By Julie Blaustein

A company’s failure is something that people don’t usually speak of, as if it were a bad omen or a skeleton in the closet. But, as FailCon ’10 made clear, failure happens to everyone, including those used to always being on top. The conference, held Monday in San Francisco, made failure appear to be a badge of honor. In the world of start-ups, failure is a way for one to learn lessons and to succeed as a result of failing in the past. FailCon ’10, now in its second year, was launched by event planner Cassie Phillipps of WebWallfower Events and took place in the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco.

Steve Blank of Four Steps to the Epiphany

The opening speaker was serial entrepreneur and business school professor Steve Blank who was also available to sign his book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany. It’s about early stage start-ups and the four stages of growth any start-up goes through in order to become a real company. Right on target with the theme of the conference. His talk was based on the key task of any start-up; creating a working business model. He also provided some practical advice such as, “Don’t expect the VC’s to be lined up waiting for you to hand you money when you get off the plane in Silicon Valley.”

Jay Adelson of Revision3

Blank was soon followed by a number of speakers from very successful companies who spoke about what they learned from their mistakes. The line-up included Chad Dickerson of Etsy, Chrysanthe Tenentes of FourSquare and Cathy Brooks of OtherThanThat, who asked her usual probing questions when interviewing former Digg CEO, Jay Adelson. Adelson did not share too much with the audience that wasn’t already news, such as his departure from Digg as CEO, but he did share his thirst for being a part of the start-up process, whether it is successful or not.

Hotel Kabuki is a convenient venue, not only for its great restaurants in Japantown but ideal for a conference thanks to its numerous rooms that provided both speaker presentations and workshops. How Not to Fail at SEO presented by Vanessa Fox, formerly of Google and now of Nine By Blue, provided a great presentation of do’s and don’ts for SEO that one can find in her book, Marketing in the Age of Google.

The Audience of FailCon '10

A number of start-ups provided demos of their products and services in the “Demo Room” including: Footfeed, Near2There, FoodSprout, Wordchuck, SurfMark, Doochoo, CardMunch, Soup.me, MogoTix, hiyakoo, MyNextCustomer, R/A Profit$, and Bee.TV. Throughout the day they offered demos of their product or service for those that wandered into the demo room during sessions and breaks. The audience texted their favorite using Poll Everywhere and the three favorites of FailCon were MyNextCustomer, CardMunch and MogoTix. MogoTix, the winner of the popular vote, provides scannable tickets on your mobile phone and for the event organizer, instantaneous viewing of who has arrived. Perhaps they will have some small failures in order to ensure that they will be successful in the end.

By Julie Blaustein

Jay Adelson of Digg and Mike Vorhaus of Magid Advisors

Digital Media Conference West, a one day conference held at the Kabuki Hotel in San Francisco, focused on a wide range of topics  including online video, social media, investments, online advertising, mobile entertainment, mobile apps, the future of news media and the relationship between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. There were also a number of well known digital media  leaders there to speak including Jay Adelson of Digg and Craig Newmark of Craig’s List along with other great speakers from the industry.

Bill Trancer of Hitwise and Nick Veronis of Veronis Suhler Stevenson kicked off the conference with their view of the trends of the Internet. Bill’s trends can be found in his book Click: What Millions of People are Doing and Why it Matters along with his blog I Love Data which he gave a few shout-outs about. His post about the competition of Twitter vs Facebook provides a clear analysis of the trends, spelling out his observation that Facebook, with its 6% of all U.S. Internet visits, is not threatened by Twitter.  Nick Veronis spoke of ad spending trends where $210 billion is allocated to digital advertising, search is huge and growing with over $11 billion while classified spending has been reduced by 50% most likely due to competition with free services such as Craig’s List. The main problem according to Nick Veronis is, “Distribution used to be the issue, now its gaining the attention of users”

It was like hanging out in a cafe during Jay Adelson of Digg’s talk with Mike Vorhaus of Magid Advisors, a research-based strategic consulting firm (founded in 1957!). Jay shared amusing incidents such as when he was hailed back west from NYC to return to the Digg helm and his biggest concern was the transportation of his daughter’s Gecko. He “twittered” for information inquiring how does one transport a Gecko and was blown away by the amount of knowledge his followers shared with him about Geckos – a testament to the power of Twitter. His first hire was a coder from eLance who turned into a full timer. Digg would have been Dig if Disney didn’t already own it. He isn’t thrilled with the depiction of him as despising VC’s as detailed in an entire chapter on him called Fuck the Sweater Vests by Sarah Lacy in Once Your Lucky, Twice Your Good. He does prefer Angel funding. Digg is hiring and allows dogs, even parakeets in the office. And he shared “secrets” including that Digg is releasing new features in a week and focusing on verticals, content types and also on multiple levels of promotions.

Chuck Fishman of Cisco and Craig Newmark of Craig's List

The agenda was packed with great content yet it seemed to always come back to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace in each and every conversation. Lunch was served along with a chat from Craig Newmark who still goes by his title of Customer and Service Rep from 12 years ago when he first started the site. He was candid, honest and a delight to listen to even though folks were having lunch while he spoke. His main concern is about information not being shared. He is so concerned that he gave out his Twitter, Facebook and even his email address to all, suggesting they contact him in the afternoons when he isn’t dealing with spam. Great information was shared during the conference by the speakers and through the Twitter hashtag #DMCW that was displayed front and center on the big screen on stage with the speakers. Attendees at the conference and off-site kept the live stream fresh. What were they sharing? They shared when they  arrived for the “party.” They promoted their speaking engagements coming up. They shared who they were looking forward to hearing speak. They provided links to information such as the Pew Study on Twitter Users tweeted by @nedsherman. They gave a play-by-play of who is speaking and about what. And they promoted themselves.

Check out more about the Digital Media Conference West and Buzz on its Twitter Feed at #DMCW