Last night’s geek dinner brought together a variety of people from the world of blogging. I enjoy sitting at a table with a group of people I have not met before and learning about how they meet their personal or business goals by creating or reading blogs.

I spoke with a woman in charge of web content for the nation’s largest ball bearing company. She is using blogs to help her company communicate better with its suppliers and differentiate themselves from the competitive market. I always joked about how some day people would use blogs to sell even small things such as ball bearings and last night I realized my long-running joke came true.

I had the chance to speak briefly with Tara Hall of Weber Shandwick, a well-known public relations firm. Weber Shandwick tracks mentions of its client companies online and proactively pitches bloggers about products in their area of expertise. Tara admitted that mainstream media has certain expectations of getting a blanket pitch yet bloggers will take offense at any attempt to apply commercial influence. Public relation firms are still working on the right approach for bloggers but it sounds like they are learning quickly.

I met Louis Moynihan, a fellow Irishman from Wexford who is now working with Pheedo. Louis handles ad sales for Pheedo’s advertising networks. We talked about the various metrics used to track successful advertising campaigns in traditional media as well as online and how RSS advertising is completely different than advertising on a web page. I believe that advertisers should focus on building branding and awareness similar to a billboard at a bus stop instead of expecting an immediate click-through from a reader. Pheedo and other advertisers are still experimenting how to provide the right metrics to assure marketing departments their money is well-spent and it will be interesting to watch the space develop.

Over sixty people attended last night’s dinner and about half of the group joined us after dinner at Maxfield’s for a few drinks. I am sure there are more stories floating out there and I’m glad I could make a few introductions. Scott Beale of Laughing Squid posted about 30 photographs from the event.

Tags: ballbearings, blogbusinesssummit, geekdinner, pheedo, webershandwick

About 50 geeks plan to attend tomorrow’s night’s dinner at Henry Hunan in downtown San Francisco. We will have a mini-blogging conference over spicy noodles.

Dinner starts around 6:30 and the restaurant closes at 9 p.m. I plan to have the restaurant divide our large group into about 5 separate bills, or one bill for each table of approximately ten people. If you or a friend would still like to attend please feel free to join us even if you can only stay for some dumplings.

Henry’s Hunan Restaurant
110 Natoma Street
6:30 p.m.

Tags: blogbusinesssummit, geekdinner, hunan

There will be so many interesting people in San Francisco next week for the Blog Business Summit we need to have an informal dinner to mix and mingle. Let’s get together at Henry’s Hunan in downtown San Francisco next Wednesday, August 17, starting at 6:30 p.m. Henry’s Hunan is located at 110 Natoma Street only one block from Blog Business Summit at the Palace Hotel.

Please leave a comment below or contact me if you plan to attend so I can coordinate with the restaurant. Please plan for a cost of around $20 with drinks or $15 without. The restaurant closes at 9 p.m. but there are plenty of bars nearby to keep the night alive if we choose. Hope you can make it next Wednesday!

Tags: blogbusinesssummit, hunan, geekdinner