviews of food, wine, entertainment, and celebrating the connections of socio-political networking in cultural/lifestyle communities.

Overall it was a really good experience.

Only three downfalls:
1. I was surprised that the panels focused on Google Analytics as the main measuring tool out there. I guess since Google owns the the US internet market, that's the most accessible one. I would have like to learn of others as well.

2. Monetization on blogs. None of the speakers addressed exactly how to strategize partnerships, product sponsorships, or anything other than where to place a banner ad and join my advertising community and you can find out how it works. I think the info emphasised the realistic world of "not everyone will make money on blogs." Which I was already aware of, but I hoped it would go a little farther.

3. My only other downer was how little was put on design for mutliple reader/web/mobile devices-but I'm biased and I only have myself to blame for going to another presentation over the blog visual critique session. I would be too focused on the web appearance and not on function/organization of content. I'd prolly sound like an a-hole anyway.

As for the upside:

My favorite topic/speaker: corporate blogs. The golden rule learned is that corporate blogs to be TRANSPARENT.

Let your commentors have a discussion with you on whatever you have posted on your blog. Don't shy away from negative feedback. Acknowledge when your company has made a major mistake. A great example of this was brought up by Doug Karr's discussion on what makes a great corporate blog. The company blog Karr exemplified was a West Coast server host company that had a major malfunction with it's switching over of several data centers. I'm not a system's administrator or a server/hosting guru, so some of the jargon mentioned is over my head.

Dreamhost's Anatomy of an Ongoing Disaster, explains how DreamHost eff'ed up and what they did to fix it. If you check out the comments you will find there's more positive feedback on the situation for the company being "transparent." The companies I've worked for in the past, would never compare themselves to the exploding Hindenberg or peering into the eye of a hurricane, while announcing that they have lost their clients data.

The rest of the experience was fantastic since I met some kewl bloggers out there. Check out intellagirl, indy theatre habit, moosh in indy , or photrade when you get a chance.

I have a feeling next year the conference will double in participation. It has a great foundation to start with. And if you have a Indiana based blog sign up for the blog Indiana census.