IZEAFest at SeaWorld Recap

After attending IZEAFest @ SeaWorld last weekend, I was planning to share a summary of the event here. However, I see that Convention News TV has already created a very nice video detailing the event, including clips from speakers such as Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), Aaron Brazell (@technosailor), Rae Hoffman (@sugarrae), and others.

IZEA and other attendees did such a good job documenting the event, I'll just share this media feast:

• IZEAFest video on UStream, Sponzai walk-thru & Murphy/Feldman/Rua interview, IZEAFest video on YouTube
• IZEAFest on Twitter
• IZEAFest on blogs
• IZEAFest pics on Flickr (remember: these are attendee-generated pics from the conference and after-hours networking...view at your own brain-melting risk)

If you remember nothing else from this cornucopia of media, remember that yet another IZEA innovation was unveiled: Sponsored Guest Posts via Sponzai

IZEAFest Day 1: Tweets Galore and So Much More

Call me tired, but instead of detailing the first day of IZEAFest, I'm just gonna share live-tweets and the video streams. I'll also provide a quick report card on the sessions:
- ShoeMoney Keynote: A-
- Improving Your Content: C
- Big Money Bloggers Panel: A
- Growing Traffic: B
- What Advertisers Want: B
- IZEA Innovations: A
- Overall: A-/B+

The IZEA Innovations unveiled were many, but I particularly liked SocialSpark Causes (Blog for Charity), Smart Blog Rolls, Sponsored Blog Networks (easy-button for large-scale, targeted blog advertising), Affiliate/CPA Posts and CloudShout (real-time presence/communication & one-click blog apps) -- including private alpha keys under our chairs. I'll provide more detail on CloudShout after I've had more time to play with it, but Tony Hung did a good job of capturing the potential of CloudShout -- imagine an iPhone Apps or Facebook Apps platform, built for your blog or the whole blogosphere.

As I often do for conferences, I decided to award a Day 1 Golden KangaRua to ShoeMoney -- delivering great knowledge pulling double-duty for Keynote and the Big Money Bloggers panel. Congrats Jeremy...don't we need to talk about your next project ;-)

OK...OK...it's self-serving, but I also gotta give major KangaRuas to IZEA's dev team -- the team looked like zombies (worse than the Facebook kind), but their innovations rawked!

Related posts:
ZacJohnson.com
ShoeMoney.com

IZEAFest: Like an Obama, Palin, Arrington & CarrotTop Love Child

Imagine combining the best speakers, the best bloggers and Orlando fun into one event-packed conference and you'd have IZEAFest -- September 11-13.

The speaker lineup is crazy, including top bloggers such as Merlin Mann (43folders.com), Jeremy Schoemaker (shoemoney.com), Tamar Weinberg (techipedia.com), Loren Feldman (1938media.com), Stephanie Agresta (internetgeekgirl.com), Loren Baker (searchenginejournal.com), Brian Clark (copyblogger.com), Etan Horowitz (Orlando Sentinel), Tony Hung (deepjiveinterests.com), John Chow (johnchow.com), Alexander Schek (fayerwayer.com), and Steve Spalding (howtosplitanatom.com) -- and that's less than half of them.

Bloggers, advertisers, entrepreneurs and social media butterflies will take over Orlando's Grand Bohemian to discuss topics such as:
- Improving Your Content
- Big Money Bloggers
- Growing Traffic
- What Advertisers Want
- Social Networking for Bloggers
- Compelling Video
- Tools & Plug-ins
- Blog Design

After a couple days of throwing down some knowledge, the event culminates Saturday night with IZEAHunt -- a multimedia team scavenger hunt throughout downtown Orlando. My suggestion: wear clothes you won't mind throwing away at the end of the night. For those still alive Sunday, Universal will experience a blogger takeover the likes of which they've never seen -- bloggers in shorts and tanks, scary...;-)

If you're interested in blogging, social media, online advertising or just Florida's startup/technology scene, don't miss IZEAFest. Whereas most conferences of this scale cost hundreds or thousands, the $65 ticket price is unheard of -- although you do have to consider the "ruined clothes" cost. I hope you join us!

For those of you that don't already know, IZEA is a portfolio company of mine. Oh, and for those of you still hoping for a picture of the Obama, Palin, Arrington, CarrotTop love child, here you go:

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