inter:digital strategies

As is to be expected, the signal-to-noise ratio at Search Engine Strategies was pretty high. Information was thoroughly covered on a LOT of topics. I’ll start at the top: the keynote speech.

Barry Diller, the CEO of IAC, the parent company to Ask.com, gave the keynote address. The most interesting coverage of this speech is posted at Search Engine Journal, where Loren Baker posts the notes he received from Web Ad.vantage, Inc. president Hollis Thomases.

I’m not going to write a lot about the speech itself – it talks extensively about the rebranding of Ask Jeeves and makes a few comments about the issues of developing a search brand. Instead, I’m going to write about the written coverage of SES NYC.

Like the post from Loren Baker, much of the coverage of a conference is based on rapidly scribbled notes which are rapidly turned into blog posts with very little editing. The example from Loren is extreme – he’s just posted somebody else’s notes altogether, since he wasn’t able to attend himself. But other coverage, such as SE Round Table’s coverage of the "Vertical Creep" session are through-written, but quite low on correct grammar and editing.

This is the fight to stay most current – to make certain you keep your readers at your site rather than sending them off to the competitors who’ve posted more information. I want to avoid this – I’m not hesitating to send visitors off to better articles and coverage than I can provide. I’m not in New York City – my coverage is, of necessity, second hand information.

Sometimes I’m going to try and refine the information, when posts are just not that well written. I’d rather take the time for a couple well written posts than really "complete" coverage.

• Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006
• See shared photos on Flickr here:
  sesny2006
• See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here:
  sesny2006
• See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here:
  sesny2006
• Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch
  Forums here:
  SEM Events