I visited the second annual BlogWorld and New Media Expo when it was held earlier this month New York’s Javits Center
Jeannette and Chris Brogan
I registered for the Exhibits, as I did last year, to learn what’s new and helpful for bloggers or anyone interested in social media. As an extra bonus I had my photo taken with one of my heroes, Chris Brogan, founder of Copyblogger.
I also bought his book Google+ for Business. He deserves my support for all that I’ve learned from his posts.
These are reviews of only a few exhibitors. 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 visit their websites for more information. Here they are in alphabetical order:
Exhibitors I Visited
Commun.it. This Israel-based relationship management service for Twitter launched its public beta at BlogWorld. Now all Twitter interactions are treated equally. The company says it will analyze your tweets, deducing relationship status and significance, prioritize those that matter most, and provide context for each incoming interaction.
GFQ Network. I love this one. The GFQ stands for Guys From Queens (which is a part of New York City). Founded in in 2009, it claims to be the leading producer of “talk-radio” style Internet programming. Each show can be seen live on GFQlive.tv, and also downloaded as an audio/video podcast from the GFQ Network website. Currently the network averages over 2 million viewers a month with some 13 shows per week covering everything from news to pop-culture, technology, opinion, comedy, and entertainment. Stay tuned!
Lijit Networks. This company provides online publishers with a monetization alternative to Google AdSense. It has direct partnerships with every major ad provider – agencies, trading desks, networks, etc. Lijit gives publishers an additional revenue stream to complement existing sales efforts, and provides audience analytics and reader engagement tools. A big plus is you can have a live chat with a real person if you have questions.
Overblog. This French-based company claims to be the #1 blog hosting company in Europe. At BlogWorld, the company launched its first campaign to convert U.S. bloggers to its platform. It was intriguing to learn that you can update your blog every time you share a piece of content somewhere across the Internet, including posts on your social networks and live streaming. Overblog has over 100 templates and its own analytics to track unique visitors, views and sources of referrals.
Rawporter. This neat service is still in beta. You can search its site for videos about a topic. If none exists in its archives, you put out a bid to what it calls its “army of cameras on-location and on demand.”
You can even become a rawporter yourself by downloading the iPhone app.
Suppose you need a quick video on breaking news. You put out a request for video, say, of a burning building and are willing to pay $25. The nearby rawporters see the request on their smart phones, shoot the raw footage and upload it.
Then you buy the video you select (you’re not obliged to buy any), edit and insert it into your blog or news story. I registered and they don’t have a category for Business but, as a test, I chose a video of a sunset that would have cost $5 if I uploaded it. Check out their Facebook page for more information.
Social Chorus. This company’s technology is used by major brands like PepsiCo and Intel to identify and connect with “influencers” across social networks. Social Chorus identifies and builds these relationships to shape the way customers see your brand. The company overlays a robust analytics program on the data it collects. At the Social Chorus booth I conducted a video interview with Syed Balkhi, founder of WPBeginner about how about how someone can start blogging on a WordPress platform.
YouSayToo. This new community driven media platform was launched at BlogWorld. It sort of reminded me of Google+ Circles and Pinterest Boards. They call their categories “Spots.” These are places where content creators and readers can visit specific topics and rate the content of others. The community votes on articles and can boot out bad content.
I covered a lot in my time at the exhibit booths but couldn’t get to everyone. By the way, the organizers are broadening the scope of future conferences.
BlogWorld founders Rick Calvert and Dave Cynkin announced the event will no longer be called BlogWorld & New Media Expo. Instead, it will be now known as New Media Expo.
