SES San Jose, Day 3

Day 3 of SES San Jose is coming to an end. Guess I'd better touch on day 2 first, eh? The Expo started Tuesday, and the GTS team spent some time crawling through the booth areas. They definitely have the "A-Team" as far as booth staff goes at this show. Damn! Anyway, met some great people and heard about some amazing companies. Also picked up a good amount of swag, and tossed my business card in a whole bunch of lotteries for Apple iPhones, iPods, Sony PSPs, and even a 42" HDTV! Crazy. I doubt I'll win anything, especially with over 2000 attendees at SES. Of note, a couple of new friends, Monte and Lew from PromoPeddler.com, showed off their new iPhones. What an amazing device! Scott and I tried to get Alan to commit to buying us each one, but Alan wasn't sold. "Make us some money first!" was his response. Bummer.

Sessions Tuesday were very interesting. Some good info on PPC ad writing and Social Media marketing. There is a good overview on CNET News. The big event yesterday was Google Dance 2007. Google invited all SES attendees out to it's huge campus in Mountain View, and treated us all to a huge picnic and dance party. "Club G" is their on-site dance club. Very cool. Free food, beer and wine, and even a couple of free 'candy bars', offering bulk candy like Hot Tamales and Lemonheads. The lines for those were longer than the lines for alcohol! Priorities, people! Googlers are all quite young. Most looked like they just graduated from high school. Had a great time, and got a group to sing "Love Shack" by the B52's karaoke. We all had wigs, crazy hats, and inflatible instruments, and Google filmed our performance, and burned it to a DVD. I hope I get a copy! Nothing like a bunch of drunk geeks trying to sing while wearing funky costumes!

Today, sessions were also quite good. I particularly enjoyed seeing Rebecca Kelley from SEOmoz in Seattle, talk about link baiting. Great presentation, Rebecca! Skipped the first afternoon session to get a workout and some swimming/sunbathing by the pool in. Great weather down here, so I had to take advantage of it! Getting ready to hit the Intuit reception in about 30 minutes, and then the SearchFest/Webmaster Radio party at Club Vivid later tonight. I leave tomorrow, so I'll probably give a final update after I get home.

I leave for the Hood To Coast Relay Friday at noon. We're running from Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood down through Portland, and on over the Coast Range to Seaside on the coast. 197 miles, and it should take our team of 12 about 25 hours. Giddyup!