Blogworld Expo

It’s a Blog-Eat-Blog World out there

Las Vegas in September: It is surely the most beautiful time of the year in Las Vegas – September. The heat of the summer is a blistering memory and the winds of winter have not yet begun. This is the Autumn in Las Vegas. This is the time of year when the brown desert sand turns to… well, ok, it stays brown. It is however the time of year when the Water District begins to enforce 2-day per week watering instead of the unlimited water that pours into the desert and keeps lawns green during the summer so that golfers might forget about the 2000 degree heat while they play. I’m not sure if it is because of the time of year or it is just chance, but this is also the time of year when several conventions make the scene in the Valley of the Dollars. One of my favorites is Blogworld and New Media Expo. It is an exposition that shows what is new in the in the world of nontraditional communication that the Millennium Generation seems to favor. If the Baby Boomers changed the world in the 1950s, the Millennium Generation is changing the world of the twenty-first century. Today’s post will give you a small slice of what is going on in the world beyond cable television.

The Most Unusual Booth Presentation Award: That honor goes to Cart-Away concrete systems. They had an actual portable concrete mixer on their booth – you know, the kind that you see affixed to the back of a truck. The mixer contans cement and rotates on the back of the truck as it drives down the highway toward its destination. Well, the clever people who own Cart-Away figured out a way to remove that big mixer from the back of the truck and make it portable. The portable device can carry wet, dry, or mixed materials, can be tilted to pour into a full size wheel barrow, or a chute can be attached so the stuff inside comes out just like their big trucking cousins. They are looking to market and franchise their product. So why come to a Blogworld Expo to show off their refined cement and other material mixer? For the same reason bloggers and other companies attended – to get the word out about their product. Tom Vail who was dressed as and claimed to be a test dummy, and his assistant who was dressed as and claimed to be a lab rat had a full house (no silly, not the type that beats a royal flush) at their booth for the entire time. They had no competition for their product type. Very clever. A way to think outside the cement truck. For more information go to www.Cart-AwayConcrete.com.

Go then and monetize thy blog: Many of the presenters at the Blogworld Expo gave tips on how to expand readership or monetize one’s blog. The term monetize simply means that the creator of the blog gets paid, usually for ads on the blog. One of our favorite was the Money Leverage company. Their marketing approach is two-pronged. They offer publishers (i.e. bloggers) an opportunity to earn money through advertising on their blogs and boast the highest paying rewards program in the industry. They also target advertisers and match them up with publishers. Sounds like a lot of work that the publisher does not have to do in order to get paid. That makes them a pretty good option for monetizing. But what made them one of our favorites was their display that supported their concept – they gave away free money! Blogworld Expo attendees slithered into a large cubical full of money. A fan was turned on for a period time as money flew around. All the money that was captured was kept by the lucky attendee. Getting free money that is really free is really fun. For more information go to www.marketleverage.com.

Looking for Mr. GoodIdea: Ideablob is a wacky, fun concept. Instead of simply asking bloggers to post ads on their blogs, ideablob is a community of entrepreneurs who bounce ideas off each other. Sort of like going before a jury of your peers, but in this case your peers offer advice, feedback, and encouragement. So where does the money come in? Each month the community votes on the best idea – a peer evaluation if you will. Whoever provids the best idea, based on peer input, wins a $ 10,000 award to help their idea grow. It is a community that seems to have cutting edge and offbeat members. Some ideas could actually change the world! For more information go to www.ideablob.com.

Help to stay Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Since we’re a sucker for the creative, we were drawn to one particular booth in which all those tending were clad in white coats and had stethoscopes. The organization is called BuzzLogic and they provided Rx for sluggish blogs. BuzzLogic believes that a healthy blog means happy readers and quality advertisers. They provide an analysis of blogs and determine the level of influence each has over a particular community. They actually have an algorithm process that will allow for a blogger to tune up a blog just as a physical checkup can tune up a body. The concept is a bit cumbersome for the unwashed masses to understand but the team at the booth were most adept in describing it. For more information go to www.buzzlogic.com.

Last but not loosed is to get Goosed: The last display we will discuss today is called gooseGrade. If you read blogs and emails that are generated by the gajillions by entities whose purpose is to influence your opinion regardless of the facts, you’ll find this as something that is long overdue. gooseGrade is a tool that will no doubt cause controversy in the blogosphere was created by a young college grad and allows readers to critique and suggest corrections to online writers. The goal is to improve the quality and accuracy of online information. Think of gooseGrade as your English composition professor. As one to whom errors and omissions are tantamount to fingernails on a blackboard, this tool is more than welcome. So if you don’t get them there fax strate, gooseGrade can fix it so your writing be as good as them that had. More information can be found at http://goosegrade.com


A little blogging music Maestro... “What’d I Say?” by any number of singers.

Dr. Forgot

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