Seminar's (from my POV)

[Greenie]

UGH! Last time I did the seminars, they were in a nice hall with walls & ceilings & whatnot. The location this year is really horrible. It's off to the side of the registration downstairs, so there's exposed ceilings, curtains for walls & crowd noise on all sides (staff on 2, attendee's on the others) The PA system is up to 11 so that you can hear the speakers over the din outside the curtains. And, I did see a staff member cut thru the curtains with a cart of some sort, go behind the stage & back thru the other side curtains. Oh yea, there's 6 huge concrete beams in our area, so there's a couple of obstructed views.

We were asked to fill out a survey as well & let me tell you, put on your laughing hats for when I get home & scan this thing. Here's a teaser:

What is your main reason for attending Internext Las Vegas this year?
A - Screen the scene (discover new products/services)
B - Dick-scovery (learn about the industry)
C - Have your people call my people (network)
D - Get Laid (attend parties)
etc. I think you get the picture. Nothing like an industry that's trying to be taken seriously by the mainstream world |thumb


As far as the seminars themselves, I'm split 50/50 so far...

11:00 Maximizing Online Profits
- Most of the intro's were spammy
- There was a lot of talk (10-15 min) about branding (there's a Branding seminar on Saturday)
- 10 - 15 min on member retention, even though the audience was asked how many had member sites 5 min into the seminar & 5 people out of the 150 there raised their hands
- talk about private or invite only affiliate programs (so that programs can keep the riff raff out - sorta reminded me of that thread Sexy City Jim started aobut how to contact potential webmasters without being spammy)

IMHO, the topic of this seminar was way too wide & thus, a bunch of things were covered that did not really pertain to a majority of the audience.

I skipped the 12:15 seminar (I needed food)

2:00 Playing in Traffic

1st off, xxxjay was only 5 minutes late :D

Mike Hawk moderated & asked us each a couple of questions that were prety good:
1 - what was your defining moment?
2 - rev share or pps & why?
3 - what's popular now as far as sites/niches?
4 - what new ways of marketing are you using & what old ways are out?

Then some Q & A form the audience & oddly enough, I can see why the majority is just the panel & then the last 10-15 are the Q & A, because 3 of the 6 were off topic :)

There was some discussion on too much free stuff, why we publish our stats (me, jay & q'on), what's a good conversion rate for signups, etc.

Overall, I think this one was pretty good, but then again, I was on the other side of things, so I'm not the best to ask for an opinion.

More seminars tomorrow - you can't go to all of them & actually see the floor, which I have not yet seen :D

[Torn Rose]

Honestly from what you are saying is just more proof to me that AVN doesn’t care about any webmaster and just wants their $.

Putting a seminar in a shitty room where I'm sure you couldn’t hear shit and then a handing out an immature unprofessional questionnaire.|bullshit|

Nice.|thumb

[Useless Warrior]

I dink it's time that someone tells AVN to look up the word 'clever' in their Dick-tionary.

[Chop Smith]

Is the Masters' Roundtable Discussion still on?

[docholly]

Due to other committments I only attended Greenie's seminar.

the room was the worst. clanging dishes..people yelling at each other behind the curtains.

the panel was ok.. including xxxjay's entrance and his yummy looking bloody mary.

MML and I sat behind Talleyrands & Yahooks comrades who were pretty loud. Everything was echoing.

Mike Hawk did a pretty good job of moderating and he did keep it moving along fairly quickly.

A couple of the panelist shouldn't have been there at all, IMO, as they added nothing except to promote their own company or were stuck in oh so 5 years ago. One even had a "plant" ask a question so he could get his 'brand' out there. *sigh*

The panelists, especially Greenie, Q'oh & xxxjay were probably the most relevant to the topic and all gave pretty concise answers especially with regards to niche traffic and drilling down with in the catagories.

one of the panelists was so important that he couldn't turn off his cell phone and got a call in the middle of the seminar. |club|

Overall it was pretty good but the location, exterior noise and Q & A off topic or redundant questions were the downside.

[MrMaryLou]

I have seen some cluster fucks in my day but the room they have set up for the seminars has go to be one of the worst I ever seen in my life :( WTG AVN :(

[Greenie]

I didn't attend any other seminars today & will probably skip msot tomorrow since I'll be over at CES (but I do want to go to the Extreme Marketing one)

Saturday I should be able to make most of them.

[Greenie]

I only made it to one seminar today, as I wanted to see the floor & take a nap before tonight's activities :)

Saturday 11:00 Age Verification: Your Business & The Law

I went into this seminar ready to bash everyone on the panel & having a very bad vibe about the whole Age Verification thing. But I have to admit, after sitting thru the entire seminar, I have a different outlook on things.

