A4UExpo Day 1 Review

A cracking event!! Great speakers, very well organised, fantastic conversation - both work-related and general banter.

It's been very good for business so far.

I spent the morning preparing for my speech about social media and had some very positive feedback (If you missed my presentation you can watch the spelling-mistake ridden version here).

The meet the super-dooper affiliates session was interesting and was followed by a review of some of Tradedoubler's gadget merchants which gave us the opportunity to break some toys.

I attended the IAB, Affiliate Marketing Council discussion about trying to get some standards agreed in the industry. I wasn't disappointed with the conduct of the meeting, but was very disappointed with the fact that I was the only affiliate that bothered to turn up. Thankfully we had a very frank and open discussion and am convinced that over the next year some serious headway can be made. I'm also disappointed that some networks have actively taken steps to kill the debate, but that's something I'm going to work on.

After that meeting I went on to the Extreme SEO session. It was a good one that went on to tactics surrounding link buying, bad neighbourhoods, linking to sites that are off topic, overt tactics to affect your competitors and the benefits of leveraging social media in your SEO campaigns.

It's certainly an going to be an interesting SES tomorrow. Here's what sessions I'll be attending:

1 - The Search Universe with Mike Grehan. I saw him at last year's SES New York and is very insightful and humorous. I'd recommend his session for everyone.

2 - Monetising Social Networks - I'm hoping this will step out of the networks niche and look at social media in general. If not I'll be looking at The Changing Nature of Search With Dixon Jones.

3 - Widgets, Blidgets and the Implications for Affiliate Marketing in the Long Term - Vinny Lingham. I'm sold on the title, but we'll see what the content is like.

4 - Will you need a network in 2008 - I'm great fans of Mark Kuhilow and James Little and have had the pleasure of meeting David Hall from Affiliate Window at our Affiliate Marketing Council. This will be a very important session.

I don't plan to see any after this as I've got a train to catch.