Last week I attended Internet Summit ‘09 (#isum09) with RTP Designs. The conference united like-minded businesses and internet professionals right here in the Triangle.
This entry focuses on my impressions of the conference agenda, speakers and material presented.
Parts of this post are also available for viewing at RTP Designs.
Venue:
The conference was held at the Raleigh Convention Center. Parking was ample, but cost $7 each day…ouch. The reception on Wed was held in a business casual setting complete with fine appetizers and an open bar. (beer and wine). I was lucky enough to be approached by some of my Twitter followers later in the evening as the gathering transferred over to the Oxford – a quaint pub in downtown Raleigh.
Keynotes:
Aside from the 5 minute video plugging ESPN.com, Jim Kosner’s keynote was informative and entertaining. He educated the audience on ESPN’s strategy for content delivery on multiple mediums such as web, phone, TV, radio etc. Many companies make the mistake of concentrating on one or a few media pipelines to deliver their message. ESPN proved that thinking outside the pipe (so to speak) can bring excellent results.
Richard Jalichandra of Technorati provided some interesting metrics on how bloggers monetize:
- Display Ads: 40%
- Search Ads: 39%
- Affiliate: 36%
- Paid Postings: 8%
Other than that, there was some additional discussion on blogging trends for 2010 but overall I was not inspired by this discussion.
Search Marketing Panel:
I was particularly impressed with Jason Dowell of Triangle Direct Media . He exuded an in depth technical knowledge and explained the architecture necessary to stay one up on search engine algorithms. While most of this was not new to me, his ability to articulate the subject passionately added to the discussion. Ian Kelevich of eMarketer beefed things up with some stats and outlooks for the Search Marketing industry. He noted that overall advertising spend was down 15% in 09 and search marketing spend is projected to increase 6% next year.
Analytics Panel:
This panel focused on the ongoing maturity of the analytics industry and how the issue of data integrity is holding it back. Dan Forootan, an obvious data-head was passionate on the subject of data integrity. When asked what his recommendations were for improving data he replied: “Hire better programmers” which I found amusing. However, I think it takes more than clean code to make analytics worth your business’s time. KPI’s are different for every company and need to be defined correctly. Once businesses’ begin to do this effectively, the value of analytics will become more evident.
Online Advertising Strategies Panel:
This panel was a little general for me but moderator Gian Fulgoni (chairman Comscore) did an excellent job of creating debate on the subject of traditional V.S. online marketing. Fulgoni kept stressing that traditional branding offline was just as important as marketing online. At first, I disagreed. However, Fulgoni raised the point that 80% of purchases are still made offline, which changed my perspective a bit. I am still however, partial to online marketing.
Email Marketing Panel:
Aside from the debate on whether or not social media would eliminate the need for email marketing, this panel was somewhat stale to me. Ultimately the panel agreed that social media and email marketing are intertwined, which is my take as well.
Conclusion:
Overall I was happy with this conference. It provided great networking opportunities and it was good to see both local and national businesses come together. However, I was hoping for more advanced material in the panels.
