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Monetization Track
Sunday, Sept. 21, 2008Print this page
My Blog is a Business? Building a Foundation that Can Help You Grow Your Blog Past the Hobby Stage
Grow Your Blog Past the Hobby Stage
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM, U205

Odds are your blog has grown organically without a lot of thought being paid to business basics. You may not have the time to spend a semester taking business fundamentals, but in an hour you can get the high points.

Chris Brogan is a ten year veteran of using social media and technology to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at [chrisbrogan.com], a social media blog. Chris is also the cofounder of the PodCamp new media conference series, exploring the use of new media community tools to extend and build value. He currently serves as VP Strategy & Technology at CrossTech Media, an integrated media and events business. Chris frequently speaks at and attends marketing and social media events, sharing his passion for all things social media.
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Sept. 20 at 12:15 PM: Bloggers & PR
Rob McNealy is a small business, entrepreneurship, and startup junkie. His passion is using social media to evangelize and promote small and low tech companies, a well as coaching entrepreneurs on his www.StartupStoryRadio.com podcast and blog. Besides doing social media marketing consulting through his marketing company www.ContrivedMedia.com, Rob has a strong background in construction and flooring so he started the www.AskAFloorGuy.com blog and podcast to keep himself firmly grounded in the low tech world.
Jeremy Wright is a serial entrepreneur, some have even said "blogpreneur" for his focus on communications-oriented ventures. He is an internationally recognized authority on blogging who has helped hundreds of people and many high profile companies develop strategies to incorporate blogs into their business plans. Jeremy also consults on blogging, communication, IT and time management and is the author of the book Blog Marketing, which is designed to help businesses come to grips with blogs and really start engaging with their audience, customers and consumers on a 1-1 basis.
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Sept. 20 at 2:45 PM: Power Widgets to Amp Your Blog
Nina Yablok has been practicing business law for 32 years. She advised her first online client, the owner of one of Compuserve’s largest forums, in 1994. She is a former member of the California State Bar Association’s Business Law Section’s Cyberspace Law Committee. She is currently General Counsel to Pajamas Media, and represents other online as well as bricks and mortar businesses. Nina is an experienced speaker. She has spoken for many chambers of commerce, bar associations, trade associations, and schools. On a less serious note, Nina has won several “Humorous Speaking” contests as a member of with Toastmasters.
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Beyond Adsense: Exploration of Practical Monetization Streams
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM, U305

The majority of bloggers today, if they have chosen to monetize their site, rely heavily on Amazon or Adsense. With emerging technology there are a myriad of other monetization partners available. This panel will introduce several alternative monetization tools and strategies.

David Berkowitz is Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for 360i, a leading independent digital marketing agency that has been named the "2007 Search Agency of the Year" by OMMA magazine and "One of the Hottest Independent Digital Agencies Around" by Advertising Age. At 360i, David helps leading brands in media & entertainment, retail, and other verticals leverage marketing opportunities at the nexus of search engine marketing and social media. Additionally, every Tuesday, he pens a column for MediaPost and posts extensively on his own blog MarketersStudio.com, an Ad Age Power 150 media & marketing blog.
Jason Billingsley is a Co-founder & VP Innovation at Elastic Path Software where is responsible for exploring new ecommerce technologies and methods for online retail. Jason has authored industry research such as "The Ecommerce Checkout Report", hosts a monthly ecommerce webinar series, and oversees the most subscribed ecommerce blog in the world - Get Elastic. He is a regular speaker at retail industry events such as Shop.org, Online Market World, and eTail. An online marketer for well over a decade, Jason has been quoted in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Internet Retailer, BtoB Magazine, Apparel magazine, and Multi-Channel Merchant.
Michael has worked for innovative companies, including DoubleClick and Operative, in New York City’s Silicon Alley in the Adserving and new media Industry. His clients included Cartoon Network, Brightcove, Marvel Comics, National Public Broadcasting, and CBS Radio. He founded 11|15 Media because of opportunities in the affiliate marketing industry and to teach good business practices.
Born in Bulgaria, Angel Djambazov has spent his professional career in the fields of journalism and online marketing. In his journalistic career he worked as an editor on several newspapers and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Wyoming Homes and Living Magazine. Later his career path led to online marketing where while working at OnlineShoes he earned the Affiliate Manager of the Year (2006) award at the Affiliate Summit, and In-house Manager of the Year (2006) award by ABestWeb. Currently Angel is the OPM for Jones Soda, leads the marketing efforts of PopShops.com which was awarded Best Affiliate Tool (2007) award by ABestWeb, and is the Managing Editor for Revenews.com. Angel lives north of Seattle, spending his free time reading up on obscure scientific references made by his wife, Jenn, while keeping up with a horde of cats and a library of books.
Matt Hulett is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of WidgetBucks, the fastest growing online ad network today. He is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully built profitable companies from scratch. After joining Mpire, WidgetBucks' parent company, as CEO in early 2006, Matt turned the standalone comparison shopping site into a multi-vertical ad distribution platform that serves over a billion impressions a month. Before Mpire, Matt was President of the corporate travel division of Expedia, Inc., the world's largest online travel company, where he launched the corporate travel business from an idea to a billion dollar worldwide leader in just a couple of years. Prior to Expedia, Matt was a founding partner of the next generation entertainment company, AtomFilms. He served as President of Atom Entertainment, a firm backed by both Sequoia Capital and Macromedia and was purchased by Viacom for $200M. Under Matt's direction, Atom captured over 20 million unique monthly users and became a leading consumer destination. Matt was the founding consumer products leader at RealNetworks launching many of the companies most successful products including the RealPlayer and its premium subscription software businesses. Matt also ran the market-leading Reflection X product line at AttachmateWRQ, a privately held provider of enterprise software. A Seattle native, Matt is a Puget Sound Business Journal 40-under-40 recipient (Sept. 2008), and he offers his extensive executive business insights through his personal blog, http://startupwhisperer.com.
Widgetizing Your Blog for Profit
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM, U405

Our expert panel will examine the blog monetization widgets out there today and talk about how you can use them to start generating profits.

