Tag Archives: events

Austin Captivates Film, Music & Gaming

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Captivate ConferenceSunday, October 6, the future of the digital entertainment industry realizes it’s home in Austin with the premier of Captivate at Austin’s Palmer Events Center. In an era where voiceover contracts, micro-transactions, crowdfunding, augmented reality, and 3D printing converge are defining the future of entertainment, Captivate takes a unique look at the convergence of film, music, and gaming; from my perspective, starting to look at entrepreneurs and ventures in those industries in much the same way that we (I) look at startups in tech.

“We decided to launch Captivate because we realized that there was a void we needed to fill,” said Executive Director Jennifer Bullard. “Unlike many conferences that bring independent creative professionals together, Captivate focuses specifically on the skills needed in order to thrive at the cutting edge. With hands-on workshops, interactive sessions, and practical advice, Captivate delivers proven knowledge and best practices you can use today to create the future you want tomorrow.”

The conference, and expo, is geared toward small to medium sized creative and technology companies interested in learning about the future of digital entertainment and new technologies. A full-featured event, Captivate is complete with an expo floor showcasing technologies and tools for those breaking into the film, music, game, and mobile industries and the conference boasts a robust conference programming schedule with tracks in Art & Animation, Start-Up & Business, Design & Narrative, Content Creation, the Future of Digital Entertainment, Leadership, and Student oriented panels and speakers.

Gary HooverMore than 100 sessions and speakers focusing on all areas of digital entertainment – including film, games, music, and mobile. Keynote speakers Warren Spector (Disney Interactive, Junction Point, Ion Storm), Gary Hoover (Bigwig Games, Bookstop, Hoover’s), and William Hurley [“whurley”] (Chaotic Moon) will discuss topics such as leadership in the arts, keys to building a lasting business, and how innovation can create opportunity—adding to an already spectacular lineup of speakers and panelists.

Me too! Join me as we explore What it Takes to Raise Money (and clue me in on the secrets). We’re going to dive into what all of those popular questions you hear from advisors and potential angel or venture investors mean to your business. “What’s your exit strategy?” “Are you lean?” “What’s the business model?” You’ve heard them all, what are they really asking?

Raising capital is less about the answers to such questions and instead, having the passion for and ambition to not take no for an answer; networking, networking, networking; creating excitement and engagement; and knowing your audience (no, not your customers: the investors). When you know your market and the stage in which you find yourself, there are a common set of expectations for your business such that raising capital is as simple as ensuring you’ve met those expectations, knowing how to tell your story, and recognizing that no two VCs thing alike. We’ll explore how to do that and how to get ready for the different expectations of different investor communities.

Learn more at captivateconference.com and grab details on access and tickets while you’re there.

SXSW ’11 Panel to Watch: Left Brain Search = Google. Right Brain Search = X

Search, , , , , , ,

Ever wonder why Google isn’t very helpful in finding something to do? While search engines are pretty good at finding information, they are terrible user experiences for those hoping to conveniently consume and digest that information (sorry for the food analogy).

The solution lies in the sentiment of the audience. Mood based discovery engine Moodfish has pulled together an all star cast of search professionals to discuss the creative side of search; the moods, emotions, and intentions that lead to a better search experience. New search experiences, based on these semantic understandings and recommendations, are personal, social, and contextual. Companies like Moodfish, Netflix, and Pandora are leading the way; focusing experiences that leverage how we think, talk and feel.

Some of the questions to be discussed:

  • What are the current search technologies available in the market and what are they best for?
  • What kind of mood-based search has been done in the past?
  • Which companies are currently moving into mood-based search?
  • How much better is the quality of mood-based data vs. generic search engine data?
  • Can we actually normalize moods?

Hosted by Moodfish founder and CEO, Nikhil Daftary at the Hilton Hotel – Salon H, on Saturday, March 12, 2011, 5-7:30pm. Follow me on Plancast for this and other SXSW sessions and events that have caught my attention.

See You At TechCrunch50?

