Things I Learned At The Blog Business Summit
I had a blast at the Blog Business Summit. A couple of observations from about 30,000 feet up...
1) Want to make money with a blog you write? Then...
A) Get hired by Google and start collecting stock options or...
B) Sign up for Google AdSense and AdWords and find a really niche subject nobody else is blogging (yet).
FWIW, folks are beginning to see blips from MSN Search and Yahoo search engines as well.
2) The next browser wars == search engine wars -- and the spoils are the advertising revenue that comes to the winner(s).
3) Blogging (and more specifically, it's attending friends podcasting and vblogging) are the next logical steps in reality TV.
4) For the first time at a non-Microsoft event I never heard a disparaging remark about Microsoft come from the floor (OK, maybe one or two, but truly in jest). If anything, folks really appreciate the Microsoft blogging and more than once I heard it put a human face on the Microsoft Monolith (which was badly needed, in their opinion).
5) You get a big smile and throwing-head-backwards-laugh from Chris Pirillo the moment you use the word 'ecosystem' in a sentence referring to any Microsoft project or software. If you ever have him over for dinner, it's a great parlor trick. (Note to self: have implanted corporate chip disabled before next conference and find a good synonym for ecosystem).
6) Blogging is about relationships transcending time and distance.
7) In some sense, blogging is all about word of mouth advertising, even if that advertising only takes the form of 'I am [insert what you are here] -- hear me roar!'.
8) Blogging is one solution to the Big Box Retail Syndrome. BBRS == Asking the clerk for help on purchasing [insert item here] and they don't know jack about the product. Retail used to be very personal (remember the small town hardware store that had *everything* you could possibly need and everyone in the store new exactly what to do with the thing you needed? You don't know about something you want to purchase? Find a blog and hang out for a week reading the posts and you'll want to forget more than you learned.
9) People can't say enough good things about Movable Type the product, Six Apart the company or Mena Trott, the President and co-founder of same.
10) Email Newsletters are the 'old busted' -- Blogs are the 'new hotness'. (Those terms courtesy of EthanZ, or from whomever he heard them from.)
11) I could have sworn at least a few times I heard "Robert Scoble?!?!?! <wayneandgarth>We're not worthy! We're not worthy!</wayneandgarth>" in the halls.
I learned a lot about the Blogosphere the past two days, and my neophyte blogging brain is just whirring away at the possibilities in this space. Thanks to all the presenters for filling my cortex with such fun and merriment!
