It seems that Autumn, especially October is the favorite month for conference organizers. Here I compiled some conferences that can be interesting for you if you are interested in regions of SEE and CEE.

Sorted based on dates

Internet Hungaria - premier conference about Internet business in Hungary, held at the Balaton, in place called Tihany - October 14th and 15th

Internet CEE - premier conference focused on CEE region, the first conference was organized in November 2007. Place and date of this year’s conference is Warsaw, Poland, October 28th and 29th

TMT Ventures ‘08 Zagreb - a New Europe Event, about Venture Capital industry, this time held in Zagreb, Croatia - October 28th

BizzBuzz - 3rd conference about Internet business, which is held in city in southeast Serbia called Nis, theme for this year is Content management on the Web - October 29th-31th

JavaSvet - conference about Java technology, held in Belgrade, Serbia - October 29th and 30th

View from the virtual world - conference organized by well-known PR agency in Serbia McCann Ericksson PR, held in Belgrade - November 1st

WebStrategija - 3rd conference called WebStrategija is held in Zagreb, Croatia, topic of this year’s conference is SEO - November 6th

One of the latest trends in e-publishing is that more and more publishers start using RSS in order to enhance deliverability of their email newsletters or readership of their web sites.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (someone will say Rich Site Summary). In plain words it is technology that enables publishers to deliver their content more effectively to their visitors or members of their email newsletters. Even today not many people use RSS to track their favourite places on the Web. RSS is very important in delivering content online and many companies want to have good solutions that they can provide to their users. That’s why recently Google bought Feedburner for around 100 million dollars.

If you want to be informed everytime there is a new article on eMarketingBlog.com you can add this link in your RSS reader: http://feeds.feedburner.com/emarketingblog

Here are some interesting facts about RSS usage.

- Forrester Research announced in September 2005 that six percent of consumers use RSS feeds once a week or more, compared with 2 percent in 2004.

- Only 9% of Americans have a good idea and 65% are not sure what RSS feed is – according to a research made by Pew Internet & American Life Project published in July 2005.

- 6 million Americans get news and information fed to them through RSS aggregators – according to Pew Internet & American Life Project research announced in January 2005.

More and more email publishers start implementing RSS in their Internet marketing mix because they are aware of the fact that average deliverability and open rates are not as good as several years ago because of spam problems and email overload. Deliverability is very much affected by your email marketing software. However, even with email marketing software that has high deliverability ratio you can be quite sure that your deliverability is never 100%.

Many legitimate publishers are faced with problems that their emails can be blocked by ISP filters and this won’t happen using RSS to deliver your content.

You can use RSS not only if you publish your email newsletter. You can use it if you have a web site, as well. For example, if you have a section with Internet marketing articles you can make a RSS feed so anyone who subscribes to your feed will be automatically notified when you add new articles. This way you will have repeat visits.

There are some debates on email vs. RSS. It can’t be viewed that way. Internet marketers have to use all available tools, technologies and channels to deliver their content. So they should use email, web site and RSS to deliver their content and communicate with their target audience.

Process of RSS content delivery is simple. You have to create a RSS feed. RSS is actually a XML file. You can see its structure if you enter it in your browser. Good thing is that you don’t even have to know to make an RSS feed “by hand” because there are several tools that will do that for you.

As with any other software and services you can choose whether you want to use desktop RSS generation software or hosted online RSS generation software.

If you want a desktop feed service good choice is FeedForAll at http://www.feedforall.com (fee-based, one-time fee) while if you prefer hosted web-based services you can check services like http://www.nooked.com (free and fee-based options), http://www.myrsscreator.com and http://www.press-feed.com (free and company subscription).

Also, you can try free services at http://www.2rss.com and WebReference.com:

http://www.webreference.com/cgi-bin/perl/makerss.pl

http://www.webreference.com/cgi-bin/perl/rssedit.pl

As we have mentioned above, RSS is usually standard feature of all blog services so you won’t need additional tools for RSS in case you are a blogger. One of the free blog services that have good RSS support is b2 Evolution http://www.b2evolution.net.

