Internet World 2006 : Day 1 Review
As soon as I wrote the title for this post, my mind started rushing through the entire day I spent yesterday at the Internet World 2006 event at Earls Court. There is so much to discuss, so much to tell, so much to share …. !
Well, I’ll try and post most of the cruxy stuff (also feeeding in some ‘not so important’ matter for good measure ! ) including major takeaways from the seminars I attended, what I learnt from interacting with some of the guys and some cool things I never thought I’d see in such an event !
I started (from home) just in time to make it for Dharmash Mistry’s keynote seminar on ‘Media Shift from push to pull’ but missed it due to severe delays on the District line … all in all .. missed it ! Next up was Jonathan Wall, the marketing director for dabs.com (recently acquired by British Telecom for a sum of £30 million !!) who spoke on ‘Creating loyalty in a disloyal online world’. Most of the seminar was about building a good brand and most marketing pros would easily be able to relate it with offline basics, but I was really impressed when Jonathan brought up stats revealing the average cost spent for gaining a customer, average break even time and efforts that go into retaining the customers ! It happens so, that the companies in electronics niche (which dabs.com is into) spend almost $56/person. The average break even is acheived almost after 4 yrs … ! And while you try and achieve break even, you have to make sure that the person you have invested in does not leave you. Jonathan also brought up comparative stats from other niches and discussed it quite well.
Next seminar was by Richard Firminger, the regional sales director of Yahoo SM and he spoke on ‘Evolution of search marketing’. Well, it was a very informative speech - but only for people just starting out with search engine marketing, specifically PPC. He discussed the basic PPC process, how the advertiser-yahoo-publisher network works and how SEM can prove to be a highly measurable (high ROI) marketing effort. More interesting was the questions and answers round.
After a couple of seminars I took a break, and went around the center visiting the various exhibitor stalls.
My next seminar, and one of the really interesting ones, was given by CEO of Trexy.com, Nigel Hamilton. When I read the topic of his seminar in the list, I knew I had to be there. He spoke on ‘Search Trails - How to enhance your search technique’. Nigel’s inspiration behind founding a search engine which works on search trails is a person called Vannevar Bush. Mr.Bush in his visionary paper (back in 1945) wrote on a topic he named ‘As We May Think’. He dreamt of a device called ‘Memex’ - an enhanced supplement to personal and community memory created by trailblazers. These trailblazers were people who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of common record.
Nigel says “Each day millions of people repeat the same searches, why don’t we harness all this communal effort?”
I would advise you to visit Trexy Tour to get a better understanding of the whole concept.
This is the cycle that Nigel(Megan Hamilton: Brother-Sister team) are trying to implement. With 3000+ SEs as partners, 200,000+ active trailblazers and almost 800,000 trails in their databse they feel thay havent even scrapped the surface.
Personally I feel, its a great concept. As Nigel says its something aligning to social tagging and bookmarking. How successful it can get.. we can only wait and watch. But with the advent of the new Web and the success of Wiki models, I feel Nigel’s idea might just tick ! As of now, it still is a wonderful tool if you are researching for something. I see great potential for trexy in the research arena.
By the time I was done with Nigel’s seminar I was tired of sitting, so I just moved around and had some food. I saw some funny magic tricks being performed at the Steermap.co.uk stall and even got a magic trick giveaway (yipee .. I later came back home and wowed my cousins, albeit I had to make them go wow!). There was a roulette game on one stall, where you had this exotic dressed femmes and some nerds trying to get them pictured with them ! I stayed away … both from the gals and the gambling !
As I was moving around I came across the CMS keynote theatre where Alex Skinner of PIXL8 Interactive was presenting on ‘Management strategies for Web 2.0′. I paid some brief attention (majorly due to lack of space in the hall and also ‘coz I had to move to the main hall for the next seminar) and learnt that Web 2.0 indeed was drawing crowds !
My assumptions(about Web 2.0) were well backed in the next seminar by Ashley Friedlein, CEO of E-Consultancy.com who spoke on ‘Web 2.0 - What does it mean for online marketing’. It was by far the most engaging seminar for me in the entire day. Ashley did a brilliant job at building rapport by sharing something which he had come to know from the promoters of the event. It was learnt that Ashley’s seminar was the one which had the maximum number of pre-registered visitors. It beat the second one by almost a double ! I was impressed with Ashley’s presentation style and he din’t disappoint with the content he shared. He touched on a lot of topics ranging from - What is Web 2.0 (which himself and no one else can specifically explain), What does it mean, and how it can be used for better online marketing. He made lavish use of examples and showed us screeshots from various sites, google earth and much more. He even showed us the use of content over content !
That’s my version of Web 2.0 (copied from Ashley!) - a picture of Earl’s Court 2 tagged on google earth ! Another thing which Ashley(admitedly) did was shamelessly plugging their SEO guide and upcoming seminar hosted by his firm … I don’t criticize that, infact I liked the way he did it… ! We are all on stage to sell, its how we make the plug rather than whether we make it or not.
After this seminar, I know for sure that my reading is going to increase.
During the later half of the day I attended seminars on Affiliate Marketing by Maz Darvish of AffiliateFuture.co.uk , CheetahMail seminar by Michelle Hocking based on a survey they did with Revolution magazine - very insightful - major takeaway Email marketing still is very much alive and kicking, although the rules have changed. It has become more of an integrated effort rather than just follow up, I liked the seminar ! Last for me, was a seminar on ‘Natural Search’ by MD of Media Run, John Cole, it was a neat effort by John to educate people about SEO. I could empathize with John’s feeling when he discussed some of the things they get asked by their clients. But, having been there done that, I know its part of the game. You need to educate your clients before you can get any work from them..!
By the time I was done with the seminar, I was exhuasted and made my way back home ! I am equally exhausted having written a massive post, not to mention this was followed by a tiring game of 5-a-side football and a very late episode of LOST series 2 … all I can think of now is - my bed !
Good night !
p.s. forgot to tell you that I got some great freebies … including a book on Online Marketing by Imano !
[tags]internet marketing, seo, google earth, web 2.0, trexy, natural search, ppc, sem [/tags]
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May 29, 2006
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