It did start off with me still wanting to bash them. The moderator explained that we all need AV(Age Verification), spammed his AV site, mentioned the obvious points of us not being a brick & motor business where ID could be checked at the door & whatnot. But the one thing that he did say that made sense, and rang true throughout the seminar, is the "Good Faith Effort" method, which basically means that we should all at least try to keep minors off our sites with legit warning pages.

Questions to the panel:

1 - What are the right of minors to access explicit materials?

I guess they have rights based on the 1st amendment, but who the fuck cares? No one wants to market to kids.


2 - Should webmasters (our industry) take on Age Verification ourselves?

Joan Irvine (who I was really ready to bash when I walked in) pushed the basic legit warning page practice with the "over 18" text & no images on the warning page. Basically, what some Link Lists have been being bashed for putting into practice months & months ago.

Gregory Piccionelli (lawyer) really floored me with his statements. The gist of it is there is no real way to determine age online. Credit Card verification is on the way out because of disclaimers that CC companies are now putting on the cards, stating that possession of one does not mean that the person if over 18 (my 18 year old has had a CC in her name since she was 17) We (our industry & the gov't) all need to put this problem back where it belongs - with the parents. He also mentioned that there are laws in place for when someone bypasses or disobey's an online warming. I liked this guy a lot :)


3 - What will happen if our industry does not take on Age Verification Ourselves?

Clyde DeWitt (lawyer) thinks that the gov't will step in & if they can't find a way to do it with the current porn tax law that involved something with the FTC & CC Processors (like a database of sorts) that the gov't will just fuck with us on other aspects (like 2257)


4 - How do we get the word out to our industry about Age Verification?

In a nutshell, boards, webmaster new sites, webmaster print mags, etc. And get some parents involved that are already doing what they are supposed to be doing by monitoring their children's online activities.



I walked away feeling very good about the whole thing. Peopled that make Free Sites & run Link Lists are pretty much in compliance with what the industry needs to be at. I know I am :)

The main problem is that this panel is pretty much preaching to the choir. I have to assume that most of us here (especially those reading this) are legit webmasters that don't spam or pursue minor surfer traffic or employ other bad marketing practices. But I felt very good about this seminar |thumb

[Greenie]

Here's some pics of the lovely seminar area as well as pics of me making an ass of myself on the Traffic Panel:
http://www.greenguyandjim.com/vegas06/jan05.html

[Surfn]

Who's the guy in the O n A shirt? |escape|

[RawAlex]

Those pics show me that AVN really cheaped out, probably were not able to get the space needed for conferences or they were worried they would mix with the video show ones...

Judging from what I saw on cam from the show floor, and the pictures I saw, this show looked, well... lame.

I dunno.

Alex

[Kassidy]

We only managed to attend a couple of the seminars but were really disappointed by what we saw.

Terrible ghetto location next to the service entrance in the dungeon-like basement, unprofessional convention centre staff disregarding repeated requests to keep it quiet... Not to mention the panelists more concerned with pissing on other panelists than actually offering valuable information. You expect a little bit of that but it was very unfortunate the way things played out this year.

[MrYum]

Geez...that location looks like a bad joke.

Good info on the AV thing Greenie...thanks for passing that along. Nice to know we've pretty much been on the right track for some time |thumb

[guestcam]

And the MOST tell tale sign of what AVN thinks of its 'step children', us webmasters, the AVN AEE seminars WERE in proper rooms.

I am going to write to avn asking for my seminiar fee to be refunded. The conditions (as describe in this thread) were 100% in conflict with attentive listening. The promise of 'exclusive' was broken as anyone standing in the registeration area could hear what I paid for. the product promised to me was not delivered. And since it was delivered to AEE, any excuses AVn may provide cannot be seen as any thing other than excuses.

I encourage any of you who paid for the seminars to also request that extra fee refunded.

[RawAlex]

guestcam, for me it is no doubt that the IE part of the show was "what was left" and nothing more. Table scraps. However, when you see the number of droolers at the door of the AEE show willing to pay $25 or whatever it was this year to walk around and take pics and get autographs, you can understand how a wee little webmaster show can come in second place without much effort. I know which show brought them them most income (and it wasn't the webmasters).

Alex

[Surfn]

From an exhibitors point of view looking at the pics I've seen and talking to friends, I'm glad the business I'm part owner of didn't get a booth there this year.

