Darren Rowse, of ProBlogger, was in NY yesterday and as part of his trip he managed to organize a gathering for bloggers at a NYC pub. Working 10 blocks or so away it seemed like a no-brainer for me to attend as there'd be plenty of upside to such a gathering with no downside.
First, I met Darren which was really my primary reason for going. Anyone that has an RSS membership of 20,000+ is someone worth meeting. I'm hoping some of his magic rubbed off on me while we shook hands!
Second, I chatted with someone, whose name I'm purposely not mentioning, that needs to re-work her small-talk techniques. Right from the start she made her motivations for attending clear -- to enlist the help of technical people for a project she's working on. Nothing wrong there. Where she made a mistake though was in saying that she dislikes bloggers because they are full of themselves. Ignoring whether you agree with that statement or not, there really is no reason to say such things in a room full of bloggers. So I ended the conversation and moved on.
Third, I learned about a service, HitTail that promises to help bloggers with their SEO efforts. The service describes itself like this: "HitTail reveals in real-time the least utilized, most promising keywords hidden in the Long Tail of your natural search results. We present these terms to you as suggestions that when acted on can boost the natural search results of your site." The funny thing is I had heard about the service a while back, but immediately dismissed it. Yet after speaking to the principal behind the technology (Hi Mike) I was compelled to give it shot. So 30 minutes after getting home from the meet-up I had registered and installed the necessary tracking code. Amazing what meeting someone in person can do, isn't it?
That's a quick snapshot of the evening. There were certainly others I talked to like Aaron Brazell who politely tried to tell me that using my 16-character name as domain was an idea ahead of its time (yeah right, Aaron!) along with various folks whose blog URLs I didn't catch (my bad) like Joe, Dan, and Andrew. Maybe next time I'll see YOU there!
Entries (RSS)
45n5,
Sadly no pictures. I left my camera on my desk so that I wouldn't forget to bring it. Sigh.
very cool, any pics?
Lara,
I'm glad to hear my experience wasn't unique. It did cross my mind that she behaved this way because of "me"
I wish I remembered to bring my camera like you did.
Darren,
Thanks again for being the connector at the event. We all could, in theory, get together any time especially those of us that are local, but in reality we need an influencer like you. You could just as easily not bother, so I appreciate that you made the effort!
I remember who you're talking about - had I gotten the same comment about bloggers, I'd have walked away from her as well. I'm all about networking and all, but her "product" isn't even geared toward online anything. It was direct mail related.
I have some contacts in the direct mail business, and I'm willing to pass along any info she wants to send - but I wish I'd known about that comment she made... what a turnoff!
Anyway - I too had a great time last night, and I'm sorry we didn't get to meet! Maybe next time, or when Darren takes over the world...
great to meet you last night - thanks for the write up of the meetup.