Online Marketing Blog

One cannot go an evening at a Search Engine Strategies conference without some type of revelry and Wednesday night was no exception. Clicktracks delivered an encore of sorts by having a party at B.L.U.E.S. which is where TrueLocal had a party two days prior.

Guests were treated to drinks, food and the musical stylings of Chico Banks and the Candy Lickers - yep, that’s right. There was an additional singer to rev things up (didn’t catch his name though) added after a few songs.

As you can see John and Laura Thieme got up and put it down on the dance floor along with other SES party goers.

I have to say, the Pubcon conference last week was one of the better search marketing conferences I’ve been to. The overriding impression from just about everyone I talked to was that the content was great and the networking even better.

Below is a roundup of Online Marketing Blog’s blog posts, photos and videos from the WebmasterWorld Pubcon Las Vegas 2006. I have to say thanks to everyone that let me put my Sony CyberShot to the test and do these 1 minute “interviews”. :

Videos
Brett Tabke - WebmasterWorld
(Happy about the conference, speakers and the next one in Vegas)

I now have 5 of the 6 SEO interview videos I’ve shot here at the Las Vegas Pubcon.

Greg Hartnett - Best of the Web
Kevin Lee - Did-It.com
John Marshall - ClickTracks
Greg Jarboe - SEO-PR

I also have one with Patrick Gavin of Text Link Ads but the file is too big for YouTube so I’ll have to get it up to Google Video this weekend.

Now we’re heading over to the actual “Pub” part of Pubcon at the Nine Fine Irisishmen bar at the New York, New York casino. Hopefully we’ll get more SEO videos there.

One vendor you’re sure to see at virtually every SES and Pubcon conference is web analytics company, ClickTracks. I had the pleasure of speaking at a few DMA conferences at the same time as ClickTracks founder John Marshall and found him to be one of the most enthusiastic evangelists for web analytics in the industry. On top of that he’s really a very good guy.

John and his VP of Marketing, Michael Stebbins took out a few ClickTracks’ freinds for dinner on Tuesday night and it proved to be some of the best conversation. I cannot emphasize enough, the importance of networking after the daytime sessions are over.

Early this morning I received an email from John Marshall (as did other bloggers and pubs) announcing the merger of ClickTracks into a group of companies owned by J.L. Halsey that includes: Lyris, EmailLabs, and Hot Banana in a deal worth about $10 million.

I must say, congratulations to John, he’s a great guy, entertaining speaker, smart and very passionate about web analytics. The combined resources of the J.L. Halsey companies is sure to help ClickTracks offer a very valuable set of services to each group of customers as well as attract a new set of clients.