Conferences / Events, , ,

Monday and Tuesday next week, September 14-15, the industry’s exciting technologies and entrepreneurs converge on San Francisco and the San Francisco Design Center Concourse for one of the most influential events for startups and web services.

Last year, TC50 hosted 250 start-up and early-stage companies, pitching to thousands of 2,000 attendees and buyers, VCs and angels. One company walks away with $50,000 from the TechCrunch50 organizers.  Runners-up are invited to participate in the DemoPit to pitch their product to attendees.

If you are going to be there, or hanging around San Francisco regardless, I’d love to connect.  Tickets are still available. D me @seobrien or get in touch through LinkedIn or Facebook.

Starting Your Business When Times Are Tough

Conferences / Events, Industry, Social Media, Startups, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What might we learn from companies successfully started in tough, turbulent economic times? More than you’d think when you consider Fedex, HP, and Apple rose from ashes similar to those we’re experiencing now.

Lan Nguyen, today, outlines some great Tips for Downturn Entrepreneurs on TheStreet.com including, to name a few:

  • Study the market
  • Take the long view
  • Recognize that a great idea is only half of it

Give the article your attention as lessons therein are invaluable.

Knowing resources are scarce, and time precious, when starting a business in such an economy, Outright.com has partnered with Network Solutions to organize a suite of resources for these Unintentional Entrepreneurs. Save time and money on your back office, eliminating the cost and hassle of bookkeeping, with Outright.com and Network Solutions will provide a free domain and business profile web page to get you online. All you have to do is get started.

Up and running, spend some time with entrepreneurs to learn from their experience, avoid the costly mistakes that you can ill afford to make, and capitalize on the efficient resources available to you. Starting in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Unintentional Entrepreneurs are getting together to help one another. In San Francisco, register now for the free event being held at Langton Labs on July 15th at 6 pm.

The tour follows entrepreneurs to BLANKSPACES in Los Angeles, on the 23rd, with registration open now, and heads east to Atlanta, New York City, and Washington D.C. Subscribe to unintentionalentrepreneur.com for details surrounding the forthcoming events. Food and drinks, on hand, take care of dinner for the evening and veteran entrepreneurs make for good conversation.

Local Search Behind MTV Campus Daily Guides Reaches College Demographic

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With a tremendous amount of fanfare (I had a parade come through the office this morning), I’m excited to share that Zvents has partnered with MTV to deliver a comprehensive local search experience to Campus Daily Guides published by mtvU.

Creating a unique opportunity to reach the affluent college demographic, Zvents is powering the local search experience used by college students on 25 mtvU Campus Daily Guides. mtvU is taking advantage of Zvents’ Media Platform to provide details about millions of important college and recreational events, local promotions and sales, sports, concerts, and performers, specific to the location of each university campus. Together, mtvU and Zvents are serving up local search like it’s never been done before.

How could I possibly be more excited? One of the initial 25 includes my Alma mater, Arizona State University

“Initial 25?” That’s right, mtvU General Manager Steven Friedman shared with MediaWeek their plans to roll out another 25 campuses by year end.

The partnership significantly extends and improves the value of a new advertising vehicle for local merchants. We’ve learned from Google that search reaches consumers as no medium before, bringing to advertisers a revolutionary advertising opportunity that allocates budgets to contextual, behaviorally targeted search results. You spend to advertise against highly qualified traffic; the perfect model for promoting a website. Heretofore however, local search has been limited to enabling local merchants to only highlight their own business listing, reaching consumers looking for that business. Effective when someone wants to find your business, to be sure, but not the game changing search experience delivered through the major search engines; not the ability to search for everything locally. Zvents is making that change, adding local promotions and event listings to the search index, enabling local merchants to reach local consumers with sales, promotions, and events. And now, with mtvU, to reach students as they look for the things they want to do.

Read more about the partnership and opportunity for you as a local advertiser with Reuters, Senior PaidContent.org Correspondent David Kaplan, or The Washington Post. To get started promoting your local business, find your college campus or learn more about local promotions through Zvents.

