Live Blogging From WordCamp LA 2009
Last weekend, dust storm white outs at Burning Man. This weekend, WordCampLA 2009! A bit extreme but I will bring you as much of it as I can! Then get back to writing about Burning Man…stay tuned!
Who’s speaking?
Aaron Kronis – “SEO Panel / Q&A”
Aaron is a Computer Science Graduate from Canada who relocated to Los Angeles in early 2007 to head up Wpromote’s SEO Division. The SEO Team has grown to over a dozen employees dedicated specifically to SEO, Linkbuilding, and Blog Outreach/Management and more.
Andrew Warner – “How To Add Video To Your Blog”
In his 20s, he used credit cards and ingenuity to create a $30+ mil / year (in sales) internet business with his younger brother. He created Mixergy to help ambitious people who love business as much as he does learn from a mix of experienced mentors. He does that by inviting speakers to live events and online interviews.
Beau Lebens – “Meet The Family“
After growing up in a tiny town in rural Western Australia, Beau decided that he needed to be somewhere with a little more excitement so he could be a part of this “Internet” thing that no one was talking about at the time. After 10 years of illustrious (and sometimes not-so-illustrious) development work in a variety of companies (and freelancing), he landed his position with Automattic, beating code into shape with his mad Krav Maga skillz.
Ben Huh – “Business For Free and Profits For You”
Ben is the CEO of Pet Holdings, Inc., the company behind the hugely popular blogs I Can Has Cheezburger?, FAIL Blog and others. The success of his sites can be attributed to his knowledge of memes, viral content and crowd-sourcing.
Darren Rush – “Cloud Powered WordPress: Improved Performance, Search and UX”
Darren is an entrepreneur, technologist and current CTO of Breitbart, one of the leading online news networks. Previously, he was founder and CEO of Koders.com, the leading search engine for software developers, which was acquired in 2008. Darren will be talking about lessons learned performance tuning WordPress for high-volume websites, and the future of search for the WordPress platform.
Co-founder and CEO of Picapp, an application that enables bloggers to add premium, free, legal images into their posts. Picapp has been working closely with the Gary Nicholson – “Useful WordPress plugins for CMS and Blogs”
Gary Nicholson is the project manager and co-owner of Relevant Trafik, a search marketing, web design, and social media management firm located in Los Angeles. Relevant Trafik has a wide range of clientele including
celebrities and entertainers. Gary has been an avid WordPress user and developer since 2006.
Jim Turner – “Blogging For A Living”
Jim began blogging in early 2004 and soon became very passionate about blogging. His passion grew to the point where he wondered how he could take this passion and turn it into a business or a way to make a living to support his family, or at least supplement his income.
John Hawkins – “Creating a WordPress plugin: It’s easier than you think”
John Hawkins is a WordPress evangelist, plugin hacker and self-proclaimed geek, John was the organizer of WordCamp Las Vegas. In his spare time he blogs, is an avid Twitterer, talks WordPress at a weekly beer and blog meetups, enjoys photography and spending time with his wife and two teenagers.
Micah Baldwin – “Failure is Job One”
Micah is the VP, Business Development and Chief Evangelist for Lijit Networks, a Boulder, CO startup, provides publishers a robust trusted search and stats tool. Lijit is the sixth startup Micah has been involved with, (having sold his last startup, Current Wisdom, in the beginning of 2007). Micah is well versed with online social media, using it strategically since 1995, and more recently starting the #followfriday meme on Twitter.
Michael Martin – “SEO Panel / Q&A”
Michael Martin is the SEO Director of Project Management at Internet Marketing Inc. based out of San Diego, California. Michael graduated from UMass Dartmouth with a Computer Engineering degree and a minor in German before quickly entering the IT Project Management field in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Shayne Sanderson – “WP Ecommerce and WPMU: Ecommerce for your MU powered site”
Shayne has 10 years of experience in web development & graphic design. Working primarily with CMS applications like WordPress. He is the main line of support for Instinct Entertainment, makers of WP ECommerce and spends his time writing code, troubleshooting problems and being an overall cool guy.
Siel
Siel blogs about living green in Los Angeles at green LA girl – with the help of a solar-powered host, carbon offseter CO2Stats, a car-free graphic designer and a WordPress consultant who gets her veggies from a local CSA.
Tony Adam – “SEO Panel / Q&A”
Tony has been involved in technology since 2001, starting out by consulting for many SMBs in the Los Angeles metro area. In 2002 he focused his efforts on the Internet and has never looked back. He has been in Internet Marketing, more specifically SEO since 2003 and has had a variety of experience working with SMBs, Startups, and larger organizations such as PayPal and Yahoo!
Here’s the schedule:
| 8:00am | Registration Opens | |
| 9:00am |  Speaker: Austin PassyWelcome announcements |
|
| 9:15am | Speaker: Beau Lebens Meet the Family |
|
| 10:00am | Speaker: Shayne Sanderson WP & WPMU: Ecommerce |
Speaker: Siel Blogging Green |
| 11:00am | Speaker: Ben Huh |
Speaker: Darren Rush Improved Performance, Search and UX |
| 12:00pm | Lunch break | Lunch break |
| 1:30pm | Speaker: Micah Baldwin Failure is Job One |
Panel: Aaron Kronis, Michael Martin & Tony Adam SEO / Q&A |
| 2:30pm | Speaker: Jim Turner Blogging for a Living |
Speaker: Gary Nicholson Useful WordPress plugins for CMS and Blogs |
| 3:30pm | Speaker: Andrew Warner How to Add Video to your Blog |
|
| 4:30pm | Speaker: John Hawkins Creating a WordPress plugin |
|
| 5:15pm | Closing Statements | |
| 7:00pm | After party @ the Custom Hotel more info → |
art predator 
This was an incredibly produced event. I know some for-profit events that have full-time staff that aren’t as well-run as this community-driven event that Austin led.
very nice article,very helpful
O.K. I agree with you!THANKS! You guys do a great blog, and have some great contents. Keep up the good work.