Toronto Search Engine Strategies Conference

Just finished up at the Toronto 2006 Search Engine Strategies conference. It was a regular geek-fest, what with the Linux convention upstairs and us searchnerds in the basement. Pocket protectors everywhere. My kind of event.

I had a great time and got to meet more people than I usually do in a month. I'll have to lock my introverted self back up in my office for a week to recover.

Thoughts on SES...

Google had a strong presence. These days it seems like Google-bashing is the way to go... but I'll stick up for them and say that their customer service has been amazing lately, they are participating in the Cdn search community (they're at every event I go to and have held a few of their own that have been first class), and they held a great event on Tuesday night. Oh, and they are still kicking everyone else's butts in the campaigns I'm running... so I can't complain too much right now - sorry cynics - i'm sure i'll have lots of complaints another day.

That's a lot more than I can say for Yahoo unfortunately. Where the heck was Yahoo!? I think i heard they sponsored the t-shirt or something (haven't dug mine out yet to check), but other than that they were MIA. Maybe it's my Canadian inferiority complex, but when i see a major player like this missing from the only Canadian search conference of the year, I feel a little bit insignificant somehow.

It was also great seeing MSN out there in full force (when was the last time I cheered for Microsoft as an underdog?!) I still continue to be very excited about their roll out of AdCentre.

But where was the speaker presence of other major players in the Canadian search space? I'm thinking of eBay and excite and other sophisticated Canadian advertisers, as well as the strong Canadian media agencies? I would have loved to have heard them speak... and it makes me wonder why they were not there. Not invited to speak? No interest in speaking? No value in attending? I don't know the answer, but as the one time in the year that anyone in the Cdn Search community gets to get together... it didn't feel right that there were so many key players missing.

Who impressed?

Danny Sullivan, godfather of search
Dave Carberry, advertising.com
Michael Sack, Inceptor
Matt Van Wagner, Find Me Faster
Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro
Michael Ferguson, Ask.com
Melissa Burdon, Future Now
Mikkel deMib Svendsen, RedZoneGlobal
Jake Baillie, TrueLocal

Once i go through my notes I'll post some of the things that were new to me.

My favourite so far? The web based Chi Square calculator can help you determine whether the clickthrough and conversion rates you are attaining are statistically significant or not.... you can find it right here:

http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/webtools/web_chi.html

Over and out fellow searchnerds...

Sheridan New Media Grads - WOW

I got a chance this week (thank-you Sean Patrick and Gillian Chubb) to visit Sheridan College's New Media show -- which showcases the work of graduating students from this program.

Two words describe how i felt after looking at some of the work on showcase -- Blown Away. I can't believe the talent of the folks in this program, and the amazing work that I saw.

You can take a look at their online showcase at this link:
http://newmedia.sheridanc.on.ca/~the_show/

One caveat -- the homepage for the site takes a little while to load -- once it's loaded properly you'll see 24 pictures of the students looking back at you. Once you see the faces, click on them to see the work. Look at Darcy Reume's work for example... but a lot of them are really good. All these students are looking for jobs now, and i'm sure they will be scooped up FAST!