What I Learned from the Exhibitors at the Blog World New Media Expo 2011

Image via Wikipedia

I visited the Javits Center yesterday to see what’s new for bloggers at the first Blog World New Media Expo held in New York. I had registered for the Exhibits and was actually quite delighted and so I’d like to share what I learned with you.

These are reviews of only a few exhibitors because I spent so much time with Network Solutions. I hope you find the information useful and suggest you do your own research. (BTW, I am not an affiliate of any of these companies). Click on the company name to go to their websites. Here, in alphabetical order:

Blogdash. This service is only a few months old, founded in New York, the media capital, by David Spinks. His service acknowledges that bloggers are members of the media. So companies and PR agencies pay to gain access to bloggers who register with the site in order to pitch them stories, offer them products to review, etc. It’s free for bloggers.

My Damn Channel.  I don’t particularly like the name, but companies like Subway and celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel sponsor video programs on this internet channel. It’s like BlogTalk Radio only for video.

Network Solutions. This vendor alone was worth the price of admission. Network Solutions offers domain names, web hosting and online marketing services. I was excited by a demonstration of the company’s mobile capabilities. Aaron Eversgerd, a product operations manager, took me through the process of reconfiguring my WordPress blog – Write Speak Sell – which also functions as my website, for mobile viewing. More people than ever are accessing websites via the internet so naturally I was intrigued.

Aaron set up my mobile site with my logo, a brief descriptive message and a phone icon that allows a mobile user to click and call me. Also, I can add pages myself from my site. Of course, you can always type in the name of my blog and get to see it on your phone. But it wouldn’t be formatted for mobile. There’s still a little back-end work to be done with my blog host, so I don’t think it will be ready to launch by the time you read this post. If you want to see how it looks and works on a mobile phone, try next week after I’ve added the pages and other bells and whistles.

Shoutlet. There are a number of products that enable you to manage your social networks in one place – like HootSuite, which I use – but this company offers a more robust offering that it calls “enterprise social management software.” You can manage your social networks, categorize and tag fans, create polls, promotions and contests and measure and evaluate social media campaigns.

Social Media Club. This isn’t a vendor, but a global organization for social media professionals with over 200 chapters around the world. I must have had my head in the sand, because I didn’t know about it. The primary mission is to promote media literacy, promote standard technologies, encourage ethical behavior and share best practices. We all want that so I’m going to check out the New York Chapter.

Yahoo News. This is one of the most visited sites on the internet. I list this one because it is an opportunity for bloggers to shine by submitting your best copy. You need to be vetted by Yahoo first to become a contributor. You get paid but it’s a pittance (although you can earn more depending on the number of clicks your article gets). The real value, in my view, is being published by the Yahoo brand. Great for your portfolio.

Image via CrunchBase

Zemanta.  This is a personal favorite. Zemanta is a search engine extension for bloggers. It’s a great tool because when you insert your post into the dashboard, Zemanta automatically shows you related images that you can use (such as the images in this post), as well as a stream of current articles on the topic so you can see what others are writing. It also provides links to companies that you mention in your copy. It’s a great time saver.

A fairly new feature is what they call “promoted” sites. Companies pay to have the links to their sites listed first. This won’t guarantee the blogger will use that link but it sure improves the chances. I think Zemanta is providing such a great free service to bloggers that I’m hoping more companies promote their links so Zemanta can earn some well-deserved revenue. (Besides. the nice rep gave me two T-shirts).

I wish I had time for more reviews. But I only wanted to tell you about the companies where I actually spoke to the reps. There were plenty of other fine companies exhibiting at this expo. I hope they come back next year so I can spend some time with them and learn more about their products.

If you enjoyed this blog post, click below:
Subscribe and receive my blog posts in your email box.
Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Leave a comment