If your RSS feed isn’t online you will have to upload to your web server first. If you visit web sites that offer option to subscribe to RSS feed you will probably see RSS feed address that looks similar to http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml

After that anyone who wants to get your content via RSS will have to copy this address to their RSS/News reader. The most popular RSS readers are http://www.newsgator.com, http://www.feeddemon.com, http://www.rssreader.com. http://www.attensa.com.

So this way people who want to get your content won’t have to give you their email addresses. RSS is pull-based technology so that means that visitors need to get the content and you can’t send them. That’s why they can’t get unwanted messages, same way when you use double opt-in for email subscriptions with a difference that using email newsletter you *send* your content and using RSS technology your members *retrieve* your content.

When you want to add new content you will upload it on your web site and add a new description to your RSS feed. Usually, publishers include only a brief description in your RSS feed with the appropriate link on their web site. However, you can include complete articles in your RSS feeds. This way you can publish your email newsletter on your web site and place the RSS. This way your subscribers will be automatically notified when you publish a new issue.

If you are email marketer it is recommended that you place a RSS button (orange is standard colour for RSS button) below your subscription form so that your visitors be aware that they can get your email newsletter in RSS format, too. Anyway, if you offer RSS, your orange button has to be highly visible on your web site, to be “above the fold”. You can also include where you will give a brief explanation about RSS.

RSS technology evolves so that now you can measure how many RSS subscribers you have, you can get a click-thru ratio of each RSS feed you have, popularity of each RSS, to personalize your RSS, you can place ads like Google AdSense or Pheedo in your feeds etc.

When you have your own RSS feeds you should promote them. We can recommend you to make a My Yahoo! and My MSN account and to list your feed URL there. When you place Yahoo! and MSN buttons (with links below) on your web site you can expect to be indexed much faster than usual.

To list RSS feed on My Yahoo!, after you have created your account click on “Add Content”. After that you will see large “Find Content” field and on the right an option “Add RSS by URL”. Enter your RSS feed URL and click on “Add To My Yahoo!” button. In order to enable your readers to place your feed in their My Yahoo! you have to place Yahoo! button (you can put that “Add To My Yahoo!” button but in smaller format) and link it to this link

If you want to add MSN button on your web site, place a MSN button with this link 

You can also use useful services like Syndic8, Pingomatic, Pingoat, FeedShot to promote your web site and RSS feeds to the most popular blog and RSS search engines. Also, useful site if you publish blogs or RSS feeds is FeedBurner.

I came back from Munich. Third DLD conference was a great organized event. My sponsors were Lufthansa (official partner for this event), Pakom, Job Puzzle and B92 (company I work for).

Before the official opening I was at the Deutsches Museum where visitors can see different aspect from German history. When I finished with seeing the Museum and came outside of the building I saw wonderful Minis waiting for us (You can see my photos on Flickr). There you will see photos of Marissa Mayer on SegWay, Craig Newmark lying in something like a chair…

Then the conference started and we were waiting that first panel called The Future’s Future begin. Great names was on that panel. Thierry Antinori (Lufthansa VP for Marketing), Niklas Zennström (founder of Skype and Joost), Caterina Fake (co-founder Flickr.com) and moderator was David Kirkpatrick (Fortune Magazine). Mr. Antinori was talking about new inovative services that is going to be introduced by Lufthansa like a service that will connect in a better way airplane and hospital if some passenger is filling sick, also Lufthansa was the first company to offer Internet access in the air. Caterina Fake said that Flickr enables that people get more information on what is going in places by giving uncensored photos. Caterina now works for Yahoo! and she is responsible for new services. Fake told that 80% of all visits on Flickrs come from blogs. Niklas told that the modern infrastructure enabled people to communicate much more convenient and to offer possibilities that didn’t existed before. He mentioned his new service Joost that will combine best things from TV and from Internet in order to people have the real Internet TV.