[guestcam]

However, when you see the number of droolers at the door of the AEE show willing to pay $25 or whatever it was this year to walk around and take pics and get autographs, you can understand .........
I do understand. However understanding WHY I got lied to and why I got ripped off doesnt mean I dont want my money back. Nor does it mean they dont have to give the money back.

We were and should be still, a show by ourselves, away from retail fans. If Fishbourne and friends want to make some extra cash at AEE by selling to the CES fans, good for them. They want to lie to the Internext webmasters about what they get when they pay extra for seminars, not so good for them.

H

[Beaver Bob]

i didn't attend nearly as many seminars as i had planned due to the conditions of the seminar room. there was a lot more interesting things to do. but the traffic seminar, and the extreme seminar were pretty good :)

[furrygirl]

I only ended up attending the extreme content and legal seminars. I forgot my birth control pills and had to waste half of the first day getting my prescription sent to and filled in Vegas. Ugh! Sorry I missed your panel, Greenguy, although we nearly met later in the day when you caught Farrell and I running to get me added to his list of people to get show passes.

Anyhow, the seminar room sucked, and there was a fair bit of noise from being next to whatever we were next to- janitorial headquarters? |confused|

[xxxjay]

UGH! Last time I did the seminars, they were in a nice hall with walls & ceilings & whatnot. The location this year is really horrible. It's off to the side of the registration downstairs, so there's exposed ceilings, curtains for walls & crowd noise on all sides (staff on 2, attendee's on the others) The PA system is up to 11 so that you can hear the speakers over the din outside the curtains. And, I did see a staff member cut thru the curtains with a cart of some sort, go behind the stage & back thru the other side curtains. Oh yea, there's 6 huge concrete beams in our area, so there's a couple of obstructed views.

IMHO, the topic of this seminar was way too wide & thus, a bunch of things were covered that did not really pertain to a majority of the audience.

I skipped the 12:15 seminar (I needed food)

2:00 Playing in Traffic

1st off, xxxjay was only 5 minutes late :D

Mike Hawk moderated & asked us each a couple of questions that were prety good:
1 - what was your defining moment?
2 - rev share or pps & why?
3 - what's popular now as far as sites/niches?
4 - what new ways of marketing are you using & what old ways are out?

Then some Q & A form the audience & oddly enough, I can see why the majority is just the panel & then the last 10-15 are the Q & A, because 3 of the 6 were off topic :)

There was some discussion on too much free stuff, why we publish our stats (me, jay & q'on), what's a good conversion rate for signups, etc.

Overall, I think this one was pretty good, but then again, I was on the other side of things, so I'm not the best to ask for an opinion.

More seminars tomorrow - you can't go to all of them & actually see the floor, which I have not yet seen :D

LOL -- yeah, I was late because I couldn't believe where they were having the seminar. I was like looking for a hall...not a bunch of curtians! I haven't heard that much feedback out of a PA since my days playing in crappy rock clubs. Me and GG were at opposite ends of the table and it was tough to hear what anyone else was saying.

I tried to run by and say hi to GG after the seminar, but he split n a hurry...he probably needed some asprin for all of the feedback...I know I did!

[Greenie]

I had to piss, so I snuck to the back of the area, cut thru the curtains & then sorta snuck out on the other side of the curtains, as I forgot to bring a decent amount of business cards :D

[xxxjay]

I had to piss, so I snuck to the back of the area, cut thru the curtains & then sorta snuck out on the other side of the curtains, as I forgot to bring a decent amount of business cards :D

That was the only good thing about it. The audience cleaned me out of cards after the show. One thing I promised not to do was ever mention my program or site by name (avoid the spam, ya know?), but everyone who got a card later found out -- so that was cool.

[Greenie]

...We were asked to fill out a survey as well & let me tell you, put on your laughing hats for when I get home & scan this thing...
Like I said, put on your Laughing Hats, because here comes a Home Run!

http://www.greenguyandjim.com/avn/survey06.jpg

[RawAlex]

Notice they refer to is as "las vegas" and "summer". I have a feeling that if they have to shift the summer dates in 2007 to match up with a march 07 vegas date, we may end up somewhere else besides Miami... which would not be a horrible thing.

I also sort of wonder if the question is couched so as to move to one a show a year (with phoenix and cybernet ending up as the other two major shows of the year?)

Hmmm...

Alex

[Kassidy]

Like I said, put on your Laughing Hats, because here comes a Home Run!

http://www.greenguyandjim.com/avn/survey06.jpg

How embarassing. I'm not sure if it's us that are not respected as legitimate business owners or if we should lose all respect for their 'professionalism'. (I know which way I'm leaning...)