Ok, this will be pretty short as it’s a pretty crammed day, and going to a be a crammed night also, it’s 6pm and there are 2 networking events and a domain auction to go still.
I have to say I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the quality of what I’ve seen today. After comments from a number of people who went to Vegas, there has bee enough here that even the most experienced affiliates have been seen nodding their heads and taking notes.
Whilst the exhibition is pretty small, and full of the usual suspects you’ll probably see at adtech and, summit London and A4u Expo, the quality in the conference is pretty high. There are a few compromises over the levels of experience, and sector knowledge in the audience, but that will never be perfect and the presenters have done a good job of pitching in at a level that is usefel but not baffling.
Right from a hugely entertaining keynote by Ze Frank, comments about the quality of presenters has been taken on board and the sessions have been genuinely useful, rather than just sales pitches or affirmation of the stuff we know already.
The Summit content is very forward thinking, don’t expect to just see endless ‘10 ways to get to the top of Google’. Jay Berkowitz of Ten Golden Rules gave a great, and jammed packed run through of the Web 2.0 properties affiliates should keep an eye on, I have a list a page long of stuff I’d never heard of by the end of it.
Web 2.0 is a big theme, and I get the impression that’s one area where the forward thinking crowd in the US will be making huge strides in the next year. As Google PPC gets tougher and we need to get traffic from other areas, you’d do well to come to the US to see some of the places affiliate programmes get promoted over here. So far this week I’ve seen ads for affiliate programmes on TV, the side of a bus, caffeine tablet sachets and more. It’s certainly not all just about Google.
I’ll post a bit more later, but now it’s time to get drunk, then go to a domain auction. These guys REALLY know how to plan a conference schedule!