WebmasterWorld's PubCon History It's that old the whole is greater than the sum of its parts thing all over again. PubConferences work because of one desire: to meet the folks you've read and heard about in forums and online news stories. The roots of PubConference stretch back into the late 80's when we held user group meetings around the then-called Power Elite BBS. Over the years, we have transformed and modernized the event to service the needs of the community and reflect worldwide changes that the World Wide Web has brought. Las Vegas 2007 Everybody loves Vegas! The 2007 Las Vegas edition of PubCon was the most jam packed of any PubCon ever. More sessions, more big keynotes, more exhibitors, and more parties than ever before. PubCon was kicked off by big time site operator, Craig Newmark of CraigsList.org. The day was packed with Grade A sessions that featured our first social networking track. The afternoon was capped with a special cocktail reception hosted by DidIt with a book signing by Kevin Lee. The evening brought out our first after hours session in PubCon history. They say getting people to an evening session in Vegas is like trying to herd wild rabid cats through a mouse hole. PubCon answered the challenge with a panel of the super stars of search moderated by master moderator and crowd favorite Guy Kawasaki. You'd think we would call that a day and head for bed - but the fun wasn't over yet - it was time for the bloggers in the crowd to live it up at some major Vegas shows. PubCon organizers pulled off one of the most spectacular coups in Vegas history by getting major Las Vegas shows to comp us nearly $100,000 dollars in show tickets. We called it bloggers night out. The skinny, was that bloggers should write a review of the show they went to see. That was all they had to do to score tickets with face values ranging from $120 to over $300 a ticket. Wednesday kicked off with a keynote by tech maven, former MySpace CEO, and business guru Richard Rosenblatt. Richard was introduced by a video made especially for PubCon by NBC's Carson Daly. Carson later made an appearance at the Demand Media/Enom anniversary party held at Luxor's LAX night club. Wednesday featured a potpourri of topics. Many fresh sessions were introduced from domaining to web hosting issues. A couple of the sessions featured HostingCon founder George Roberts. Another favorite session of the day was by email marketing wizard, Dr. Ralph Wilson. The afternoon brought the first ever domain auction by Moniker. Nearly a half a million dollars in domains were sold at this unique event. The evening featured two parallel - but unique - parties. Google held one of their famous meet the engineers parties. This was a chance for PubCon attendees to mingle with some of Googles most knowledgeable and influential front line engineers. There were over 30 people from Google busy talking to folks about a wide range of issues. Meanwhile across the hall - there was a battle going on. The age old battle between the werewolves and the villagers. In this case, the darkside SEO'ers, against the white side engineers (their color choices - not ours - lol). There was a unique game hosted by Rand Fishkin and the SEOMoz crew. It is a game that pits wit and skill, against shear gamesmanship and guts. It was some time after midnight when the security guards escorted the losers out of the building ;-) Those that didn't make it to the parties, had to suffer through another bloggers-night-out by attending yet another first rate Vegas show ;-) Thursday was kicked off with a large question and answer session by PubCon anchor Matt Cutts. Thursday was also notable as the largest single day of sessions in PubCon history. It was also the largest number of new - built from the ground up, sessions ever. The largest chunk of that content were several sessions featuring video search, video content, and video content optimization. Several special invite parties were also held Thursday night by major search engines. Friday brought a move for the community's namesake PubCon networking event. After outgrowing the Nine-Fine-Irishman, the event moved to the BrewPub at Monte Carlo. This was yet another opportunity for people to chat about business face-to-face and get some more business done. All-n-all, this PubCon 2007 rocked. Las Vegas 2006 The Las Vegas convention center again played host to PubCon. Huge numbers of onsite sign ups sent registration lines expanding down the hall and out the door at PubCon Las Vegas 2006. At 8:50am on Tuesday, the huge walkup crowd sent show management into an emergency planning meeting. Finally at 9am, we pulled a Woodstock like it's a free keynote dudes and just let people gate crash so they would not miss the kickoff keynote. The final tally was over 2100 people packed into the convention center to partake in the hallmark event. The kick off keynote by Guy Kawasaki was standing room only. Three full days of sessions ranged from top shelf advanced content to intro-level material received cudos from almost all attendees. Day two was jump started by old friend John Battelle. The day kept cranking with a special lunch time session by Yahoo Search Marketing. The day was capped off with jam packed - sardine can like - reception by Google. Other evenings in Vegas were marked by no less than six parties by various exhibitors and sponsors, Day three started with a super keynote by SearchEngineWatche's Danny Sullivan. Then Ask.com sponsored two different afternoon cocktail receptions. Finally, PubCon was wrapped up with another all day