I attended WebmasterWorld's PubCon 2006 in Boston for the first time (April 18-20). For me, it was a scaled-down version of Search Engine Strategies. I recommend attending if it's a local event for you, but I wouldn't incur travel expenses to attend this conference. However, if you're going to attend only one search engine conference a year, I recommend Search Engine Strategies.
Malcolm Gladwell's Keynote Address was almost worth the price of admission. Malcolm is the author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
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The Big Site, Large Brand - Tall Order session was very valuable for me
since I primarily market B2B high technology companies online. I found
Bill Hunt's presentation, Search Effectiveness Team Lead for IBM, very
informative. Recommended reading by Bill Hunt and Mike Moran: Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site.
The Super Blogger session was great with Robert Scoble, Jeremy Zawodny, Matt Cutts discussing how their blogs evolved and became so popular and what it takes to maintain one.
The final Super Session: Search Engines and Webmasters aka Search Engine Smackdown session included panelists from Yahoo, Google, MSN, and AskJeeves was very informative. Matt Cutts gives Google a personal connection for me. He welcomes your feedback and encourages you to contact him or introduce during session breaks. Imagine being able to speak to a real live person from Google who seems like he actually cares. Matt is the chief Google spam fighter. If you find search engine spam, report it to Matt. If you haven't built your Google Sitemap yet, you should.
MSN finally has something new and innovative in beta called "Live" Their satellite geography images allow you to zoom in closer than ever including photo images of streets from the dashboard of a car. You can find out exactly what the location looks like before going there i.e. landmarks to look for. Take a virtual drive down the streets of Seattle.
Conclusion: The conference is worthwhile if it's local, otherwise save your money for Search Engine Strategies. SES New York for more advertising sessions and San Jose for more organic search focus. Plus, you get to go to the Google Dance at Google headquarters. It's like going to mecca!
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