What did you get out of internext-expo ?

the mobile seminar was great check out WAAT.COM

I would have liked to check out the seminars.. but was at our booth during the day.

This is common in workshops/seminars/classes in all industries. Hopefully that one thing will be something that you use for the rest of your career.

All i got out of that one was that phone companies in the US will not allow porn to be download on their phones (basically) but in europe it is pretty big. Maybe in next 5 years or so the US companies will change their policies..

I guess you didnt get to talk with the guys promoting WAAT and the people providing billing solutions. Its not just what you learn its who you meet and establish relationships with.

i had a blast in my hotel room on my laptop posting at gfy the whole time.it was a much needed vacation

thats funny. Should have told me which room you where in, i would have came over and raided your mini bar, i mean hung out with you.

I agree it is benefical to meet people but you can meet/ network on the floor, at the events, etc.. My comments were in regards to the siminar. It's my understanding that siminars are suppose to be there so you can learn something.

Was great meeting new people and getting back in touch with people I haven't seen or talked to in awhile. The floor seemed to be a lot more bare than before, not too many big booths and not as many people had booths it seemed. It was also great that industry people only were the only ones allowed in the hotel.

Floor kinda sucked. They had a lot of cabinas outside that I don't think everyone realized were there. By splitting the booths up with inside and outside ones (that were not even close to each other) i think it made both insided and outside ones suck. Plus the outside ones were hot as hell. Hopefully they will not do this again next year and just keep everyone inside.

It was beneficial in more ways than one for myself.
WG

I got a nice tan

I liked the traffic panelists

marc

You've got some good points & suggestions there will, especially about having different seminars/ workshops geared towards webmasters with different levels of knowledge. THe best seminars I went to was in Vancouver 2003 where it was more of a roundtable session. The speaker/mod would discuss the topic for a bit & then ask us questions, which led to debates, new ideas being brought up & also learning what the person sitting beside you does & gives you a chance to offer your own ideas.



Where you there for business or for the free drinks and T&A?
Both, i get a lot of my biz done online but it's nice to see everyone, party & see what everyone else is doing / up to / launching next.

Was it benefical for your business?
Not really, cuz I can do pretty much all of it online anyways.

Did you like the seminars?
The law seminar with JD Odenberger rocked. The rest of them were the same ol same ol from last internext & the one before. It would be really hard for a total newbie to really learn how to start, what to do or how to do about doing it properly. The "war on porn" was mildly entertaining but was dissapointed that Rob Black was not there since he would've upped it about 5 notches.

What did you think of the showroom floor (exhibits)?
Dead. A lot of companies didn't have booths this year, probably because there's not really that many actual independant webmasters (newbies & veterans) attend the FL show cuz it's not exactly cheap. Attendance was down & a lot of ppl left on Sunday; there wasn't much for parties that day/evening either.

What would you like to see different/changed?
The offsite parties this year really lacked (not counting the Topbucks dinner, which is always great. All the Topbucks sponsored events, limo rides & hangout spots are always expertly planned & executed) Thank you to them for doing the after hours hangout suite as well. Maybe I was just expecting everything to be like the old days (uh, like 3 years ago).
The seminars need to be more interactive.
Will has a great point about too much stuff going on the daytime. It was difficult trying to play poker, hit the showfloor, check out the seminars & visit the cabanas poolside all before 4pm, especially since it takes about 30 minutes to get from one spot to the next since you're always running into someone that you want to talk to from one place to the next.

did that involve business and pleasure?

Would have liked to met you. I was pretty busy the whole time and it flew by.

Thanks for the feedback. You make good points, someone who is new would probably be over whelmed and might not being able to comprehend everything. And someone who has been doing this for a while get bored pretty quick. You are right about the interaction with the audience, they typically only left about 15 mins or less for questions, and in most cases only 4 - 5 people were able to ask. To make it worse NO One suggested passing a mic or going up to a mic to talk so you couldn't hear what the question was that was asked. At least not for the majority of the seminars.

