I’ve never gone to Blogworld. At $1000+ $400 for the full ticket, plus hotel, plus travel, plus food, the cost is a little steep. I’m also a little suspect of some of the guest speakers that are there to impart their oh-so valuable knowledge.
I’m sure that there are some useful technical seminars for those who are inclined to enjoy that sort of thing, but it’s the popular “gurus” that cause me concern. Gurus that will help you become a millionaire, a blog authority, a social media expert, get noticed in your niche, write killer blog content or what have you.
When I was new to blogging, there were a few times that I seriously considered buying products that these “gurus” were selling, but quite frankly, I didn’t have the money. I was wet behind the ears and desperate for my blog to make me some money. If I did have the money, I would have happily handed it over.
So instead of listening to what other people had to say, I did my own thing. Over the past two and a half years (before the unfortunate hack attack), I ended up with an average of about 70,000 visitors a month to my website, some modest sales in the dog collar department and a nifty little income from Google Ads and Amazon. While I’m no “guru”, you can read about my “secrets” to success here and here, for FREE. There is no mystery to having a successful blog, just hard work and consistency.
A little while back, I found a *very* interesting website. Salty Droid’s mission statement is that you cannot make money online. There is a lot of interesting and eye-opening reading there and I strongly suggest that you go over and take a boo. It WILL change your opinion of certain individuals. Enjoy your Silly Sunday 
Holy cannoli, $1000??! Certainly not a route to go from “rags to riches”. You’ve touched on some very key points here, and it sure does explain a lot.
Interesting videos; off to check out that site – thanks!
(So glad you’re back, Karen!)
I’m glad that I’m back, too
There are many different ticket price ranges, but the price for the all access pass is a little over $1000. Pretty spendy…
I started getting hives watching the first video. It reminds me of all the people who make fortunes telling everyone how to make a fortune in real estate.
But I do think there is a difference between the scammers in the first video and the idea that catching the eye of influential bloggers is crucial for major success.
I believe there is a distinct difference between someone like Darren Rowse and Leo Babauta and the scammers in the first video. But, that doesn’t meant I’m willing to pay for their reports and e-books, either.
I also find a creepy kind of sexism the pervades the 2nd generation of people making money from blogging. Darren Rowse admits he could not have developed ProBlogger if his wife wasn’t there to support him (financially and emotionally). The 2nd generation money-making bloggers tend to be a bunch of Ayn Randian, “I did it all alone” pricks. Sorry, but that’s the way I see it.
I’m wondering if there is a third option that is values-centered and community based that has something to offer bloggers.
I didn’t even know who Leo Babauta was until I Googled him. Those life coach/personal development/inspirational people make me want to vomit. I’ll give you my life coach advice, summed up in one sentence.
If something makes you unhappy in your life, fix it.
Do you know what the *only* psychological marker of a psycopath is? The ability to appeal to your sympathy. Leo has a pretty good racket. I took all my ads down so *you* could have a better reading experience. I wrote this book for *you*. This blog is reader supported. All statements designed to subconsciously guilt readers into buying his stuff. The pay what you can for the e-books is a pretty brilliant stroke, too.
Darren Rowse is no better that the other guys, he just uses a softer sell method. And hey, the guy is a Christian minister, so how bad can he be?
He uses the usual suspects ie. Brian Clark, Chris Brogan and Leo Babauta (“A” List Bloggers) to provide glowing testimonials for his products. Acknowledging that he “couldn’t do it without his wife” handily appeals to the female bloggers who tend to get turned off by the “hard sell” guys.
Someone passed me a copy of the 31 Days to Build A Better Blog and I thought that some of the advice was pretty silly. Talk a walk? Go to a shopping mall and observe shoppers? Glad that I didn’t pay for that one..
Are some bloggers “scammier” & sleazier than others? Sure, but they’re all selling the same product. Nothing. I’ve had moderate success at blogging and I did it by myself. (not really, but you know what I mean)
*we* are the third option. All my super cool dog blogger friends that come over to visit my blog & give me feedback.
Annnnd she’s back! Nice finds on the videos Karen. Unmasking bullshit is always a welcome service – I nearly got sick listening to that phone sales pitch – truly disgusting. I agree with Pamela that there is a difference between the types of people who populate the first video and the second, but sales are sales. We *are* the third option – if we all band together and help each other, nothing can stop us=)
Is there *really* a difference? Only in the selling techniques that they use. Read this transcripts between Naomi Dunford from IttyBiz (In the second video) and Dave Navarro the Launch Coach. And while you are on the Salty Droid site, read ALL the Naomi Dunford posts. It’s a shame ’cause I really, really used to like her:(
http://saltydroid.info/spider-shitstorm-redux/
I am so glad you are back, and what an entrance! This is exactly why I missed you so much.
