The Google Insider

As reported before, I was able to attend the eConference in October. The even was a great success and they are making another big push for it this coming year. As soon as early January, specifically January 7th, you will be able to sign up for a full pass. This is not limited to past attendees such as myself, but it is open to everyone. In the previous Xpo, Google AdWords had a booth setup and I also believe that Google AdSense did as well. I was able to get some inside details and talk to a couple of the reps that were at the booth. While at the booth, you can also sign up for contest prizes that happen everyday of the conference. Simply visit www.ecomxpo.com on January 7th to sign up and be part of the upcoming Xpo which will happen on April 4th-6th. I look forward to hopefully seeing some of you there!

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The Google China Code Jam is an offshoot of the company’s annual Google Code Jam competition. The final event of the 2005 competition, held in September, was won by Marek Cygan, a university student from Poland, who won $10,000 in cash. Two other university students, Erik-Jan Krijgsman of the Netherlands and Petr Mitrichev of Russia, each won $5,000 in cash for finishing second and third, respectively.

Respectively, Google is making a good move with this only because they can easily attract a lot of talent and for a low price. $30,000 is a drop in the bucket for them while they can easily bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of code in and talent. I expect that they will be hiring the top finalists and possibly the runner-ups in the contest as full time employees. Google is trying to gather a lot of the world’s best talent, including management from Microsoft. (more…)

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Early last month in October, I attended an online event called eComXpo. The event was a Virtual Tradeshow for eCommerce Marketers. Since I am deeply involved with affiliate marketing and other such industries, I was invited to the online event by ValueClick Media. I was able to make a lot of new contacts through the event and I was able to visit many booths while at the event. Many companies were there simply trying to get their name out there and gain clientele through the event to help their company. There were companies ranging from ValueClick Media, to Commission Junction, to Linkshare, to Mamma, to Google AdWords and AdSense, to an almost endless list of companies in the industry. It was really good to see all the companies out there to choose from.

While visiting each booth, most would have a contest you could enter and the information you used to sign up would be given to the company. This was their way of getting your contact information and being able to send you information. While visiting the Google AdWords booth, I decided to sign up for their contest. A couple days ago, nearly one month after the event, I received an e-mail stating that I have $100 free towards any usage of my AdWords account. I currently am not using AdWords, but will be in the near future. Fortunately it does not expire until July 2006, so it will come in very handy.

I highly recommend that if anyone gets the chance to attend the eComXpo event online next year, to do so. It is a very good event and very informative. You may even win some prizes out of it. I was invited by ValueClick Media, being one of their publishers. So if you’re interested in attending the conference next year, make sure to be a publisher of one of the companies and they will most likely invite you to attend the event for free. Some of the companies that may invite you would be ValueClick Media, Linkshare, Commission Junction, or Google AdWords. Keep an eye out next around October for the event. The next planned event to take place by eComXpo is April 4-6, 2006.

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