Ash Buckles | A personal repository.

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So far the Blog World Expo has been great. I wasn’t sure what to expect and I was even hesitant to purchase my ticket early but I jumped in and did it anyway.

Overall, the convention is of the highest caliber in terms of decor, organization, etc. There has been some frustration over the registration cards that either give you access or deny you access to each room. This has been a tiny problem for me. Others feel pretty strongly against it.

The tradeshow is smallish but strong with support from major players in the market. Plus the free swag is awesome. I think I already have 5 t-shirts and I’ve only been through half the tradeshow. I’m looking forward to some more stuff from Yahoo!.

The blog classes have been hit or miss. They’ve either been really excellent or really poor. The greatest part: Blog World is having us evaluate every session for next time. This not only falls perfectly in line with the blogging atmosphere but it shows their commitment to the industry. I’m sure that others felt different depending on their level of understand and interest. I’ve been blogging for three (3) years now and I’m fairly advanced compared to many here at the expo, which has skewed my opinion this week.

The after parties are great. Tons of food, fun, and interesting people — seeing bloggers in the pajamas wasn’t something I expected here in Las Vegas.

I have arrived at the Blog World Expo in everybody’s favorite city of Las Vegas. This place is amazing. I’m almost 2 hours early and it’s already filling up with avid bloggers. The sign age is endless and I’m already tired of walking.

Sitting in the blogger’s lounge with free wi-fi trying to get this post off before the keynote. This morning we’ll be hearing from Matt Mullenweg from Wordpress. Very cool.

More to come.

Each January and September I travel away from the home for about 2 weeks and this was different only in that my trip was 3 weeks and an additional 1 week in early October.

This explains my lack of blogging, my physical exhaustion, and piles of unfinished work. It also explains why I was surprised to find what I missed while I was distracted. Even though I carry my laptop, iPhone, and Motorola Q it’s amazing how little you can follow when you’re on the run.

Key things that caught my eye tonight as I was reading through a month of blogs were:

• InfoSpace Sells Mobile Services Business, What Next?
• Internet Taxes Avoided For Now
• Mozy Acquired
• Google’s Stock Breaks $600

I’ve been looking at going to the Blog World and New Media Expo for a couple of weeks, but the deadline for cheap tickets is Friday, August 3 so I signed up today.

Looking further into it today, I found that the $125 ticket price has all the stuff I need, which saved me $375 up front.

Tons of good content is already lined up and I’m looking at the following classes:

• Smart Ways to Monetize Your Blog
• The Long Tail… Or Not?
• Social Media vs. Corporate Blogging
• Making Money with Affiliate Programs
• Developing Relationships with Bloggers
• Leveraging Social Media for Your Company
• Utilizing Social Media
• New Media as an Agent of Change
• What Web 10.0 Might Look Like: The Far Future
• Optimizing Your Blog for Advertising Networks

Plus, of course, almost all the keynotes, opening party, awards reception, and exhibits

For the life of me, I cannot find a list of speakers to post (it was there this morning). But there were some really really well-known names and people I’d like to meet.

Vegas is never dull, and if I’m lucky a sweet band will be in town for a great concert (or something). Last time I missed Keith Urban, Avril, and Bon Jovi by a week but this will be over my birthday so maybe Las Vegas luck will be with me for once.

I’m so busy lately that blogging is coming in second and I feel bad about that. So when I came across this blogging quiz, to see how addicted you are, I had to take the time to check it out.

Here’s the results:

75%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle² - Online Dating

It’s actually pretty good news because it shows that although I’m on the high end (above average for once) I’m not a blogging freak.

Check it out for yourself.

So there’s a new blog in town called Human Census which can be found at Wordpress.com and hopes to reach out to the world population and discuss several things that come to mind for each of us every day.

I’ve been participating for a couple of days now, and I plan to continue, so I’d like to invite you to join us.

Today’s question has to do with commuting and your mode of transportation.

Day 5 Question at Human Census

I’m blogging from my Motoroa Q phone, which I’ve grown to love. I can’t live without it. I carry it everywhere and annoy everyone around me in the process.

However, this post is about my love/hate relationship with blogging because I realized that’s it’s the blogging that’s taken over my life lately. No, really. I’m not saying this for sympathy or any other reason other than to say that I can’t leave blogging alone even though it’s currently consuming me.

So I’m overwheled with all this cause I’m expanding my blog (and blogger) network and it’s proving difficult — that must mean it’s worth it.

So here’s my list of loves with blogging:

1. I love that it makes me feel better after I post my thoughts.

2. I love that it’s so easy.

3. I love that I can share it with anyone.

4. I love that others can find me.

5. I love that this list could go on for about 1000 more lines.

My list of hates is fairly limited (even if this list is not exhaustive):

1. I hate blog spam.

2. I hate that blogs “should” be separated by subject. It would be much easier on the author otherwise.

3. I hate that I have so many opinions to write about.

4. I hate that setting up Wordpress is giving me trouble again. It’s only happened with one blog so I shouldn’t complain.

5. I hate when people ask me what blogging is.

So that’s all for now. I’m feeling better already and this post hasn’t even been published yet.

I met Jason Alba from Jibber Jobber by email for the first time several months ago, but we finally met in person last month at the geek dinner in Utah. We also discovered we have a mutual friend who runs Policy Technologies, a document management software.

So we introduced ourselves, talked about what Jibber Jobber does, how he does his marketing, and who uses his product.

I think I get it and here’s what I know:

• It’s a contact management system for job seekers
• It’s a relationship manager for hired employees
• It can be used by anyone who needs to keep in touch with a group of people for networking purposes

Jason writes a blog that is frequently updated with quality information about seeking jobs, networking, coaching, personal branding and more.

I just started networking within the last 8 months and it’s paying off very well for me financially. I believe that the momentum of networking is much like a snowball downhill but you’ve got to network for the right reasons and create good relationships that don’t exist out of desperation.

I usually check out my log files at night to be sure that I’m bringing traffic into my blogs where I want it. Then I make adjustments where necessary to get what I want out of the search engines.

Here are two recent examples of why I blog everyday. No explanation is necessary once you click to enlarge each screen shot.

This was a fun blog to read today because it shows that just about anyone can get press with the right product.

The idea behind this always make me cringe but then I saw this guys request I had to laugh:

Name: Collis
MyURL: http://northxeast.com

I want BegForPost to feature me… oh wait they just did!

Target: http://www.begforpost.com