What they should do instead is take people who have actually found success in an area but aren’t bound to pitching a product in that area. Basically, I’d rather listen to successful bloggers and individuals who can demonstrate their own success and are willing to talk about it than I would “experts” on a given topic who are out to shill for their paid services.

For example, I’m pretty much willing to talk about anything. I took a blog from a silent launch to the Technorati 2500 in less than four months. I’ve already given a couple of seminars on blogging to a few people and I’d be happy to talk more about how I made this launch happen and answer face-to-face questions on the topic. I have no qualms about doing this in a conference environment, either, because the value to me is meeting people and learning about experiences, not about pushing my product down people’s throats.

Why would this be less useful than listening to an SEO person shill for their company?

“I would have thought that potential customers would go to people who generously give tips that work – but maybe I’m a little naive”

Just as in blogging, the speakers that leave the strongest impression are the ones that give the audience something that simply can’t do without.

I would love a session called “Top 10 SEO/SEM tips you never heard of”. That would pay for the cost of ad Tech itself.

I’m a little tired of going to cons and hearing this season’s trends, seeing the latest random statistics thrown around and the latest “fear factor” inducing case studies. That is why I believe sooner or later, the Elite Retreat format is going to take off in AU. If you are to network and learn (which is why we attend cons), why not do it with the top-end?

I went to the free one-on-one Adsense optimisation session as well and found it quite useful because I was told several bits of info that aren’t in the Google FAQ’s and the Adsense guy (Michael) said he’d add extra URL 200 channels to my account because I made the effort to come into the CBD that afternoon just to meet him :-)

I wonder how many attendees who paid $1400 now feel that they got good value for money? Of course they all got to listen to people from overseas but we have just as many talented experts right here in Australia and conference organisers shouldn’t be afraid to use them.

Sure there were undoubtedly some great networking opportunities at the conference but you don’t have to pay $1400 for networking opportunities.

The Australian Blogging Conference (now postponed till August) is likely to be a much more valuable experience and the last I heard it was going to be free.

Oh, and it was great to meet up face-to-face!

At ad:tech Sydney I met Aussie blogging legend Darren Rowse in the flesh for the first time. Only knowing him up till then in ……

To be honest, a lot of conferences seem to get a lot of comments in teh blogosphere akin to “it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t alreay know” kind of like your SEO panel at adtech).

Maybe they’re just asking the wrong people to talk?