Gary Pool SEO

There will be a world-class set of presenters at the 5th annual Internet Strategy Forum Summit, July 17 & 18 in Portland, Oregon.

The Internet Strategy Forum Summit features 8 keynote presenters, 1 panel, a catered lunch and all-attendee reception on Thursday, plus plenty of networking time.

I’ll see you there. Make sure to register and book your room early. There are early bird discounts.

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At SMX Social in Long Beach, California, April 22 - 23 I had the privilege of asking Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz some questions.

Rand answered candidly about such things as who was his open sharing inspiration, small business SEO and SMM, Jason Calacanis, SMX Social Long Beach, and SEOmoz surprises.

Rand was great as usual and so was SMX Social Long Beach.
Jason Calacanis, well that’s another story.

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While at SMX Social Long Beach, I think Austin Powers was there and he tried to pass himself off as Danny Sullivan.

Judge for your self.

You answer Danny Sullivan or Austin Powers?

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I am sitting in the Westin Long Beach, California waiting for SMX Social to begin.

Social Media Marketing Essentials
Customers interacting with brands — that’s marketing in the 21st century. And SMM is key to fostering brand/customer conversations. This session will orient you to the world of social media. You’ll learn the leading sites, the functionality they provide, and best practices for interacting in these virtual places.

Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speakers:
Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder and CEO, SEOmoz

Fishkin’s now famous yellow shoes.
Rumor has it Puma is offering him a contract.

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When I arrived in San Diego I found out I had a chance to see my brother, Floyd Pool race his bicycle. He was racing at the 2008 OMNIUM which was hosted by the San Diego Cyclo-Vets. The Cyclo-Vets 2008 Omnium consisted of 3 events Time Trial, Road Race, and Criterium. The video below is of Floyd Pool at the Criterium April 13, 2008.

Watching this race and seeing the sponsors logos and banners really got me to thinking.

Is it good marketing strategy to sponsor such a small niche especially on a local level?

If you will look at the list of sponsors you will see every one of them have a bicycle niche to their businesses.

So does it pay to sponsor such a small niche market?

The sponsors and I would have to say yes. Even if you go after a small niche market you serve, they have friends they will tell about your service and so on. You may start with a small group. If you give exceptional customer service any customers you can get to your door can and will grow your business.

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Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), according to their website, is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. Thy (Gartner) have began a new study and its potential impact on IT, enterprise businesses, and society in general in the coming years. April 10 at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2008 in Las Vegas, Gartner Vice President and Gartner Fellow Richard Hunter revealed some of the first data points from this study.

Two of the most interesting points were:

1. The best way to think of Google is as a disruptive technology.
2. Disruptive technologies create big losers and big winners, and one of the biggest losers in the Google disruption could be traditional IT departments.

Google a disruptive technology

This study is being conducted by a team of 15 Gartner researchers, led by Hunter, and the full report will be published mid-2008. The title of Hunter’s presentation at ITxpo was “What Does Google Know?”

Hunter also stated that Google will know a lot more about what’s sold on the Web if Google Checkout takes off, and could soon know a lot about medicine and health patterns if Google Health Records gets adopted.

“Their infrastructure has unprecedented scale,” said Hunter, “and what is even more impressive is their ability to connect vast quantities of information… Google is sitting on the biggest pile of information that has ever been collected in the world.”

The reason why Gartner chose to characterize Google as a disruptive technology and not just an Internet search engine company is because of the the ambitions that Google has for all of that data and the potential impact that those ambitions could have on the technology industry.

Hunter also said “We believe Google’s information security will be a political issue worldwide by the end of the year in 2010.”

Not only does this affect the IT departments but the big question, is Google destined to become Big Brother?

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WEBVISIONS

WebVisions explores the future of design, content creation, user experience and business strategy to uncover the trends and agents of change that will shatter your assumptions about the Web. Be ready to network, share ideas and be inspired by an all-star lineup of speakers.

All Hail the Digital Frontier

Explore the future of Web design, user experience and business strategy for two days of mind-melding on what’s new in the digital world. Get a glimpse into the future, along with practical information that you can apply to your Web site, company and career.

Last years Webvisions was great but the line up for this years is fantastic.

