Web 2.0 Expo: Darwinism on the Web- Surviving and Thriving in a Web 2.0 World
Session Description: Keeping up with what’s new is enough of a challenge, learning what to embrace and adopt, and how to do so cost effectively is the key to leading the pack. Learn how to prepare your organization up to keep pace with the new speed of innovation. Sponsored by CoreMedia.
This session took place Wednesday, April 1, 2009. The speaker:
- Sören Stamer, CoreMedia
This was one of my favorite sessions. Sören was a wonderful, engaging speaker, and his accent was not a hindrance in the least. While the other sponsored sessions were often big commercials for the sponsored company, I really appreciated that Sören left the CoreMedia plug for the end and kept it relatively short. I enjoyed sitting through this session!
Bullet Point Review!
- You need to remain agile in this environment.
- Example: RateMyCop.com
- Cirsis is much bigger. Some say we get collectively smarter, but we probably get collectively dumber.
- Web 2.0 is fundamental change.
- 10 patterns that might be useful:
- Websites Evolve: Content used to be king but it’s all about engaging people
- Harley Davidson did a good job of creating a tribe.
- The feedback loops rule.
- Engage in Conversations
- Be Personal
- Make Your Ideas More Contagious
- Personal resonance counts
- iPhone is an example – you touch what you like
- Use Established Paradigms
- Open & focused wins (Amazon)
- Open Up and Do Less
- Evolution is hard to predict
- Let It Go
- People pay for attention
- Provide Ways to Earn Attention
- Yelp is a good example.
- The web withough websites
- Enable Multiple Touch Points for your Service
- Making money because of… (because of search, not with search)
- As soon as you start charging, it’s a barrier of entry and people will go to a free verion
- Find Smart Ways to Offer a Great Service for Free
- Skype
- Don’t be surprised that some things change dramatically
- Websites Evolve: Content used to be king but it’s all about engaging people
Points brought up during the Q&A
Video will be the next big thing.
All in all this was great. Rather high level, and left some people questioning at the end, but I really enjoyed it. It was almost more of an entertainment piece than an educational piece. Bravo.
Read MoreWeb 2.0 Expo: Transforming IT with Cloud Computing
Session Description: Running your business in the Cloud is becoming mainstream and offers enormous advantages. Hear how companies are taking advantage of the Cloud to increase IT output while simultaneously reducing infrastructure, application development and deployment costs. Learn how this new approach is enabling IT to do more with less by focusing on innovation, not infrastructure.
This session took place Wednesday, April 1, 2009. The speaker:
- Trae Chancellor, CIO, Salesforce.com
Unfortunately a lot of this kind of went over my head. I guess the term IT in the title didn’t signal to me that this might not be the best session for me to attend. The notes are kind of short since I didn’t really get a lot of value myself out of this. Sorry!
Bullet Point Review!
- This transformation will touch the entire organization; everything has to be rethought.
- Gives you a competitive advantage.
- Cloud computing is able to deliver true innovation.
- Goals: improve productivity and innovation, improve efficiency, reduce costs.
- Implement CRM>customize>extend>commit>iterate
- Created their own dashboard and integrated that into their client offerings.
- Gets the whole business involved.
- Leverage the cloud.
There wasn’t really any useful Q&A time, and in reality most of this session was an advertisement for Salesforce, which is to be expected considering it was a sponsored session. The presentation was more tailored towards being a case study rather than a how-to.
They didn’t share the presentation on SlideShare.net so I can embed it, but you can download it here: Transforming IT with Cloud Computing (PPT).
Read MoreQuick Update on Web 2.0 Expo
Yes, that’s where I’ve been Wednesday and Thursday, and will return to on Friday. It’s been a different experience for me; this is my first time attending Web 2.0 Expo and I don’t have a full conference pass, so I’m limited to what’s open for all attendees, namely the expo hall and the sponsored sessions.
My original intention was the live blog the sessions, but with no tables in the session rooms at Moscone and a spotty wifi connection, that’s obviously not been happening. But as always I have my notes and will share them with you next week!
In the meantime I guess, look for my Twitter posts with the hashtag #w2e for my tweets from the conference.