Nicholas Negroponte had an interesting speach about One Laptop Per Child project. People was also very much interested for The Billion Dollar Bubble panel with Esther Dyson and Marissa Mayer in main roles. They were discusing whether this new economy is inflated and are we in the new bubble like in 1999.

It was also interesting to hear representatives from new, inovative companies like Stephanie Piters from Jajjah, Tamer Kulmac from Vaybee, Nikolaj Nyholm from Polar Rose and Rob Kalin from Etsy.

There were also other interesting speaches. I met new people, got cards from people like Caterina Fake and Craig Newmark, enjoyed in beautiful Munich… Stephanie Czerny, Marcel Reichart and the whole Hubert Burda Media made a wonderful event and I hope to be on the DLD 08, too.

Today starts the 3rd DLD Conference in Munich. Yesterday I arrived in Munich and I will be there. I´m glad that I will participate on this event because this event is something like Word Economic Forum (which is going to be held after DLD) but for digital world.

This is invitation-only conference organized by Hubert Burda Media. Some of the people who will be speaking at this event are Niklas Zennström (Skype), Marissa Mayer (Google), Esther Dyson (investor), Luc Beson (director), David Sifry (Technorati), Arriana Huffington (blogger)…

If you will be there I will be glad to chat with you.

http:\\www.dld-conference.com

Internet is all about communication between people. Those people belong to some groups. People with similar interests form groups where they are able to discuss about their area of interest, to help each other and to learn more about other members. One of the most used ways for communication between like-minded people are web forums. How this can help to your business?

In order to have success on the Internet you have to have repeat visits. In order to people visit your site on a regular basis you have to constantly make your content fresh, to make regular updates. You can post articles relevant to your business, you can post the latest industry news and you can have a web forum.

One of the main advantages of web forums over before mentioned techniques for having a “sticky” web site is that after some time, web forums are “self going”, at least in some way. In other words, you won’t have to spend your time in creating fresh content – your forum members will do that instead of you! This doesn’t mean that you won’t have to do anything. Depending on the size of the forum, there are people called moderators who take care that the discussion is going on the right way. Companies have management, web forums have moderators. Some popular web forums have more than 50,000 members, and anytime you can find at least 200-300 people online. Corporate forums don’t have that many members but you will also need at least one person who will be responsible for your forum.

Web forums are great because this is one of those ways that help you to stay in touch with your visitors and customers. Visitors need to complete the registration form so this way you will have their names and email addresses. This way you can offer them to subscribe to your email newsletter. Like in subscription forms for email newsletters, don’t require too much information from your visitors. Every member of your forum will have an unique username and a password.

Web forums are consisted of categories. So if you are in Internet marketing business your forum can have categories like Email Marketing, Search Engines, Domain Names, Web Hosting, Web Services and etc. For the start, it is better to have fewer categories that will be more general. Later you can make more categories that will be more specific. Every category should have a moderator who is usually very knowledgeable person about that category who will start interesting discussions and, therefore, engage other members to post their answers.

The most important thing in having a successful web forum is quality of posts and then number of posts. Quality and only after that quantity. When you start your forum, you will probably have a low posting activity. That’s why you will have to “persuade” your forum members to be posters and not only lurkers. This won’t be so easy.

At first, in lack of discussion, maybe you will need to post interesting news about your industry and to post smart tips that you know that are of interest of you members. Later, with increasing your forum membership base you will have more and more posting activity. In order to build your membership base you can ask your members to invite their friends to join the forum. Also, you can offer a contest based on quality and number of messages. For example, you can start with choosing the Member of the Month. Winner will be chosen by other members based on quality of his/her posts. It is great for increasing loyalty. Another good thing for increasing your forum activity is to say, for example, that people with more that 30 posts will get an e-book and members with more than 100 posts discount on your products. Usually web forum software categorize members in groups so new members with less than 10 posts can be in Newbies group, with less than 100 posts in Juniors category and with more than 100 posts Addicts. Forum software usually offers a so called Avatars feature so your members will be able to place an image below their username. There they can place their photos, too. Also, quality web forums software offers that members rate posts.