Thank you for preventing me from wasting a great deal of my time. I am suspicious of anyone that sells advice that friends will give you for free. The whole life coach industry gives me a rash. It’s simply insane that people will spend hundreds of dollars so they can be told how to live their lives by someone who has the same amount of education/experience as they do. Sure, there are many people who are worth listening too. However, those people generally don’t ask for a credit card.
Let me try and address your post one item at a time.
First of all our Blogger, Podcaster, Web TV producer pass costs $397 if you wait until the last minute to register. That includes 150 + speakers several keynote sessions, the exhibit floor two evening parties and a networking reception with snacks and drinks on the expo floor. If you register early it is $147. Not the $1,000.
The $1,097 Social Media Business Summit pass is for business owners and corporate executives. It includes all of the items above as well as an additional 50 + speakers, breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks each day. The truth is we could charge a little bit less for that pass (not much) but that is what businesses expect to pay for that type of educational content. We provide for more sessions and speakers than any other event close to what we do and we do it for less money. Some comparable conferences cost $2,500 or more.
Again let me be perfectly clear, that is not the pass bloggers buy.
None of our sessions are about becoming a millionaire, or a social media expert. We have a full track dedicated to monetizing content. Here is the full conference schedule:
http://www.blogworldexpo.com/2012-nyc/conference/sessions/
Here are some of the monetization topics:
Make Money With Your Blog Using Affiliate Marketing (Many of our attendees know nothing about affiliate marketing)
Blog Monetization Overview: What Are Your Options To Make Money With A Blog?
Enhanced eBooks for Web Series
The only session I can find that mentions the word Millionaire is this one: Break all the rules: How to turn your passion into a multi-million dollar business
Ross Borden is the CEO of Matador Network who was talking about his personal experience of building his travel culture network. http://matadornetwork.com/
We certainly have sessions on creating better content be that text, audio or video. We have session on how to use SEO practices to drive more traffic to your site. And yes on how to build a successful niche blog.
We do not have any sessions on getting rich quick or without hard work.
Salty Droid is misguided at best. As one of your commenter’s states, he lumps in lots of good ethical people with some real scammers by using insinuation and accusation with zero proof of any actual wrong doing.
Putting that aside, what does any of that actually have to do with our event?
Ms. Dunford has never attended our show. In fact the whole story you are referring to happened in 2010 when she was promoting an unofficial event during BlogWorld and told people specifically to come to her event and not ours. (That Salty Droid post is very entertaining btw).
Can you please point out any specific session or speaker in our event that is committing some unethical practice or crime?
To give you a little background. I am a blogger. BlogWorld & New Media Expo was first announced in 2006. We held our first event in 2007. We created it because I wanted to go to an event like BlogWorld to meet my blogger friends, meet the bloggers I admired and learn how to make my blog better. I am no techy so I wanted to learn about WordPress plug-ins, whether or not SEO was for real and could help me, how to monetize my content, build my traffic, get more comments on my blog etc.
When I realized it didn’t exist we started BlogWorld and invited the smartest people we could find from as many blogging, podcasting and Web TV niches as possible. When I started doing the research to determine what BlogWorld might actually look like I realized that sports bloggers, tech bloggers, mom bloggers, political bloggers and even pet bloggers never actually talk to or meet each other.
This is the one place each year we can all get together and meet face to face, try to make our own sites better and help grow our industry as a whole. We are all (even you Karen) a part of the new media industry.
Here are a few tweets and blog posts from people who have actually attended our show:
https://twitter.com/OSPInteresting/status/211121713847607296
@blogworld Thank you! This was my 1st Blog World but it won’t be my last. Met a lot of wonderful friendly people and learned tons
https://twitter.com/theblondeabroad/status/211099863541219329
@blogworld There was so much to learn! And I learned a ton! I’m excited to get to work and better my blog
https://twitter.com/alrickbrown/status/211198699945213954
Just got home from #BWENY in NYC, had an awesome time. Met some great people and learned a lot of stuff. Would definitely go again!
http://juliacantor.com/2012/06/09/top-10-lessons-learned-at-blogworld-for-bloggers-and-marketers/
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/326309
http://www.bobwp.com/5-surprising-observations-from-blogworld-expo-new-york-city/
You can search the hashtags #bweny and #NMX (the new name of the show starting with our January Las Vegas event is New Media Expo) or search for blog posts in Google blog search.