Read MoreAffiliate Summit East 2009 Resolutions
They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So if I didn’t learn from my experience at this last affiliate summit, I’d be crazy. I’ve had some time to think long and hard about my experience in Las Vegas and I’m resolved to learn from these experiences. I wouldn’t say they’re mistakes, per se, but definitely opportunities for learning. Here’s some things I’ve figured out for myself that might just help you too (see, this isn’t my being selfish!)
- Make sure to secure internet for the trip! I had SO many problems this time around, I’m going to make sure the hotel I’m staying at has either wired or wifi connections, and bring my own Ethernet cable that I know for SURE works just in case. Being without internet for 5 days is killer!
- Don’t get sick! I’m going to finally try out Airborne and hopefully avoid catching germs from people. Maybe I’ll even go semi-germaphobe and carry around some PocketBac to help reduce the chance of germs jumping on board after shaking so many hands. I have some awesome peppermint sceneted stuff from Bath & Body Works in a tiny and manageable 1 fl. oz. size. I can’t afford to come back sick from a conference AGAIN!
- Lighten my load. My big backpack was too big – I didn’t need to cart around that much space. Luckily the Buy.at backpack I won is just right to carry my laptop & the essentials (business cards, beverage, wallet, antibacterial hand gel, that kind of thing).
- Get more information from my mentee! I don’t want to be a sourpuss and not do the mentor program again because I have even MORE stuff to tell a AS newbie, but this time I’ll be sure to find out when they’re coming to the summit, if they’ll be there all three days, and try to find out what they look like so I can spot them in a crowd to say hi!
- Attend “Ask the Experts”! I jokingly said that I’d never attend this unless I was one of the experts, but since I don’t see that happening I need to not be lazy that second day and get up and attend. Somehow sleep always seems to take precedent that second morning…
- EAT! I managed to go all day Sunday having eaten just a few snacks and no real meals until a 2am bowl of cereal (thank you Las Vegas for being a 24/7 town). This was not good. Since the provided Continental Breakfast and Luncheons don’t kick in until Monday & Tuesday, I need to remember that Sunday isn’t just the Meet Market anymore – it’s a full fledged day of sessions, so get up and get energy!
- Get a smaller camera. Or bring the smaller one I gave my husband, because I don’t take nearly enough photos and end up relying on the power of Flickr and Facebook tags to find photos of me at the show. My camera that I take most my pics with is kinda bulky and not really friendly “on the fly”. Next time I’ll have my Flip Mino (thank you MarketLeverage!) and will be sure to get video of some of the general events (not the sessions, that’s a no-no) and random people I encounter. I’ll be video happy!
- Pimp myself out. It’s nice to look professional, yes, but being branded like a cow gets noticed. I had my own business cards of course, but no cards for any other departments, no nifty swag to hand people, no visible affiliation with them other than the name on my badge, not even a postcard with the equivalent of a 30 second elevator pitch. Next time, you’ll know who I rep when you see me coming!
Affsum Session: Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages
Date: Tuesday, January 13th, 2009. Session 8b, 2:00pm.
Session Description: Learn how to optimize your landing pages and increase conversion rates by 50-500% using simple techniques and technologies. Get that competitive edge by increasing margins and return on marketing spend. The panel consisted of:
- Olivier Chaine, CEO & Founder, magnify360 (Moderator)
- Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager, Google
- Lisa Crossley Hunter, Senior Director of CJ Search, Commission Junction
- Beth Kirsch, VP of Marketing and Business Development, uAmplify
I was expecting some gems in terms of site optimization, and boy was I not let down! I’d heard Lisa and Olivier speak last September at CJU, so I knew I was in for good stuff from them. I mentioned this session as one I planned on attending before leaving and Trevor stopped by to say hi. I had a chance to chat with him briefly in the bloghaus after the session and let him know what a great job they did as well.
Bullet Point Review!
- 98% of your traffic is wasted.
- 2% is the average site conversion rate.
- Copy heavy pages perform better later hours.
- There isn’t one magic answer.
- Ask yourself these questions about your visitors:
- Why are they here TODAY?
- How do they THINK?
- How do they BUY/STICK?
- What kind of dialog is best?
- Google’s website optimizer is a free tool to do this for you.
- A/B testing is your friend.
- So is multivariate.
- Best practices: start now, test often.
- Resource: Google Website Optimizer
- Share search channels.
