Tag Archives: bwe

By Miiko Mentz and Alison McNeill

Most people are familiar with Lolcats and ICanHasCheezBurger, but what some may not know is that Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network, has grown a successful business and in just two years he and his team have gone from one site — icanhascheezburger.com — to an entire network of more than 25 fun and entertaining sites. In addition, they have published three more books since their first one I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun, and one of them, How To Take Over Teh Wurld, debuted on the New York Times Bestsellers list.

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We love the icanhasacheezburger site and the FAIL Blog, which is another popular site in the Cheezburger Network. It’s quite entertaining. And on Wednesday night, they announced the FAIL Blog’s Top Ten FAIL Lists for 2009 with Kanye West taking the grand prize of “King of Fail” for 2009. Check out the entire FAIL list here.

Ben was a busy man at BlogWorld Expo 2009, speaking and signing books, but after his book signing he took a second to chat with us and share what’s next for the self-proclaimed “internet content connoisseur.” He shared with us a little bit about the latest books that they’ve published, which are Graph Out Loud, Fail Nation and the New York Times Bestseller How to Take Over Teh Wurld (yes, you read that correctly…those are not typos). He also talked about two new sites within the Cheezburger Network that have been well received by the community.

The first one is Daily Squee, which is a site with all things cute, tiny and squee. And the other newly launched site is It Made My Day (IMMD), which is a site that’s similar to the popular FMyLife (FML) site but in reverse. The tagline is “Little Moments of WIN.” However, that doesn’t mean it’s all things good and positive. Let’s just say some IMMDs are a little twisted, yet entertaining. In our interview, Ben shares one example that gives you a flavor for the site. The site also has an IMMD Facebook fan page with more than 10,000 fans.

And if that wasn’t enough, he concludes with a brief comment about an online t-shirt store that they’re launching. Ben and his team are truly unstoppable, and we love it. Keep up the great work guys!

#bwe09

Follow us on Twitter: @miikomentz @alisonmcneill

RELATED POST: BlogWorld Expo: Social Media for Social Good

By Miiko Mentz @miikomentz

Today at the BlogWorld New Media Expo in Las Vegas, CNN Anchor Don Lemon (@donlemoncnn) talked about an idea he and BeEverywhere Co-founder Tamara Knechtel (@tamaraknechtel) came up with a week ago when they were out to dinner discussing the power of social media. Together they came up with the idea to use social media for social good and set a record using social media while raising money for cancer research.

Tamara contacted Guinness World Records and a few companies and got them to sign on and participate in this contest to set a record for the most tweets using the hashtag #beatcancer in a 24-hour period and raise money at the same time.

The #beatcancer contest is a great demonstration of how social media is changing the way people receive information, raise money, and give to charity; so whether you are at BlogWorld New Media Expo or not, take a second and add the hashtag #beatcancer to all your tweets, Facebook status updates or blog posts.

Check out this video of Don talking about the #beatcancer contest, and check back later to watch our interview with him.

#beatcancer  #bwe09

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Watch out Vegas – things are about to get bubblicious! Our crew is heading out tomorrow to the Blog World Expo to catch all the excitement.

Our very own Brian Solis is participating in the keynote panel, “The Death and Rebirth of Journalism” along with Jay Rosen, Hugh Hewitt, Don Lemon, and Joanna Drake Earl on the 16th from 9:30-10:30am. He’ll also be moderating another called, “The New Celebrity” with panelists Anthony Edwards and Jermaine Dupri from 9:30-10:30 on the 17th. See full agenda for more details.

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Don’t forget about the TechSet party on Thursday the 15th at 8:30pm at The Bank located in the Bellagio hotel and casino. RSVP here if you haven’t already.

This year’s TechSet sponsors include:

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Bud Light Golden Wheat - Logo - 4-color BLGW Spelled Out - 9-03-09[2]

And in case you missed last year’s coverage of the show:

See you there!

Our guest blogger, Larry Chiang, is an instructive humorist. If you liked 9 VC’s You’re Gonna Want To Avoid, you’ll like this submission on closing a deal after the conference.  We’re supporting his book project,“What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School” that comes out 09-09-09.

by Larry Chiang

Yeah, you got lucky.

You went to Las Vegas for BlogWorld Expo and
(a) lost less than $200 at BlackJack,
(b)lost part of your bathing suit (Ashley) and
(c) did not come home with an STD

…that counts you as LUCKY in any book.  And you read the post, “How to Hack BlogWorld” before you went so your ‘luck’ was due to great preparation.

Here is how to keep that luck rolling with my eight lucky, post conference tips.

