Ian Fernando » izeafest

IZEAFest Video Mashup

Ian — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:19:50 +0000

You already probably have seen tons of videos from IZEAFest, the only difference you have not seen mine. Also the IZEAFest photos are up and you can view them here. I had fun. I ended up taking some videos with my camera but better videos were taking up because everyone had their flip. I think social marketers are more into the flip than I am. I was using my standard point and shoot camera to take videos and it does fine for what I need to do. Well here is the video of what I have taken, you probably have sen everything via the UStream.

I just put all the video together with out any text so it may just seem weird as a speaker fades into another speaker. I had a good time and Ted Murphy definitely made it fun for everyone that attended.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rare Photos of a Marketing Species

Ian — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:26:33 +0000

Below are some pictures taken while I was at IZEAFest and Blog World. These are rare pictures of a Marketing Species, a rare species with the scientific name ‘Ian Fernando’ has been found. These images are a rare find of what an Internet marketer does when not in front of their computers. These pictures may be offensive to some, while normal to others; depending on the species of marketing they are from.

Below you will notice some of the rare natures of these species. The most common attribute of these breeds is the nature of sticking their tongue out or just opening their mouth. Sometimes a strange pose or a contoured facial structure can be easily noticeable.

My Market Leverage AM: Michael Kelly

ShoeMoney and Ted Murphy

Yea, Shoe is Crazy!

Tris Hussey

Krystyl

This was the only way I would get apicture with him!

IZEAFest Ends – Florida TakeOver Starts!

Ian — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:45:02 +0000

Yes I am the boss of Orlando – frig Ricky Ross. Ha. Let me stop. IZEAFest came to an end and I want to thank Ted Murphy for a nice gathering with great speakers and a more intimate networking. I was able to meet some of my readers and even meet new people. I met up with Syed Balkhis, who took me out to a new restaurant, the food was fun and filling. The last day had some good speakers, I think better than the day prior just because it was more on improving than monetizing and gathering traffic, which is a majority of most sessions.

I was able to meet up with other great people such as Brian Clark, John Reese, Neil Patel, Unique Blog Design Team, Loren of 1938Media.com, and so many others. I think the best part were the private 5-30 minute chats with other people. I had the chance to talk to ShoeMoney about my new web service and what his input is, talked to John and joked around, talked to Zac about life changes, etc. There were a lot of benefits from IZEAFest.

At the end of the day I ended up visiting my cousin, instead of going to the IZEAFest Scavenger Hunt. I do not think that is really me, getting messy and doing weird ish BUT a lot of other people looked like they were having fun – I guess we all have a different version of fun. Well today I will not be doing much, I will be looking at some of my stats and maybe visit my cousins again. Tomorrow I will be heading towards Miami prior to Vegas for Blog World and hope to meet and learn from others.

Taking Over Florida

Well I have about 4 days till I head over to Vegas and I plan on chillin and being the boss of Florida, with the exception of John Reese, since he is the boss of where ever he goes. Well here are some pictures from IZEAFest and soon to come is an exclusive Unique Blog Design Podcast coming soon.

More pictures to come.

IZEAFest 1st and 2nd Day PLUS almost Fight at Night

Ian — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:16:01 +0000

I am currently in Orlando, Florida attending IZEAFest. I actually arrived in Orlando on the 10th to hang out with my cousins and tour Orlando for a bit. The strange thing about Orlando is I literally landed with gorgeous skies and got picked up in a hurricane of rain, which only lasted about 30 minutes. I actually had a whole day and I decided to hit up Market Leverage to see if I can visit their new office. I hit up Erick from PPM (Precision Play Media, parent company of Market Leverage) and asked if can visit and if they had food. They did have food and I decided to go and pay for a 50$ cab ride to their office, wow a 50$ cab ride!

I took a tour of their office and it was big and spacious. I also met up with ShoeMoney as well and talked to the president and CEO of the company. It was very informative and entertaining. I also talked to their API guy about my new project service I am currently doing, he provided a lot of good information and even advice! Thanks!

After visiting Market Leverage I went to dinner with my cousins. I have not seen her in so long and we went out to eat at Cheesecake factory. I was super hungry because my flight was tiring and I had some good food at Market Leverage but it wasn’t really enough I guess by the time dinner hit. Man I tore that Chicken Marsala Up!

