Keynote

First off was Jim Kukral MC’ing the event, and then Jason Calacanis had his keynote. His keynote generated a lot of controversy, as he basically said everyone in the room is a spammer. Some other takeaways from his keynote were to build quality sites for the long term, that you shouldn’t settle for $300k checks, and to reach for the stars. Gary Lee posted his thoughts on the keynote, and even Jason Calacanis has some post-keynote thoughts. You can listen to the keynote yourself at Webmaster Radio.

Update: Amit Mehta posted his thoughts on Jason’s keynote.

How to Futureproof Your SEO Efforts

Here are my notes from Wil Reynolds talk on SEO.

  • Meta tags
    • Keywords aren’t useful to Google and others anymore
      • He doesn’t even use them
      • But a reason to keep them is for Google adsense
    • Use sentences in the description tag
  • Build up your asset inventory
    • Some will strike out, but some will catch on
  • Don’t chase Google
  • Watch out for Google co-op and widgets
  • How-to videos are the best

Moniker’s Live Domain Auctions

This was my first time at a domain auction, and it was quite interesting. There was a nice bidding war between a guy in the room and someone on the internet bidding for chinesenoodles.com. I think it ended up selling for $4,750. But the most expensive domain sold was temp.com to someone in the room for $400,000! And most of the people bidding didn’t seem to care how much they were paying too! I guess I have a lot to learn about the domaining game.

Deal Site Meetup

I organized a meetup for people that ran a deal site and was in Vegas for the Affiliate Summit. We had a good turnout, with Alan from dealtaker.com, Jeff and associate from dealnews.com, Ben from bensbargains.net, Barry from dealhunting.com, and of course me from dealoco.com. And had I known Danielle was with pinkdeals.net, I would have invited her as well (she is totally cute too).

We ended up eating at Tao, as we deemed it easier to just walk upstairs to the Affiliate Bash party right after. It was great to meet everyone, and I hope we can keep the communication lines open, and get together more often. Perhaps ad:tech?

Affiliate Bash at Tao

This was the only party open to everyone at Affiliate Summit, and it was a good party. The Blue Man Group did a special performance there to kick off their new affiliate program. There were a few recaps of this event from John Chow and Zac Johnson. Here is the video I took from their performance.

 

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=107389sknPY[/youtube]

Overall

One good long day filled with people to see, sessions to attend, and free drinks at night. Gary Lee posted a summary of his day 1 events.