-1- Ping Via Email.  Close via Voicemail.  Confirm the email addresses in that stack of business cards.  One ping only.  After it, you can “Close a Deal Via VoiceMail

-2- Tackle your ToDos compiled at TechSet Vegas party.  Lets say you meet Sarah Lacy and you offer to host her at your next book club meet up (after you gave her a drunk lap dance)– You now owe her a full blown email that includes details, venue and potential dates two to three months out.


Photo credit Brian Solis

Ok, truth: I asked for an intro to her lit agent (unfortunately, the lap dance I gave her really did happen).  I am using this link love to her book in lieu of sending an email request for another intro to her lit agent (Yes I sooo single task.  Single tasking is doing one thing and getting credit over and over.).

-3- Biz Cards in a Binder.  Or taped to a piece of paper.  Organize and highlight chronologically.  I also organize it by event.  To impress the intros I get from the host or hitter, I review those cards every so often.

-4- Send out thank you notes (the stamped kind).
Send out notes via snail mail or be SillyCon Valley and choose to NOT do it.  I do it.  Heck I really really really do it.  I thank via USPS, FedEx, UPS and even 1-800-FLOWERS.  For example, I will even send men flowers if they host me at a weekend long event and introduce me to ALL of their HITTER friends: #Foo08 and #Foo09.

-5- Write a Blog Post and link to your fave peeps.  TRANSLATION: WRITE AN ARTICLE AND PUT A CONNECTOR WEB SITE ADDRESS IN HIGHLIGHTED TEXT that promotes your favorite blog people (that transalation was for hawt Ohio Valley blogger girl that met me outside the men’s room.  See I can be a smart asse9 too)

My fave people I spent 60 or more minutes with…

Robert Scoble http://scobleizer.com/
Brian Solis http://www.future-works.com/
Cheryl Contee http://pdf2007.confabb.com/users/profile/Cheryl+Contee
Sarah Lacy http://www.sarahlacy.com/
Marissa Louie http://marissalouie.com/wordpress/
Rick Calvert http://www.blogworldexpo.com/blog/
Pete Cashmore http://www.mashable.com
Bambi Francisco http://www.vator.tv

And Man-Charm!  Men who charmed me.
Adam Jackson  http://twitter.com/adamjackson http://dailytechtalk.com/
Chuck Burke metromojo twitter
Ryan Hupfer http://hubpages.com/profile/Ryan+Hupfer http://www.hupandsteph.com/

-6- This is a One-Hit-Wonder-Free-Zone.  A one hit wonder is a guy who meets you for two seconds that adds you.  No adding people on facebook if you didn’t talk at least two minutes.  Remember, they call it Facebook friends.  Not Facebook ‘acquaintances’

-7- Damage Control.  Were you lewd and lascivious  towards a hottie?!  Or worse, were you non-reciprocal of her lewd and lascivious come-ons?!  Fix it all with a facebook gift!

If that elixir fails and there is still a cloud of sexually tense-ified grossie gross, send them link love in your next GigaOm post.  Oh wait, you do not blog for GigaOm, but I do! (and I have yet to use that get-out-of-Jail-free-card)
-8-  Host the Twitter (Post) Party on your blog.  Sending blog love in reverse chronological order…

@tristanHarris @malouie @ashleysays @vegasbill @allinenergy @srussollillo
@mashable @peteCashmore @BFrancisco @vatorTV
@LVCC-SOUTH-Lazy-Union-Workers @AshleySays
@patrick_fitfuel @cinevegas @michael_hoffman @allinEnergy
@vegasBill @KK @jbillingsley @janeHamsher @che3ryl
@claireYA @ajv @doverbey @morganB
@samBasel @acoolong @jeffRandall
@lisaettany @dorotheeRH @technosailor
@neenz @Msaleem @mashable @rabeidoh
@scobleizer @maryamie
@wingdude
@MattMullenweg @wordpress
@kevinboer @davidcubed @debng @trisHussey @1timstreet @garyrosenzweig @geekMommy @queenofspain @jasonfalls @timothy_jones @mta1 @stoweboyd @affilliatewarrior @chrisbaggott @gregarious

Phew. That was a hard post to crank on my sidekick III.  Am taking a long snooze in my flight back to SFO.  Look for me on the exit aisle seat in coach :-)

CONTEST:
In the comments section, list out your post conference follow up tips.  Best tip gets a duck9 fleece jacket (an $80 value)

Larry Chiang  founded  duck9 to graduate college students with a FICO over 750 using text messages in fourtune cookie sized tips.  He writes for GigaOm’s Found|Read. His earlier posts include: How to Work The Room; Man Charm; 8 Tips On How to Get Mentored ; and 9 VCs You’re Gonna Want To Avoid.

You can read equally funny founder-focused-lessons on Larry’s Amazon.com blog.  He recently did an 8 hour interview of Mark Cuban in a post called “How to Go From Millionaire to Billionaire.  Ten tips from 8 hours with Cuban.”