The actual first day of IZEAFest was just a gathering of all the social marketers and bloggers to just have cocktail and drinks. I met up with a lot of people such as Neil Patel, Unique Blog Design Team, John Chow, Jeremiah Cooper, Fat Man Unleashed, Zac Johnson, and many others. I had a couple drinks and left the gathering pretty early to hang out with my cousins.

credit: starryskye81

Later that Night

My cousin and I went downtown to a couple bars to drink and it was a blast. My cousin knows a lot of big people in Orlando and does he. It was entertaining to talk to big promoters of Obama and even rockstar bands that travel. Everyone was buying everyone drinks it was crazy. By the end of the night we were walking to another bar and that is when the night went ugly. My cousin was lighting his cigarette and a bum needed a light for his, my cousin was going to light his cig for him until he snatched it from him, I lost it. I started to bug out on the dude and was like don’t disrespect my cousin. Bum walked away. Literally 3 minutes later some dude, as we were walking, started to talk smack about the bum and how we was rude, my cousin to shut his lip. The dude thought he was tough and threw his pizza to the floor and wanted to start something. I was saying lets get it in, but he was attacking my cousin. We family so I said lets get it in. Me being the loud but also thinking ‘hey I have a convention tomorrow’ pulled my cousin and just walked away. Dude is still talking.

I was mad – but walked back to the hotel.

The 2nd Day of IZEAFest

The keynote by Jeremy was entertaining and funny, he talked about his growth and his accomplishments. Very entertaining and shows that making money online can be done. I was twittering the whole thing and as well as taking pictures. The other session were also entertaining with the exception of the Content is King, which really was blah and very zzzzzzzz. I found the big money bloggers were also very helpful with information but things I already know.

credit: supersusie

The only thing that confused me was the event is being streamed via Ustream.tv, but I paid $50 to be here, why is it being streamed? I have nothing against it but it defeats the purpose of paying $50. Not sure what that was all about but there were a lot of unique things that were being said in the chat. I even met more Jersey Bloggers and successors, which was entertaining as well. It seems there is going to be a meetup soon in Jersey for Jersey Twitters! Awesome!

More Updates soon to come, but follow me on Twitter and you can keep up with me live!

Pictures coming soon.

Florida and Big Storms then to Vegas

Ian — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:10:24 +0000

Tomorrow I will be in Florida attending IZEAFest, a social network conference. But I am hearing a lot about this storms coming up, there is like what 5 of them? With all these damn storms I am wondering how the weather will be. I also need to prep later today and start packing, but I also need to go out and buy new clothes. With the weather all messed up, I decided to do a quick weather look for Orlando, Florida and it seems like it is going to be rain with chances of storms. Damn! I have plans to visit Market Leverages‘ new offices and hang out with my cousins. Well at least I will be inside most of the time, but I would like to also tour Orlando.

Well my plan is to hangout with my cousins and meet up with Market Leverage and tour their new office. I will be arriving in Orlando at about 2pm. I just hope it isn’t raining heavy the time I land, just do not want any delays that is all. I also would like to spend time with my cousins I have not seen in like several years. Friggin weather and these damn storms, they won’t ruin my fun I will tell you that much.

After Orlando I will be attending BlogWorld in Las Vegas. But that is about 1 week after IZEAfest, this brought a situation to me. I was either flying back to Jersey and then fly out to Vegas. I decided I will fly out of Florida to Vegas then back home to Jersey. I think it makes more sense to stay in Florida and just fly out of Florida to Vegas.

Since I am staying in Florida, I will be hanging out in Miami with one of my affiliate friends, Sam of AffiliatesMiami.com. I just hope the storms finally pass by and I can enjoy some of the weather and the nice sun and women. I will also be meeting up with a good friend from the UK Jani. So all of us will be basically chillin, I personally will be doing some work on my campaigns during the day and at night party heavy. I just can’t let my campaigns alone, they do need some touch ups from time to time.

After Miami I will be flying out of Ft. Lauderdale and into Vegas. I know a good friend which I grew up with in Jersey which we will be hanging out for a couple days. I also know a lot of people going to BlogWorld and look forward to meet up with everyone. Vegas should be interesting as I was there for Affiliate Summit West.

But overall, I would like to know if anyone would like to meet up while I am at Orlando, Miami or even Vegas. I would like to meet other affiliates and my readers. So if you would like to meet let me know and we can definitely schedule something! Also I will be on twitter a lot so make sure you follow me.

As far as posting, I may be limited and will not be able to post much. With some days off before BlogWorld, I should be able to post something.

