This session revolved around the future of universal and blended search; how increasing the user experience is the key element for the search engines. I have plenty of good notes taken on the this blended search session that I want to share with you. So good, that I’m going to write another post specific to this topic as soon as I finish this post. Speakers from Google, Yahoo & Microsoft had the opportunity to explain how universal & blended search currently impact the search engine area and what the future holds for universal and blended search.

The second SES session I attended was ‘Measuring Success in a 2.0 World‘. Not a great deal of substance, I was more under the impression of what metrics to focus on relating to Web 2.0 however it was more of a discussion focused on conversion and ROI analytics; both of which I can not complain with. The long story short is that measuring online analytical success on: hits, page views, repeat visitors etc… is the old way of measuring success. The goal should be to focus on conversion analytics and ROI analytics. Overall, an interesting session however it could have been a little more focused.  Measuring conversion & ROI is nothing new.

After these two session I had a networking lunch. My only regret was not paying attention to the person I sat next too. After a few minutes of chatting away with the people I sat with, the gentleman sitting next to me pleasantly excused himself from the table. As he stood up, I glanced at his name tag and to my pleasant surprise and utter disappointment in not noticing earlier; I was sitting next to Matt Wilburn, Senior CPG Director of Yahoo! What a awesome opportunity I could have had to grill Matt… ohh well… tomorrow I will read the name tags of those I sit around.

Directly after lunch I attended the a session deemed the ‘Orion Panel’. This panel was focused on the discussion of integrating offline and online strategies to work in harmony, creating a well deserved synergy. I gotta say here; this was such a Boring session. I spent the first half of the session reading my email (thank you Hilton wireless network). The topic was appealing but the approach and delivery was lacking. Long story short is that you should measure your ROI and conversion from offline channels and pursue offline channels in the first place.

The final session of the day that I attended was ‘Igniting Viral Campaigns’. A great topic however a little light on the substance. The panel for this session discussed how viral and social marketing can take a site with a few hundred hit’s a day to a few thousand hit’s a day. Using social networks like MySpace.com, YouTube.com & Digg.com can transform any site to a power house. One key factor that I took away from this session was that the majority of your viral and social marketing efforts will fail. We can only enable viral and social media, we can not control it.

I am looking forward to day two of the expo, however I am not looking forward to the parking costs; $30 bucks a day. Considering the cost of the expo, thirty bucks is chump change. Tomorrow shall be interesting in that the ‘advanced’ sessions will be available to attend. I will let you know how day two turns out tomorrow.

In closing, the SES Chicago Expo is living up to par and expectations. As long as I walk away with one awesome concept, technique or piece of knowledge I am satisfied. At this point, Ive walked away with more than one, I look forward to tomorrows sessions.

- Robert Greco