Earlier this year I decided to take a break and have a short sabbatical. Just to chill and decide what I wanted to do next. There’s a much longer story that goes with this, but as it’s such an exciting time in marketing again – I decided it was time to have my own agency again. And so, I acquired one. A very cool but small boutique search and performance marketing agency based in New York City.
At the recent Pubcon Conference in Austin, Texas, Mike Grehan chatted with Kevin Rowe, CEO and founder of Purelinq based in Miami. Instead of just talking about the business of SEO generally, Kevin explained an initiative he was starting. It’s all based on that huge amount of plastic waste floating in our oceans. Find out how you can help by turning it into your company’s promotional swag!
Duane Forrester from Yext and Ryan Jones from Razorfish are truly industry stalwarts, recognized experts and just darned good fun to hang out with. Over the years we’ve been able to get together and chat, have a few beers, dissect the industry and then put it back together again. However, due to that pesky pandemic that got in the way, we hadn’t seen each other for years. So, yes we talked a little about the pandemic – and then tons about the industry. With a whole lot of that being about AI, ChatGPT and Machine Learning. There was also a little technical surprise in the middle, when cameras flickered on and off as well as microphones. But out of the blackness created, Mike found a way to use his own form of artificial intelligence to fix it and get things going again.
Lily Ray from Amsive Digital is one of the most recognized faces in the SEO industry. She’s an expert analyst and commentator on industry happenings and a world traveler to boot. And it turns out that apart from the SEO industry Mike and Lily have more in common. Not only do they only live a few miles from each other, Mike was a radio DJ in a former life and also a drummer in a band before that. And yes, Lily is also a drummer and a DJ – not only that, but she also built her own nightclub in the basement of her house in Brooklyn. But the conversation, as were other, has a lot about AI, ChatGPT Machine Learning and the effect it’s all having on the industry.
Fabrice Canel is well recognized in the industry as the face of Microsoft Bing. Having been with Microsoft for twenty-seven years he’s played many roles in the company. But now, as he says, his mission is to index the entire web. The conference had a whole lot of conversations going on about ChatGPT. And, of course, with the recent integration of ChatGPT into Bing search, Fabrice’s keynote was much anticipated. He and Mike chatted about his time at Microsoft, and more importantly IndexNow an initiative to speed up the entire indexing process and feed fresh content into the ChatGPT function.
Gary Illyes is Developer Advocate at Google, but that’s one of the areas he’s involved in. During his time there he’s worked on indexing, ranking and other areas of Google’s search engine function. He’s also very much a recognized figure at industry conferences and events and is keen to help as many SEOs as possible buy answering as many questions as possible when he can. Mike was surprised to discover that Gary had actually been a journalist at one time and was also a diving instructor. There was much to talk about – including, obviously AI, ChatGPT generally and other areas of Machine Learning.
At the recent Pubcon Conference in Austin, Texas, Mike Grehan chatted with Pubcon founder Brett Tabke. Both Mike and Brett have been in involved in SEO since it was a sprouting cottage industry. And at one time were friendly competitors in the conference space when Mike was publisher of SearchEngineWatch and ClickZ as well as producer of SES Conference & Expo (SES- sounds familiar!). Here they chat and catch up about the conference industry as well as Brett’s excellent keynote presentation on all things AI, Machine Learning and ChatGPT related
At the recent Pubcon Conference in Austin, Texas, SES-TV host Mike Grehan sat down to chat with Martha van Berkel, CEO of SchemaApp. Schema is all about structured data and Martha is a leading expert in the field of applying Schema to large enterprise level web sites. And structured data is perfect for applying machine learning. With all of the talk about AI in SEO this is the perfect starting point for your web site. Take a listen – take Martha’s advice.
So, it turns out, not everyone can be in New York city when I need them to be. So I have to leave my eyrie on the 65th floor and go to them. Well, truth be known, on this occasion I was invited to go and speak at the recent eMetrics summit in Boston.
Jim Sterne is founder of the conference series which started way back in 2002 at the elegant Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara (which, conveniently, is where Jim also happens to live). The following year, 2003, is when Jim cordially invited me to speak, and I’ve been kind of regular ever since. And it goes without saying, as the theme of LO65 evolves with each intro starting with something like, “we’ve known each other for a very long time,” that yes, Jim is very close friend of mine.
So, we sat down for what is the first Live On off 65 and chatted about how the conference started, what’s changed in the industry, and everything in between. Just want to genuinely add here, that when I refer to Jim as one of the industry’s true pioneers, I mean it sincerely. His “Sterne Measures” newsletter absolutely was one of the first of its kind (maybe Ralph Wilson and Larry Chase around the same time). He’s also the author of ten books on internet marketing and one of the early supporters and members of what is now the Digital Analytics Association.
You have to admit, that’s some track record!
Jim Yu is CEO of Brightedge, now recognized as one of the de facto enterprise SEO management platforms industry-wide. From a small start-upon the West Coast, Brightedge has grown rapidly and now employs over 200 people.
I sat down with Jim at Acronym for our Live On 65 feature in Tech marketing News to talk about the growth of Brightedge, the growth of Share—the industry conference produced annually by Brightedge in San Francisco—and what’s new and upcoming.