Keynote Speakers

• Lynne d. Johnson, FastCompany.com
• Jeffrey Veen, Google

Speakers

• Andy Baio, Waxy.org
• John Beaston, EasyStreet
• Roger Black, Roger Black
• Kimberly Blessing, PayPal / Web Standards Project
• Kerry Bodine, Forrester
• DL Byron, Textura Design
• Sean Cowne, ISITE Design
• Ward Cunningham, AboutUs.com
• Bill DeRouchey, Ziba Design
• Scott Fegette, Adobe
• Nick Finck, Digital Web Magazine
• Jason Grigsby, Cloud Four
• Aaron Gustafson, Easy! Designs, LLC
• Matt Haughey, MetaFilter
• Tjeerd Hoek, frog design
• Kevin Hoyt, Adobe Systems, Inc.
• Brian Jamison, Open Sourcery
• James Keller, ISITE Design
• Phillip Kerman, phillipkerman.com LLC
• Scott Kveton, Vidoop LLC
• Dan LaCivita, Firstborn Multiimedia
• Jensine Larsen, World Pulse
• David McFarland, Sawyer McFarland Media
• Jim Meyer, Cucina Media
• Erica O’Grady, Peanut Butter Media
• Brian Oberkirch, Like It Matters
• Sarah Rich, Dwell Magazine
• Dan Rubin, Sidebar Creative
• Kelsey Ruger, PopLabs
• Andi Rusu, IF/THEN
• Dan Saffer, Adaptive Path
• Christopher Schmitt, Heatvision.com
• Kit Seeborg
• Rashmi Sinha, SlideShare
• Gene Smith, nForm
• Tyler Sticka, TylerSticka.com
• Jim Turner, OneByOne Media
• Bryan Veloso, Sidebar Creative
• David Verba, Adaptive Path
• Christina Wodtke, Cucina Media
• Mark Wyner, Mark Wyner Design
• Dave Yewman, Dash Constulting

With a line up like this you have to attend. More Information about Webvisions registration.

WebVisions 2008 will be held from May 22-23 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon.

See you there.

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Day 3 the final front side of our journey Santa Barbara to San Diego.

We did make it to San Diego and my San Diego office is officially up and running. I can now give you a final day of the trip report.

Well the Lord was looking down on us again as our last leg of the trip was a breeze. We ended up in Lakeside 3 hours ahead of schedule, WOW!

We got there just the Padres day game was ending. My Dad really likes the San Diego Padres and so do I. Padres won 3 to 2 over the Houston Astros.

My Dad, we call him Pa, told me “tomorrow we were going to feed the Canadians”. This sounded interesting… Poor hungry Canadians but they were so far away are we going to go back the way we came? What were we going to feed the Canadians, bacon?

Well the next morning Pa came to me and said we will be leaving in 15 minutes. I didn’t even have time to pack.

Well we went to the only lake in town where some wild canadian geese have been calling it home for 3 to 4 years now. Pa and his girlfriend have been working with them and now they will actually eat out of their hands. The Canadians won’t even let anyone else get close unless they are with them.

I didn’t have to go to Canada after all and we fed them grain and bread.

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The day began in Petaluma, CA.

We headed to Santa Barbara with a stop at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. We visited pier 39 and ate lunch at the end of the pier at a place called Neptune’s Palace. Great place for seafood by the way.

We had another fantastic day the Lord is definitely taking care of us. We had no rain until we were through playing tourists for the day. It rained all the way from San Jose to Santa Barbara.

Thursday night we should be in San Diego.

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Day two of our trip was even better than the first day.

We drove through the Redwoods, The Avenue of the Giants, an incredible trip we stopped and enjoyed the forest when ever we felt like it.

I couldn’t believe it today’s weather was even better than yesterdays, wow, thank you Lord.

We arrived in Santa Rosa after dark and had a good old California meal at the Rohnert Park In and Out Burger. It has been years since I had a burger and fries from In and Out, 9 or 10 I believe.

We pulled in to Petaluma around 9 and we got a great room at the local Quality Inn.

Tomorrow is play day. Wednesday is the shortest travel day of our entire trip. We will be visiting San Francisco.

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