Getting your events and promotions online

Insights / Research, Local, Natural Search / SEO, Paid Search, Search, Social Media, , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve had the distinguished honor of having an article featured in this month’s edition of Event Solutions Magazine bringing to their audience some of the most basic online marketing tenants that we so easily forget as still being foreign to most marketers. What are the basics? How does one get started? Here’s an excerpt:

Most event marketers overlook the tremendous potential their websites alone have for promoting events, and with so many buzzwords floating around about advertising online, it’s easy to get lost. Here are a few of the easiest ways to get started – and some of the best-performing tools to market events successfully.

The premise of the article is simple: marketers more frequently advertise events than the brands, products, or services available through their business. The event draws business by way of the promotion, sale, seminar, or other attraction that motivate the conversion. The challenge lies therein: an event is temporary so how does one success in marketing it online?

  1. Be Search-Friendly, Get Found
  2. It’s All about Optimization
  3. Go Local
  4. Engage the Social Community

You’ll have to pick up the article or wait until next month when it should be available online. I’ll keep you posted!

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Conferences

Conferences / Events, ,

Yes, it is that time of year again. While most are stuffing turkey and braving the malls for holiday gifts, we in the online marketing community prepare for back-to-back-to-back… to back conferences. Admittedly, with the whirlwind of activity, I’ve even neglected to mention one most important, underway as we speak.

This week at SES, Zvents CEO Ethan Stock joined Zorik Gordon (President of local search ad vendor ReachLocal), Gib Olander (Director of Biz Dev at ad agency Localeze), Eric Stein (Director of Local Marketing at Google), and Chris Tolles (CEO of Topix) for a panel on Local Search: Why Your Business Needs to Be There and How. As the most significant online local marketing and search conference of the year, The Kelsey Group and Search Engine Strategies ILM:07 & SES Local starts the season right. My being too late to the game to encourage you to go, if you were there and want to talk local, let me know.

Next week leaves us torn between SES Chicago and Pubcon and I am not alone in debating this scheduling travesty.

Search Engine Strategies is billed as the premier event for search engine marketing and optimization and I can validate it remains the leading search conference with tremendous insights and diverse topics. My only criticism is that they cycle through the same list of speakers on the conference circuit as though they are the only people in the industry… year after year…. after year… after year. Also consider, SES Chicago is practically mirrored in New York, San Jose, and Toronto bringing to mind the adage, if you’ve seen one…

Without question, if you have the means, you should get to Las Vegas for PubCon. WebmasterWorld’s Search & Internet Marketing Conference brings the best and brightest together once a year for the largest meetup of search engine marketers, optimizers, marketing executives, webmasters, affiliate managers, program and channel managers, purchasing agents and affiliates. I’ll be there and look forward to catching up with Bill Slawski, Misty Locke, Li Evens, Bill Hartzer, Rand Fishkin, Jim Boykin, Aaron Wall, Kevin Lee, Tanya Vaughan, Stephan Spencer, Tony Wright, Lee Odden, Andy Beal, Michael McDonald, Greg Hartnett, Joe Morin, and Jeff Quipp; and please, I know gratuitous name dropping and outbound linking when I see it so no need to cry foul (Sorry Misty, the Range site seems to be down!). Really, having all those brilliant search minds in one place where I can draw out their greatest secrets with free drinks at the blackjack tables is alone worth the trip. And who knows, Malcolm Gladwell might want a few minutes of my time to pick my brain for his next book. If you’ll be there, drop me a line (paul_l_obrien at yahoo dot com), I’d love to catch up.

And if that wasn’t enough… MediaPost’s 2007 Search Insider Summit is December 12-13 in Park City, UT and there is a week long Online Marketing Strategies seminar in Pewaukee, WI! (okay, so you probably aren’t planning on going to Pewaukee). I’ll tell you you what though, I don’t envy Lee who appears to be going to all of them.