Photo-A-Day #1652

Today kicked off with a State of the Blogosphere annual address from Richard Jalichandra of Technorati. This was a very interesting session that is done each year to show how the blogosphere is changing and evolving. Lots of statistics but the main thing is that more people are blogging, they are blogging more often and they are also using many microblogging sites.

I also watched the next keynote session called the death and rebirth of Journalism. Some good speakers were included here and they had interesting things to say, I just wasn’t feeling it myself. I sat next to Ed Jenks of Now Public, he’s an editor there. Now Public uses my photos for their stories often. Interesting guy.

I then walked the exhibit hall floor, picked up a few shirts talked to a few people and also signed up for the Fatburger XXX challenge. I don’t know why, I just decided to try it out. The challenge, finish an entire Triple King the XXX burger the WTF burger. The big ass burger. If anything, free lunch.

I attended my favorite session of the weekend so far called “Are You Getting The Most Money Out of Your Blog As You Can?” Long title that was changed to “I Can Haz $$”. The session was moderated by Dave Taylor and the panel consisted of Chloe Spencer, Tim Jones and Chris Pirillo. The session was very good because the entire panel gave real examples and real details on how to improve their blogs. During the Q&A session I got up so that the panel could evaluate my blog, even though it was just redesigned. I wanted to see if they had additional areas that they could see for improvement. Also I wanted people in the room to know who I was.

This worked out really well because after the session Gary Arndt of the Everything Everywhere blog came over an introduced himself to me. Gary takes great pictures every day and he didn’t have many of them of himself. So I gave him one of the Xshots that Michael Dauod sent me to give out at Blog World Expo.

I next attended the “How to Work with Big Brands and Not Get Treated Like Just a ‘Mommy'” partly by accident. I was pretty much the only guy in the room too. I dropped off one of my BenSpark.com water bottles to Lucretia Pruitt (@Geekmommy). I had promised her one of them at IZEAFest but we never connected. She was very happy to get hers.

I had to leave the session early because I was participating in the Fatburger XXX Challenge (You were Right Rob it was XXX not XXXL). This was an eating contest where you only had to finish to win. There were four people out of the 10 who finished. Yes, I was one of those people. The sad thing is that I didn’t even feel full afterward.

Immediately after the challenge I met Sally of Stepwise which is a charity that helps people in Africa. After eating the equivalent of a meal for 14 people in an African village I wasn’t feeling so good about the challenge. So I did want to spread the word about Sally’s charity, they are doing good work and you can follow her on twitter (@stepwise). The organization uses Social Media to help raise funds to help fulfill the basic needs of African children. Take a look.

I talked to quite a few people and another table stood out in my mind and it was again food related. This was Antonia’s nuts. I talked with one of the folks there about their Gourmet Caramelized Pecans. I was given a couple of samples and they are delicious. I hope that Antonia’s Nuts sets up an affiliate program soon because I’d love to advertise for them because their product is very tasty.

I wandered back over to the Fatburger truck to see the next challenge. This time one of the challengers was Chris Pirillo. I swear the burger was bigger than Chris’ head, I wonder how far he got. There is a video of the contest but I haven’t been able to watch it yet. Once I can I’ll post a link.

At this session I met Stephanie “Stevie” Puckett, she’s a friend of the Geretys: Ed and Suzanne. We talked over a few things with membership sites and membergate. I am interested in learning more about this software. I am going to try and met Tim Kerber, who is also a friend of the Geretys. But at that same time I have to do the Blogging Speed Dating thing (meeting with a number of advertisers).

I went back to the room to relax a bit and on the way I road tested a Ford Fusion. That is one sleek little car. It also as some great display items and a touch screen for the radio. A little pricey though.

When I returned to the conference I went to the Chad Vader session and got to see season 2 episodes 6-9 and learn a little about how the guys behind the session produce the show. Chad Vader is a funny Youtube show about Darth Vader’s lesser known brother Chad the day shift manager of a market. The show is pretty funny and has gained a big audience. These guys also created a promo video for Blog World Expo that features Cali Lewis, Guy Kawasaki and Chris Brogan.

I skipped the last few things and went for a swim. I met Wendy Piersall. She was hanging out by the pool working on her laptop. We chatted for a bit then I went up to the room and caught up with Buck “Daddy” Rogers. He was headed out to a meal with Collective Bias and I was headed to the MarketLeverage dinner at Envy. What a fantastic meal. We started with Calamari and crabcakes, then on to an iceberg wedge salad, filet mingion and then the triple mini desserts were also fantastic. I met some really nice people at dinner as well. After dinner it was time for bed, well after I finish this post.