networking event. pics Boston 2006 The grand return to Boston! The Boston 2006 conference was held in the massive Hynes Convention Center in downtown Boston Mass. The keynote was the super star author Malcolm Gladwell. He talked in depth on concepts from his best selling books The Tipping Point and Blink. After his keynote, we held a book signing in the Exhibit hall. The books were donated by WebmasterWorld and a donation was suggested to get your book signed. Together, we raised almost $3000 for charity. After two great days of sessions, we held the traditional PubCon at the same place as 2003 : The Elephant and the Castle. pics Austin 2006 Not a huge conference, but an open house at our new offices was an excellent excuse for Pubcon friends and family to gather and prep for Boston. Las Vegas 2005 The Las Vegas conference number 10 was again held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Keynote address was by Robert X. Cringely. About 40 exhibitors, 75 speakers, and 1300 people enjoyed two powerful days of search talk. Yahoo Search Marketing sponsored a lunch session on Tuesday and Google sponsored one on Wednesday. Yahoo threw a huge party at the PURE nightclub in Cesars Palace. pics London 2005 The London PubCon 9 event was a bit more subdued than in years past. About 300 people showed up at this years annual Cittie of York Pub meet. A grand time was had by all. pics New Orleans 2005 The New Orleans conference was held at the Park Plaza in downtown New Orleans. Keynote was by the noted Search Guru John Batelle. Our highest number of sessions ever. A special "meet the engineers" night time session by Google was a smash hit. A large exhibit hall with over 50 companies involved. PubCon was held at the world famous Pat O'briens on Bourbon street. pics Las Vegas 2004 PubCon 7 was our first conference in a convention center. With 72 speakers over 25 sessions - 30+ exhibitor booths - Lucky #7 was a huge success. 1200 attendees - a mega party by Yahoo - PubCon was at NineFineIrishmen - Google launched their AdWords program for marketers - MSN Search Hit the Floor - a most excellent time was had by all! pics London 2004 Our London gig this time was a simple day meeting at The Cittie of York Pub in down town London. This event was a last minute affair, but still featured over 350 attendees. Orlando 2004 Nearly 1000 people attended our two-day conference in Orlando. Andy Borland of ClickZ founder fame kicked us off with a keynote. The show had over 30 information-packed sessions with more than 40 speakers, and the exhibit hall housed 30 event exhibitors and sponsors. Following tradition, we finished the conference at Kate O'Briens Pub in downtown Orlando. http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum19/1863.htm pics London 2003 PubConference V was held in London in September of 2003 – once again in the Cittie of York Pub. The London weather was uncharacteristically sunny and warm, and the Cittie of York threw open its courtyard doors and sent webmasters spilling outside for fresh air and more conversation. The pub exceeded capacity, with nearly 300 attendees from all over the world packed tightly in a frenzy of business deals and networking conversations. pics Boston 2003 Boston PubConf IV was our first true conference-format event, featuring sessions with all the major search engines. Over 300 people attended the one-day event in Boston, held at the historic downtown Wyndam hotel. Of course, the conference followed up with an eagerly-anticipated afternoon of networking and socializing at a downtown pub. pics London 2002 In October, we all loaded up and headed to London again. People flew in from 21 countries to be there. Nearly 300 webmasters enjoyed good food and friendship. PubConference III was mentioned in several large online news outlets, from SearchEngineWatch to TheRegister.co.uk. There were also some special guests of note including Per and Susanne Koch of Pandia.com and the venerable Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch. The networking and camaraderie spread well beyond the walls of the Cittie of Yorke. The hotel lobby/bar was bustling nearly all hours of the day and several groups of newfound friends would routinely break off for tours of London. PubConference 2002 was simply the latest in a string of successful marketing and networking events promoted by WebmasterWorld. The conference was sponsored by Fast/AllTheWeb, Google, PositionTech, Inktomi, Espotting, Yahoo, GoToast, and SearchEngineCommando. pics Irvine 2002 After the huge success of the first PubConference, it wasn't long before WebmasterWorld members in North America began clamoring for their own version of the conference. Held in Irvine California on February 23, 2002 at the Crazy Horse Lounge, the conference was sponsored by Fast/AllTheWeb, PositionTech, Overture, Inktomi, and TopDog Software. pics London 2000 Over 125 WebmasterWorld members showed up at the Cittie of Yorke Pub in London. It was a day spent socializing and discussing search engines in an open but smoke-filled atmosphere of a 600 year-old English pub. Everyone who was there was completely thrilled with the outcome. The generosity of sponsors such as FAST (AllTheWeb), Overture UK, BT Looksmart and TopDog Software was warmly welcomed by all in attendance. The Early Early Years PubCon's roots run far deeper than the web. These really started back in the 80's with the BBS crowd. Sysops would often have meet-n-greets at user group meetings. We had many of them when I lived in Denver running a single line BBS on my commodore 64.