Web forums are great supplement for articles and email newsletters, for getting a better feedback. For example, when you post an article on your web site or in your email newsletter, at the end of your article you can make a link to a discussion about that article and topic on your web forum. Also, you can include subjects of your most popular threads on your main page.

Having a corporate web forum is a value-added service to your visitors. If you build a quality web forum they will appreciate it very much because you are the one who provides them with source for gaining new knowledge. Also, with web forums you are building ongoing relationship with your members. Some of them are your clients and many of them can be your clients. It is up to you. With providing great answers in your forums you will increase your credibility that can persuade your members to buy your services. People buy from companies they trust.

Web forums are very useful for companies in one more way. For example, if you are a software company, you can (and you should) make several categories in your forum for your products and services. There, your members will be able to ask about your software, to give tips for maximizing its possibilities, to give suggestions for future upgrades… So this way, many of your forum members will serve as your technical stuff. Did I say free of charge?

Quality web forum makes the web site very “sticky”. People are coming back to read new messages, to check if they have private messages, to post new messages… They will be notified each time someone replies in thread they watch, if they chose that option.

Actually, the only disadvantage of web forums is the amount of time to get it up and running, to have an ongoing conversation and good members activity. Later you will have to spend your time for moderation, in order to make sure that members post appropriate messages, that they are not spamming and that the discussion is on the right track. However, good news that your reward will be higher profit, as well.

There are quality free and fee based web forum software. Recommendation for free forum software goes to Simple Machines – http://www.simplemachines.org and for fee-based forum software for vBulletin http://www.vbulletin.com

Jonathan Miller, former AOL CEO is replaced by former NBC high level executive. Jason Calacanis wrote about that on his blog and called Miller as “one of his few mentors”. Jason Calacanis joined AOL around 18 months ago when his company Weblogs, Inc. was bought. Recently, he was named as GM of Netscape with the strategy to make an equivalent Digg competitor.

I’ve just read that Jason Calanis left from AOL because Jon Miller was replaced. Many people don’t like Jason and his views especially one of his latest advise that Wikipedia should place a leatherboard ad and to donate that money to poor and sick children in Africa. However, nobody can deny that Jason Calacanis is a person with great energy and that he is one of the most powerful Internet entrepreneurs.

If Jason really left AOL because of Jonathan’s departure I respect him even more.

Keep up the good work, Jason!

PodTech Network announced today that a new audio and video podcast show, CalacanisCast, will be launched on the PodTech Network with GoDaddy.com as the founding sponsor. The weekly show will be hosted and produced by Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs, Inc. (an AOL Company) and General Manager of Netscape.com (an AOL Company), and will focus on Jason’s insights in new media and technology trends and those of his special guests. CalacanisCast launches with over $100,000 in first year sponsorships that will be donated to the Bay Ridge Preparatory School, a K-12 private school based in Brooklyn, New York.

Jason Calacanis said “I’m thrilled to have PodTech and GoDaddy.com as partners. We’re going to have a fun time with the show, and help some kids in need at the same time. It doesn’t get any better than that”.

The media philanthropy model that the CalacanisCast show represents is a first example of a sustainable, high-quality media property that generates not only awareness, but monetary support, for philanthropic causes. Sponsorship revenue for CalacanisCast will underwrite the tuition of disadvantaged youth to attend Bay Ridge Prep, and represents the formation of the Bay Ridge Prep Opportunity Scholarship Fund.

“This fund is a wonderful gift to the school and to the students selected to receive a unique, four-year private school education that emphasizes a respect for education, teamwork, and individual success”, said Charles Fasano, Ph.D., Executive Director of Bay Ridge Prep.

“We are ecstatic to have Jason as part of the show line-up on PodTech. He is an innovator and pioneer in new media, and we are excited to pioneer a philanthropic podcast sponsorship model with him”, said John Furrier, CEO and Founder of PodTech.

Steve Ballmer announced at Microsoft’s Strategic Account Summit that they are going to spend $1.1 Billion on their online business activity in order to compete with Google. This is more than 100% of the amount spent in previous year. They spent $500 million in 2005.