amy cham :: bloggy goodness

Talkin' it up at the Web 2.0 Expo!

In two weeks, the Web 2.0 Expo will hit NYC, and Tree House Agency will be there with bells on!  If you've read any of my posts from last year's event in San Francisco, you know how much I got out of it and how psyched I was to be there.

This year, I am ecstatic to be on the speaker list.  I and Michael Caccavano, our CEO at Tree House, will be giving a session on theming best practices.  Whereas the Tree House talk at last March's DrupalCon was focused on enterprise-level Drupal and using its tools within a theming methodology, this session is less technical, platform-agnostic and includes a look at the different roles involved in a web project and how they impact site theming--and how your theming can affect your site.  Here's the full description.

Join us at 11:35 on Thursday, September 18 to see how you can improve your site's theming health!

PS - Follow Tree House on Twitter!  We'll follow you and watch for your questions and comments during our presentation.  If we can't answer your questions during the session, watch for the when and where of our post-session theming chat where we'll have members of our internal team on hand for an informal open discussion on the theming process.

Web 2.0 Expo: Behavioral Targeting with Basem Nayfeh

This live blogging deal is harder than it looks!  I got 20 minutes of charging since the last session...here's hoping my battery holds out!

Here's my last one for today, then I must stop and work on other things. I'll get my notes blogged over the coming week.

Basen Nayfeh of RevenueScience....how do we overcome the shotgun approach to advertising?

I would like to preface this one...I am not sure how I feel about this topic. As a marketer, the ability to capture cross-page and cross-site behaviors is exciting and I definitely see the benefit to both marketers and consumers, but as a consumer I always feel a little anxious about someone tracking me across sites.  I know they do it, and I willingly let Google see not only my searches but me email, RSS choices, and draft documents, but I'm still not wholly comfortable with it.

Still, this is a valuable area to be familiar with. I hope that one day the privacy issues will be somehow  adequately dealt with to ensure that our behaviors are not tied to our ID, but I don't today know how this will occur.  Also, the same principles can be applied within your own website even if you choose not to partner with anyone else.

Web 2.0 Expo: RSS Feeds & Blog Marketing Panel

Up next...a panel on RSS feeds & blog marketing.

I've taken more of a paraphrasing trascript-y approach with this one, as it is an area I have not really done anything in. As always, these are NOT verbatim quotes, just me trying to keep up and get the point across.

Web 2.0 Expo: Akin Arikan on Measuring Web 2.0

It's 10:41, and we are back in room 2002 waiting for Akin Arikan, of Unica Corporation, to start his talk, "Top 5 Do's and Don'ts for Measuring Web 2.0." 

(It's the last day of the conference, and I am very sad to go.  The people here are great, the sessions have been awesome, the companies are extremely cool, and I love being back with people who consider jeans 'business casual' as long as you are wearing shoes. Oh, and the weather has been a steady 55-60 degrees with sun and a few clouds.)

Web 2.0 Expo: David Berkowitz on SEO and SEM trends

Okay...looking at the many tabs of notes I have in OneNote (handy program if you've never tried it), I've decided to try something new. Live blogging!

David Berkowitz of 360i is about to start his talk on SEO and SEM trends, and instead of adding to my notes, I'm going to try writing my summary as it happens.

Please note, this entailed very fast typing while listening and watching, and the recap includes my own interjections.  So don't take anything as a direct quote.

Let's see how this goes, shall we?

Eric Schmidt and John Battelle @ Web 2.0 Expo

Okay...I haven't had a chance to blog on much here yet (though I have pages and pages of notes).  But this was a cool talk.  (Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, and John Battelle).  Note: These guys have great on-stage chemistry, very entertaining.

The big announcement at the beginning?  Google is adding in a presentations application to join Docs & Spreadsheets!  Not a surprise...it's an intuitive addition, but good to know that it is happening in the very near future.

I was hoping for a sneak-peek screenshot, but he mostly just talked about how it adds value for users, and how they can really benefit from being able to share and collaborate on PowerPoint-style presentations online.

Interesting, Eric didn't feel that Google's online apps were really competing with Microsoft.  John (and most of the audience) were understandably skeptical. :-)

If you've never tried Google's Docs & Spreadsheets, I highly recommend giving them a try. True to Eric's belief, they do not offer anything close to the mountains of features rolled into their Microsoft Office cousins.  However, they do offer most of the basic functionality needed for everyday spreadsheets and drafting documents, and they are super-easy to use and set up collaboration and sharing.

And they're free.

That's all for now, more when I get a couple uninterrupted hours to relay what I'm seeing and hearing here.

I'm heeeere!!!

Okay, so I am way too excited about this...

I'm here waiting for Anil Dash to start his talk, and trying to remember to get my directory afterward so I can see if anyone I know is here.

This is very cool, and I am impatiently waiting for the expo crawl to see what kind of swag I can score.  Matt is very happy that he will be able to walk away with at least one t-shirt for his collection. :-)

Wishing I had brought my charger....

OOOOH...they're starting!