- Cooperate with other departments with
- Ad copy
- Natural listings
- Trademarks
- Display URL Usage
- After testing, what works for affiliates is often different than what works for search.
- One page tested, search conversions went up 60% but affiliate went up 454%!
- You could be losing tremendous amounts of revenue by not optimizing.
- Don’t start without a plan.
- Don’t just copy what someone else did, it probably won’t work the same for you. TEST!
- Don’t assume an optimized page today is going to be optimized 6 months from now.
Points brought up during the Q&A
- Just make sure you’re sending the most qualified traffic to the merchant page; you can’t really optimize their site or spend your time trying to help them that much.
- How much data is needed? Generally speaking 100 impressions per change, but really, use a tool – they’ll tell you when enough data has been collected to pick a winning optimization.
- Is there a hierarchy of what to test? Not really, just pick a few things and go small first. Multivariate is complicated so start with something more manageable.
In the end, I really enjoyed hearing more from Lisa and Olivier – their expertise seems to know no bounds! Trevor also nailed it with the information about the Google Website Optimizer – my fellow attendees and I speculated that he was why most people came, to learn about the free Google tool! Unfortunately I wasn’t impressed by Beth – her speaking was really mumbled so I couldn’t quite pick up everything she said, and most her slides related to case studies and not a lot of tactics. Maybe at a smaller venue or had I been closer to the front I might have been able to hear her better. Ultimately these tidbits did well, but the slides will really tell you the background behinds these notes, so here they are!
View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: asw09 affiliate)
Also, Mike Buechele strikes again: Affiliate Summit West 2009 Session Recap – Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages.
Affsum Session: Affiliate Videos: Where Do They Work Best?
Date: Monday, January 12th, 2009. Session 5d, 2:00pm.
Session Description: How are videos being used by affiliates and merchants? A detailed look into how and where they are performing best with suggested hints and tips to drive better click through and conversions. The panel consisted of:
- Marty M. Fahncke, President, FawnKey & Associates (Moderator)
- Michael Jenkins, CEO/Founder, MarketLeverage
- Melissa Salas, Director of Marketing, Buy.com
- Jonathan Stefansky, EVP Sales and Marketing, Qoof
This wasn’t the panel I had planned on going to, but I’m glad I went and checked it out. There was some interesting factoids dropped and I enjoyed the Twitter going in the background with the anonymous admirer of Melissa asking if she was in the videos.
Bullet Point Review!
- There’s tremendous potential.
- Consider your site when trying to figure out what will work.
- Besides person to person, video is the second highest sales driver.
- ML looked at 2008 as the year of infrastructure.
- Big marketers have taken note of online video.
- In 2007, 59% of internet users watched video online. In 2008 that skyrocketed to 77%.
- With banner blindness there’s a need for a new type of creative.
- Banners are the lowest performing; video overcomes even the success of text links.
- Give the affiliate a better way to convert.
- Low cost for affiliates – no streaming costs, no hosting costs, widgets are interactive.
- Attention spans are around 3 minutes.
- Content must be engaging and capture the user within 15 seconds.
- Networks and merchants wouldn’t invest in video if it didn’t work.
- Affiliates are very eager to receive the best content for the least work.
- People who are in video now are in it for it’s potential, not the actual of today.
- 77 million unique visitors on YouTube (my notes might be wrong on that, and I didn’t write down if that was per day or per month, but I think it was per day.)
- MLTV raises brand awareness, bloggers talk about it.
- Companies are very sensitive to UCG (User Generated Content).
- DO: think about the shelf life of a video. Videos about how to do something instead of a hot trend or product will be relevant longer.
- DON’T: set your videos to auto play with sound. It’s incredibly intrusive, especially if someone’s at work, which is where most people view videos due to faster broadband connections.
- DON’T: go over 3 minutes.
- DO: grab attention within the first 15 seconds.
Points brought up during the Q&A
- Where are things with .tv domains? They’re increasing in popularity, but they still don’t get near the traffic a .com domain does.
- How do you track this? Qoof embeds links with the AID and PID for tracking. Others use view time, page views, how long people stay on the page, etc. to track success.
Once again, Michael Buechele of 11|15 Media blogged about this session for the official Affiliate Summit Blog. Check out his recap for anything I may have missed while tweeting ;): Affiliate Summit West 2009 Session Recap – Affiliate Videos: Where Do They Work Best?
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