John Chow Blogger Dinner

The last night of BlogWorld Expo, we went out with a bang and celebrated the first "John Chow Blogger Dinner". I talked to Nate Whitehill before the end of BlogWorld and he mentioned their was going to be a dinner get together, so I was pretty excited. Once BlogWorld ended we all met up at Benihanna Japanese Steak House in the Hilton Hotel. John Chow, Reena and I were the first to arrive. Once everyone arrived we had an awesome power house of bloggers.

The Benihanna was lucky enough to have the following bloggers at the restaurant that night: John Chow, Egontron, Darrin Carter, Gary Lee, Ms. Danielle, Mad Whips, Neil Patel, Nate Whitehill and his Unique Blog Design entourage. Shoemoney was planning to attend, but was only able to stop by and say hello. It was really awesome to be able to pull together 15 great bloggers and people for this event.

In addition to a show of all our food being made and put together, one of the major highlights from the dinner was John Chow messing with the camera lady. At first everyone at our table was taking out their cameras and taking pictures of the food, spoofing John Chow’s "Fine Dining" posts. So then Darin Carter realized we all had Canon Cameras and we were joking how it was the "Blogger’s Choice" for camera. Benihanna’s official camera lady came over to our table and asked if we would like to get our picture taken. John Chow then asked what type of camera it was, she smiled and happily said "Nikon". Then John yells "Nikon! Go Away!"… haha, it was the funniest thing ever and we never saw the lady again all night!

It was a great dinner and I thank John again for pulling everything together. I will definitely be looking forward to attending John’s next Blogger Dinner!

Be sure to check out John’s write up of the night, as well as more pictures.

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Where was Mike Arrington During BlogWorld?

During the second day of BlogWorld, I was really looking forward to seeing Mike Arrington (TechCrunch), Om Malik and Leo LaPorte during their “Advanced Money Making Strategies” session. Unfortunately when I was in the room waiting for them to start, only Leo was there and instead of having the other two, he did a full session of an interview and Q&A with iJustine, who’s claim to fame is her popular video of her 300+ page AT&T iPhone bill.

Mike Arrington of TechCrunch was No Where to be Seen.

BlogWorld is over, which means everyone is back to work and blogging on what they thought of the event, it looks like the real story is quickly unraveling… but which story is the right story. Here are just a few blogs which are posting on the topic, be sure to check through the comments and other pingbacks, as this one is quickly heating up!

Om Malik & Arrington Blow Off BlogWorld-iJustine Fills In
A full write up and review on what really happened at the event, since two thirds of the listed panel did not show. Props to Leo for pulling something together.

CrunchNotes Responds
Mike Arrington responds to the posts and topic and says “I never agreed to attend the conference. I would really appreciate it if the organizers of Blogworld would post something clearing this up.”

With or without Mike Arrington, BlogWorld was still a success in my book. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. In the end, everyone will end up blogging this, but hopefully it doesn’t get blown out of proportion to the point where it effects anyone’s decision to attend next years event.

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BlogWorld Day 2 - Photos & Recap

Today was the last day of BlogWorld and it was a very memorable one. To start the day off, Leo LaPorte was the keynote speaker. In addition to keeping everyone interested, he was able throw in some humor and inspiration. It was pretty cool to see Leo because I used to watch him all the time on Tech TV, but it only airs in Canada now.

Leo was cool and talked with a bunch of us after his keynote.

The next sessions I went to was supposed to headline Leo LaPorte, Mike Arrington and Om Malik. Unfortunately Mike and Om were unable to show. Since I had just met and talked with Leo, I decided to head over to the “Advanced Money Making Strategies” session, which featured Ted Murphy, Neil Patel, Ed Shull and Asaaf Henkin. This was a great session and afterwards I finally got to meet up with Ted and Neil. Both guys were cool and I’m glad I finally got to talk with them. This session was heavy on text link ad buying and the future of Google taking actions against sites buying links and blogs not using the “no-follow rule”. Very interesting and the Q&A went on for a while.

Ted’s a real cool guy. I love his RockStartup videos!

Ah, to be 22 again… Neil’s a cool guy and was great to finally meet him.

Reena and I skipped lunch and the next two sessions and headed over to the Mirage so we could hit “California Pizza Kitchen” before leaving Vegas. Once returning from the Mirage we made sure to get back to BlogWorld early, as Mark Cuban was the final keynote for the event. We arrived about a half and hour before he was due to start, and a line was already forming. Reena and I finally got in and we got great center seats in the second row. Mark Cuban was an excellent keynote speaker and all around great guy… so much, that I will have a full post just on his performance soon.

Mark Cuban was awesome. I managed to grab a photo with him before his keynote!

BlogWorld is now over and for a first time event, I would have to say it was excellent and that I will definitely return next year. I have only been blogging for around 7 months now, but to meet up with so many of the guys I have been blogging about and linking to was awesome. I have made a ton of new friends and now more motivated than ever to make this blog that much bigger and better.

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BlogWorld Partying Pics

Me, Reena, Jim Kukral, Sam Harrelson and a bunch of other friends all headed over to the Hard Rock Casino for a nice steak dinner at “AJ’s Steak House”. Afterwards we headed over to the “Opening Night Party & 2007 Weblog Awards” at The Joint in Hard Rock Casino. It was a bit busy, so we didn’t stick around too long… me and Jim had some gambling to catch up on anyway!

Before leaving the BlogWorld party, I made sure to get in a few more pictures. I also got to debut my new MoneyReign.com BLACK t-shirt. Get ready for new some new promotions to get your hands on one!

Jim and John sure make me look short!

Even Darin is bit taller than me… Honestly, I’m 5′10″!

Chilling with my new friends, Adam and Bill.

Before bouncing from the Hard Rock, me and Jim threw up some retarded gang symbols. Represent!

Tomorrow will be a exciting… we have Mike Arrington (TechCrunch), Leo LaPorte, Ted Murphy (PayPerPost) speaking through out the day and Mark Cuban closing everything out with his keynote. Hopefully I can grab a few photos with these guys and have them posted for you tomorrow.

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BlogWorld Expo - Day 1 Photos & Recap

Today was the first day of BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas. Last night was really great, I met up with some friends, Jim Kukral, Wade Tonkin, Sam Harrelson and Joel Comm and we went out for dinner at PF Chang’s in the Planet Hollywood Casino. After dinner we headed over to the Wynn Casino for a fancy get together party hosted by Brian Littleton and Shareasale. It was great to meet up with new people and put faces to names. It’s a whole different atmosphere compared to Affiliate Summit or AdTech.

I attended two sessions today and they were both great. The first was, “Smart Ways to Monetize Your Blog”, which consisted of a few different speakers. I was mainly interested in seeing Jeremy Schoemaker and Brian Clark, but unfortunately Brian was unable to make it because he had come down with the flu. Jeremy’s session was awesome, he even dropped my name as a reference to WidgetBucks during his open Q & A.

The next session I went to was “Good to Great: Blogging & Profit Potential”, which was hosted by Jim Kukral. As always Jim delivered another great presentation, some of the topics he covered included how other blogs are making money and how everyone should be tapping into the money to be made with online videos.

Here are a few pictures from the event so far:

John Chow and I finally got to meet up!

Nate Whitehill and his Blog Design Team exhibiting at the Event

It was cool to meet up with Darin Carter too!

There was even some crazy bunny I had to get a picture with!

There are still a lot of things going on and I need to upload a bunch more pictures. Keep coming back for more updates! Here are a few more pictures from the Evil Man himself, John Chow.

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