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Lessons Learned at Internet Summit – Blogging is NOT Dead
Posted in: Blog, Blogging, Industry News by SpiderWriters on November 6, 2009
With this year’s Internet Summit 2009 and the promising list of guest speakers and panelists, we couldn’t say no to attending. With Raleigh, NC just under four hours away, we decided a quick overnight trip might just be the ticket to get the scoop on the state of the Internet and the proper directions in which we should steer our clients.
We do have to offer our kudos to the organizers for a well-planned event. Good food, interesting topics to cover, and the whole day moved so well. The Raleigh Convention Center was a hotbed of activity and networking among people who own/operate Web firms, or work for companies with online marketing departments. We met people from as far as New York and Pittsburgh come to hear what the next Twitter will be in a few years, and what the best methods are for monetizing sites and social media. Indeed, the subtext theme of the day appeared to be “Blogging is not dead.”
Richard Jalichandra, head of Technorati, stressed as much in his keynote. Blogs are the new longtail, and microblogging has exploded. This doesn’t mean, he believes, that one should abandon blogging altogether to tweet full-time. There is value in operating a blog that allows for great growth potential. When you consider the Huffington Post once started as a simple blog for Ariana Huffington to voice her political views in a forum she controlled…and now it’s one of the top news blogs out there, it’s amazing!
Later on in the day, Rick Klau of Blogger stepped up to emphasize similar sentiment. Content is still king, and blogs are the driving force of content. Other lessons learned this day:
- Social media isn’t necessarily a “blog killer” – more interactions with Facebook and Twitter may help blog readership
- Feeds are going to be a big traffic driver for the Web, but not once did we hear RSS mentioned. Social media feeds, status updates, etc.
- Video and images are among the top shared data over the Internet
- More time is spent on social media than e-mail
- Don’t discount social bookmarking when planning your SMO strategy
We met a number of the top movers and shakers in social media at this seminar, among them Matt Van Horn of Digg.
We came away from Internet Summit with a better understanding of how social media will impact the way people use the Internet, and with many helpful tips to assist our clients. If you are new to the social scene online, just you wait!