Micah – who upon his original introduction to the Lijit team was described as “scary” and “tattooed” – is a 14-year veteran of the Marketing and Advertising space. He parlayed his love for those functions and desire into creating his own search marketing agency, Current Wisdom, which he sold in January 2007. Armed with Kyle, the trusty Robotic Dinosaur, Micah travels the planet in search of strategic alliances and new business development opportunities that drive revenue for Lijit and value for our users. Micah writes about his philosophy of succeeding through failure on his blog Learn To Duck at [learntoduck.com].
Daniel Ha is a co-founder and the CEO at Disqus. Before leaving school early to work on Disqus full-time, Daniel studied computer science and engineering at UC Davis. At Disqus, Daniel focuses on front end development and the many aspects of user experience. Since he was young, Daniel has always been interested with working on the web. Today, he is still as passionate in creating products that people love to use.
Louis heads Pheedo's ad sales team and oversees relationships with key advertisers including Adobe, Cisco, Microsoft and Dell. Prior to Pheedo, Louis played key online media buying and strategy roles at 24/7 Media, Sift Technologies, and, most recently NetHawk. At NetHawk Louis developed strategic online advertising initiatives and spearheaded all online media buying for software clients including Microsoft, Hyperion, and VeriSign. Louis is an early RSS advertising pioneer. In August 2003, he was among the first to conduct a successful RSS ad campaign for a Fortune 500 advertiser.
Robyn Tippins is a community advocate with almost 10 years experience in the social media space. From her early days marketing her own small business using forums and email lists, to blogging, podcasting, vlogging and video game immersion, she’s often used social networking to engage and communicate. In her current role, Robyn oversees the community of external developers on the Yahoo! Developer Network. She blogs at sleepyblogger.com and gamingandtech.com, in addition to the YDN blog. Her book, co-authored with Miranda Marquit, “Got Community?”, will be released in 2009. Robyn has blogged for blog networks and corporations, podcasted for small and large businesses, worked closely with social networking sites, and advised Fortune 500 companies on social media strategy, WOM and community. Her podcasts feature some of the web’s most interesting and well-known Web 2.0 experts in fields such as VoIP, Technology, Open Source, Marketing, Social Networking, Video Games and Blogging. She finds her greatest joys in moments away from her computer, spending time with her husband and four children, ages 3 to 10. She and her family reside in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California.
How to Sell Direct Advertising on Your Blog
4:15 PM - 5:15 PM, U505

This session will address the step-by-step process of making a direct advertising deal on your blog. It will include the following: how to answer sales inquiries, how to attract and land premium advertisers, how to put together a proposal, know what advertisers are looking for and what terms to know like "added value," "roadblocking," and ROS" * how to negotiate the best price * how to find "outside the box" monetization opportunities * how to write your "advertise" page * what to do during the campaign implementation (what to monitor, how to report, etc) and much more

Steve Hall has done time in media, account management and new business at, among others, Leo Burnett, Starcom/Mediavest, BlackSheep Marketing, and Bozell, where he managed marketing budgets for both consumer and business-to-business clients including Reebok, Sperry Topsider, Monster.com, Tyco, Marriott Hotels and Marshmallow Fluff. Steve has written about and spoken for industry associations on topics such as the advertising's role in consumer-controlled media, the integration of public relations and advertising, the future convergence of media, the rise of social media and the decline of traditional media. Along with publishing Adrants, Steve co-founded MarketingVOX, an online marketing publication and is co-founder and publisher of the AD:TECH industry trade show weblog. In early 2007, he founded the advertising social networking site, AdGabber.
A Canadian geek, David Peralty got his start guest blogging for Darren Rowse, and then went on to become the Communications Manager at Bloggy Network where he worked as a full time blogger for two years before moving to Splashpress Media for another year. With three years of full time blogging experience in various blog networks, David has learned a lot regarding the business of blogging. Currently, David writes on Xfep.com about all that he learned as a full time blogger, and his continuing struggles to pay his bills through online work.
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CEO and founder Wendy Piersall has over 8 years' experience working in a home office & Sparkplugging is Wendy's third home-based business. Her past experience includes several entrepreneurial endeavors, as well as holding two Business Development positions with Socrates.com and Paladin, a marketing recruiting firm. She also currently writes for the Entrepreneur.com Blog Network and resides in west suburban Chicagoland with her husband and three children.
Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains three weblogs, The Intuitive Life Business Blog, focused on business and industry analysis, the eponymous Ask Dave Taylor devoted to tech and business Q&A and The Attachment Parenting Blog, discussing topics of interest to parents.
Lynn Truong - Wise Bread (Sales Director, Managing Editor)
Lynn Truong started out at Grey Worldwide and CBS/King World creating and implementing national ad campaigns. Having experience on the client side makes Lynn especially prepared to be on the sales side pitching to advertisers. As Sales Director for Killer Aces Media, she has managed to get Wise Bread an unparalleled RPM for blogs.
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