Danny Sullivan's Search Marketing Expo Advanced conference was the talk of the industry this month. The two day conference debuted in Seattle's Bell Harbor Convention Center June 4-5 and a week later the buzz in the blogosphere is that it was an overwhelming success.
A More Intimate Affair
One of the lures of SMX was the limit on the number of conference goers allowed to attend. The smaller group of marketers promised an atmosphere that was more intimate, more conducive to sharing information, and considerably more casual than the typical search conference. SEOmoz's Jane Copland described it as similar to leaving a large city public high school and enrolling in a tiny private college. We'd have to agree.
Whereas it's typically impossible to get face time with the various search engine representatives and conference speakers, at SMX the speakers engaged with attendees and often spent large chunks of time in one-on-one discussions. The close-knit feel encouraged discussion and significantly increased the rate of knowledge transfer at the show.
To complement the smaller size, SMX featured only two session tracks instead of the four or five that typically run simultaneously at SES. Bruce Clay bloggers Susan Esparza and Lisa Barone tagged team the sessions in order to provide completely conference coverage.
Session highlights included a You & A session with Matt Cutts, a keynote by Microsoft's Satya Nadella, a Paid Search Focus Group, a PPC Penalty Box Summit, a debate on bid management, and a secret "Give It Up" session that bloggers agreed to wait one month before blogging. If you missed any of the sessions or just want to relive the experience, check out Bruce Clay's SMX archive to read Susan Esparza and Lisa Barone's complete session recaps.
Comparing Shows
Once the doors closed on Search Marketing Expo, the blogosphere went into overdrive as everyone rushed to rate the experience. Everyone had an opinion.
Rhea Drysdale compared SES to SMX, Matt McGee shared his Top 12 Takeaways and wondered if SMX was advanced enough, Michael Gray gave us his SMX Conference Wrap Up, as did Katie Gausepohl, Gord Hotchkiss, Cameron Olthuis, Ross Dunn, Joshua Stylman and a myriad of others. If you're looking for video of the SMX happenings, you can find it at WebProNews.
The real strength of the conference was each session's Q&A. Because this was labeled an advanced conference, the knowledge level in the room was considerably higher, with attendees quizzing the panelists on new strategies and new techniques, not the boring fundamentals.
Ready for the next show!
The combination of having a smaller, more experienced crowd helped Search Marketing Expo to differentiate itself from the rest of the search engine optimization conferences out there. Congrats to Danny Sullivan and the whole Third Door Media team for putting together a great show. We can't wait for the next one!
Shuffles
While the industry had its eyes on Seattle and Search Marketing Expo, Kim Krause-Berg joined SiteLogic and Kevin Ryan was named Vice President of Global Content for Search Engine Watch and the Search Engine Strategies conference series.
Google's Vanessa Fox surprised many announcing she was leaving Google for Zillow, Yahoo Finance GM Peggy White departed abruptly, Business 2.0 Editor Owen Thomas left to join Vallewag, John Marshall left Clicktracks, and LookSmart's CFO John Simonelli also resigned.
In this month's mergers and acquisitions:
Bruce Clay, Inc. is hiring: Bruce Clay, Inc. is looking to fill a number of positions in our Simi Valley, CA headquarters. To inquire about any of the open positions, visit the Bruce Clay Employment page, which has a list of all the available opportunities and job requirements.
Shindigs
Search Marketing Expo wasn't the only search-related conference to take place this month. Right on the heels of the big Seattle show was Search Engine Strategies Toronto which took place June 12-13 and Bruce Clay's UK SEO training on 13-15 June.
Also taking place this summer:
Attaboys
Bill Gates was awarded an honorary degree from Harvard, the university he dropped out of more than 30 years ago.
Both Search Engine Watch and TechCrunch celebrated birthdays this month. Search Engine Watch turned 10, while TechCrunch celebrated a successful second year. Danny Sullivan penned a long, bittersweet tribute to Search Engine Watch, the site he created and made famous.
Mobile Web provider Bango reported that mobile Web usage has tripled over the past year.
Word on the
Wire
Rumors persisted that Facebook may still be in play with the magic number being $2 billion. The word is that Yahoo may be looking to scoop this one up.
Wired created some buzz by reporting that Steve Jobs would announce a Google/Apple partnership that would have Apple bundling Google Apps. However, the rumored announcement date came and went with no news.
The Telegraph reported that Chinese search engine Baidu was getting ready to launch in Europe.
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