Lastly, I want to make you an offer Karen. Please come attend the next event in Las Vegas completely free as my guest. I will personally sit down with you and answer any questions you like.
You can attend the sessions, visit the exhibitors and post a full report afterwards. I would be very surprised if you still felt the same way. But even if you did, you would be able to report first hand just how bad or how good we did.
Sincerely,
Rick Calvert
CEO & Co-founder
BlogWorld & New Media Expo
What Rick said.
I’ve been to every Blogworld since the beginning, and it has nothing to do with scammy stuff. You’re 1000% way off base in your headline and assessment.
@Rick Calvert CEO & Co-founder BlogWorld & New Media Expo ::
Your lameness seems to be without limit … it’s really helping with this thing I’m writing about you. So please keep it up. I expecially like this dumb crap you’ve said here about Naomi … considering that a upcoming post features video from a BlogWorld keynote shilling her quite grotesquely.
My comments are open smart guy … feel free to drop by and impress me with the depths of your cluelessness.
@Jim F. Kukral ::
You paid to go to every BlogWorld event … or sometimes you were comped like Rick has awkwardly tried to do with Karen here? You’ve spoken at BlogWorld events and have various other financial connections to this situation … correct? Would you care to disclose those before you testimoanilaize? And how … pray tell … could you be in a position to judge if blogging related content was valuable or not? Should it be based on your pathetic IM site?
@Karen Friesecke ::
I’d skip the free BlogWorld and just have the bag of chips. Life is too short :: and time too valuable … to be wandering around hotels with lonely delusionals.
Thanks for pasting the Scamworld video into Doggie Stylish … my dog Anna is very flattered.
Cant wait to see it! I will be ready for that phone call in about a week if that works for you Salty.
Are you ok with recording the conversation? I would like to post that afterwards if you are ok with that?
@ Rick
Thank-you for the offer of a free ticket, but I’m going to decline your offer. If you would like to read my full response to you comment, you can do so here
http://www.doggiestylish.com/blog/2012/06/doth-the-ceo-of-blogworld-protest-too-much/
@SaltyDroid
I simply cannot believe that my favorite fake robot dropped by to comment! It was my pleasure to share the Scamworld video. I felt that it would be relevant to my readers interests
Wow, Karen. I paid $147 for my blogging pass and learned HUGE amounts of valuable information – not from “Gurus” but from real business people who work toward selling services beyond a quick and fluffy how-to.
What I received for my $147 was more than a thousand dollars worth of value from folks who have amassed stats on internet usage that I hadn’t bothered to compile, talked about ways to interpret them for better content provision based on real upcoming trends, how they are misused and more. (I’m speaking of Jason Falls and his talk on mobile access here.)
Speakers also shared what worked for them to save production costs – and what mistakes they have made in ways that allowed others to avoid pitfalls. Ross Borden, who had done a lot of trial and error before creating Matador’s travel network in it’s current format, shared how different his vision was, how he listened to his audience (and what techniques he used to do it) rather than his own desire. Together they mutually created something that was appreciated by all. His hard stats, something people rarely share, were refreshing – particularly when discussion revolved around where and WHY they slipped and peaked.
The speakers I met are people who never purported to be “experts,” but rather frown upon the word guru just like you.
I have known you to be incredibly thorough in your previous research and enjoyed your outrageous titles because the content was valid. That you would paint a conference you have never attended with so general a brush is disappointing.
Take Rick up on his offer. Sure, you’ll find a few sessions that are basic to beginners, but you’ll find even more wonderfully advanced topics, in-depth discussions and helpful kindred spirits who inform and inspire. This is, by far, my favorite conference. Others wholly pale by comparison.
Maybe I’ll see you there one day.
Kim
Kim, I’m just not a conference type of person. I don’t feel that I would learn anything applicable to Doggie Stylish and I’m quite comfortable with my knowledge of blogging and how I apply it. This is one subject that we will never see eye to eye on. I don’t “do” experts, authorities, gurus or what-have-you. I’m glad that you had a good time and felt that you received valuable information, but I’m NOT going to take Rick up on his offer to check out the conference. Getting high ticket items for free just isn’t my bag.
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