There should be siminar/ workshops for everyone on all levels. And they would be a lot more effective with smaller workshops by breaking things up like Traffic into smaller work shops, with 30 - 50 people and 1 speaker go over SEO, or how to make a good TGP page and submit to them or how to buy traffic. A workshop on how to convert and make your pages better. For new people a big seminar just for people who are new and what they should do to get started right, step 1, step 2, etc.. from creating your inc to hosting, to picking your first domain. etc.. workshop on billing companpies, billing options, and current state of visa etc..., workshop on running your own affiliate program / membership site. a workshop for people looking to get into the content biz etc... having more smaller workshops with 30 - 50 people and 1 speaker would be a lot more effective and non conflicting workshops could run at same time.

anyway its a thought, doubt anyone is actually listening that could change this...

Nada will change man - it's been repeat screenings of the same old movie for the last decade, irrespective of venues and organisers.

Got to agree with you on somewhile more worthwhile in respect of seminars - tho if you want them to happen, - it's a do-it-yourself job - trust me

all my friends went to internext and i didn't even get a loust t-shirt.

In a nutshell: If show organizers want more affiliates to come out they must provide value. Well thought-out seminars is a good place to start.

Yeah, I did get your ICQ msg but only once I got back to my room after the parties at night, sorry about that, would have been nice to meet you too.
WG

A mean case of herpes.

Yeah, i learned that making money in adult was like " being a drug dealer without selling drugs". It was great

Yeap, the more "can't miss" seminars and workshops that are offered the more people will attend the convention. If you are getting into SE traffic and still learning and you find out that there is going to be a great workshop on SE at the convention, some people will make the trip just for that. attendence goes up.

You gotta realize though that a lot of these topics are rather touchy subjects and most people would rather not talk about them. I for one would never speak on an SE panel simply because I don't want to invite more competition. Same reason you probably won't find a P2P forum either...
WG

You can say that again, I'm disappointed it only went 1 hour, and that there were no spare folding chairs on stage...

Who the hell is will 76 ??

It was nice meeting you "Mr Alaska" .. hit me up on ICQ soon ..

that wasn't me. seriously, someone else was wearing that .

I actually went to a p2p convention and the whole day was on p2p. Some people gave out great "tips" but ofcourse they wanted you to ultimatly use their service so they could do it for you and make money. OR they provided a product that complimented or was essential for you to get the traffic you were looking for. there were LOTS of services / products that you need to use if you want to make money with p2p and these guys providing these services would be more then happy to give you some info to get you to the point that you needed what they were offering.



Same thing could be applied here to our conventions. A SEO company could have one of their guys talk there and give out lots of tips. Some people will try to do it all on their own,some will say hell with it, this guy knows his shit and I want to use his company to do it for me. It is a great advertising tool for someone who provides those types of services. For example, say you have a submitter program for TGP's and you know a lot on how TGPs work so you contribute on the panel and help people and naturally mention that you submitter saves them a lot of time. If you do not provide a service and use all your own SEO traffic for yourself, then I don't see why you would want to speak (unless you were really nice and wanted to help people a little ), but it would still be benefical for you to attend for your own knowledge. Especially if you were someone that was still learning.

I stayed home.

What I got out of Internext was 5 days of peace and quiet, more submissions accepted, less junk on the board, and sold a decent domain for a fair bit of cash.

Internext was very good to me this year

I didn't make it this year but had a commit on seminars in general.. coming from working in video games for 9 years before going into adult back in 1999 the seminars that we had in games were way better than someone talking about them selves and how cool they are.. I rarely find informative information in the ones I want to listen to outside of maybe the legal panels. And when someone talks about every 5th word out of their mouth is their company name I just tune out. I hope the seminars where better at internext, those of us chained to our desks working hard couldn't make it this year.

as far as mobile goes. Its a huge beast to tackle esp in the US and doing your own solution is very tough, so find a good company that knows what they are talking about. Their are all sorts of billing solutions and well the best one for handling the US right now is credit card , which is a big pain in the ass for the consumer..

I hope to see more informative seminars in the future and thank all the people hosting these big conventions for listening.

You didn't miss much, the seminars were the same as usual. Legal was good as always, because always something new to talk about, hot topic etc...

And they did a Good vs Evil which was more for entertainment then education. Thats about it IMO.