See Me at IZEAFest and Blog World Expo

Ian — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:43:07 +0000

I finally decided I am attending Blog World Expo. I was wondering if I should just go to either IZEAFest or BlogWorld Expo. IZEAFest I quickly bought my ticket because of an unbeatable price and I just finally decided to go ahead and go to Blog World. Shoemoney was telling me how crazy it is at Blog World and I decided to look at the scheduled sessions. There are a lot of interesting people I would like to meet and listen from. I mean it makes sense for me to go since I am a blogger as well. I talked about going to IZEAFest prior and how it is almost in direct competition with Blog World a week later.

IZEAfest is a social marketing conference similar to Blog World Expo, but it is far cheaper. I know it will be fairly hot and I decided to go to Orlando because one of my cousins live in Orlando and I haven’t seen them in such a long time, so I want to drop in and say hi.

But anyways, I think Blog World will be of great benefit since big speakers such as John Chow, Zac Johnson, Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Steve Hall, Timothy Ferris, and so many more will be attending and speaking. I know some of them and met others in person and would like to expand my knowledge in the blog and social marketing area. Since I blog I guess it would be a good choice for me to join such a convention.

Today, it was kinda of hectic for me to book my flights and hotels. I was stuck in either flying out to Orlando then coming back to Jersey, then flying out to Las Vegas and then back to Jersey. I didn’t want to waste that one week gap and just come back to jersey, I decided to stay in Florida and then fly out to Las Vegas. This makes the most sense to me. Fly to Orlando, hang out then to Vegas then back to Jersey. Also, I know some affiliates down in Florida so I ended calling them up to hang out and chill.

Sam from Affiliates Miami will be meeting me up at IZEAFest and then we will be driving down to Miami to chill and hang out. From there we will be flying out to Vegas for Blog World Expo. It is interesting that we are going to a social marketing event because we have been working on a VIP Bloggers Forum and this would be good exposure for the forum. As it is meant to attract A listers to participate with smaller bloggers. Big Ups to Sam since he has been going hard with this. I only provided the idea and he has been creating and designing the forum.

Another one of my good friends, Jani form the UK will be meeting me at IZEAfest as well. He will be in Orlando much earlier and I will be in contact. He will also be with us traveling to Miami and we will be working on a digital product together. So I will be in Miami for the week I will be working on my campaigns and other projects from the ‘Miami’ office. During the night life it should be whats up since I like to ‘ball out’.

If yu want to meet up leave a comment or twitter me and we will definitely meetup. I enjoy meeting up with a lot of my readers. So leave a comment or follow me on twitter.

Going to IZEAFest: Is it about ReBranding?

Ian — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:53:14 +0000

So the other day I bought my 50$ pass for IzeaFest. It only cost 50$ which is the cheapest convention pass ever! If you do not want to go to convention because of the high price tags of $500 to $1000, then this is the best deal you can get! But it brings a big controversy for me and maybe others. I thought to myself why is this convention so cheap with a lot of very popular speakers.

I then took a look at the hotel rate and it is really expensive, close to $300 a night and the convention is September 11th to the 13th. It is really 2 days with one day pre partying. But I do not think it is about the expensive hotel either, but more of a re branding for the company. Jason Calacanis came into mind pretty quickly because he stated PayPerPost changed their name to Izea, a keynote at Affiliate Summit West.

I thought to myself it might be a re branding of the company which is why the convention is ridiculously cheap. Fifty dollars is really nothing if you are going to network, socialize, and meet up with so many marketers and bloggers. IzeaFest is geared towards social marketers and bloggers, the interesting part about this convention is it is 1 week before BlogWorld Expo, interesting or coincidence?

Jasaon Calacanis brought up a lot of interesting points at the Affiliate Summit West keynote and ridiculed PayPerPost employees. They did have a poor brand which is why they have been booted from the google serps. I know as a blogger IzeaFest will be beneficial because of the prominent speakers such as Jeremy, Neil Patel, John Chow, Brian Clark, etc. These speakers will make it worth while to go and enjoy the hot summer sun at$50 a pass!

But either or I am trying to go to BlogWorld as well. IzeaFest should be interesting as they are promoting it very heavily and were at Ad-Tech as well. So this should be interesting, the best part is the sessions do not intercept one another so I will be attending all the sessions and have a good breakdown of what social marketing and blogging really is.

With IzeaFest being in September, I will be meeting up with Bob Buskirk in Orlando. I will be interested in meeting so many other bloggers and speakers as well. I want to meet all of them and you can see the list here.

But I hope to meet a lot of bloggers and network a lot more! Here is a list of bloggers that I found that are going:

Not too sure why there isn’t a lot of blogs talking about IzeaFest. There are a lot of well rounded and a list bloggers that will be speaking. But it may be because of the poor brand Izea had prior and they are currently re branding? Not sure. Are you going to IzeaFest?