Darren’s Symposium West Recap
I am back from attending Symposium West 2010 in San Francisco and I have to say it was a well put together two day event that was perfect for everyone who attended. After a very long journey and a few hours sleep the first day started with LinkShare University, a full day of information to help advertisers to get the most out of their affiliate program.
Later that day the Welcome Reception kicked off the official Symposium proceedings, which was a great opportunity for everyone to unwind after a day of absorbing information at LinkShare university. It didn’t take long for the networking to hit full speed and it was great to see many new faces at the event. Thanks to Paresh Vadavia from OPM Pros for arranging further drinks at John Collins.
On Thursday Yaz Iida, our CEO, kicked off the day with the opening remarks, welcoming all attendees and especially the ‘Golden Newbies’ who were at their first Symposium. Next up our COO, Jonathan Levine, gave a quick recap of 2009 highlights – including new 
Deep Linking tools, an updated Content Spider, and a new Coupon Web Service – and then roused the crowd further with a shout-out to innovative Publishers that drive new revenue opportunities including examples like Stylefeeder and Skimlinks. Following Jonathan, Hiroshi Mikitani spoke to the audience. He is the CEO of our parent company, Rakuten, and spoke about their plans for growth over the next 12 months. He provided some fascinating information and also how the Asian market is growing at a rapid pace.
The first keynote speaker was Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org. He spoke about how mobile and social media among other factors are forcing merchants to constantly change the way they operate online. He also compared the growth difference between online and in store where the result was online growth was much higher than in store. He focused on Amazon and how they are the market leaders for online sales in most countries and how everyone else look to them to see what to do next. The general public are becoming much more savvy about how they shop and how the iPhone has altered the way consumers can access the internet whilst they are shopping offline. He finished off with mentioning that71% of retailers are using Twitter and 81% are using Facebook – so if you are not using it at the moment it is now time to start!
Joey Shepp took to the stage next to talk mainly about Twitter and how useful it is. It was interesting to understand how to best use Twitter, for example – you should post 3-5 posts a day of non repetitive content. The idea for this is to catch someone on twitter at any given time rather than trying to reach everyone every time. Also, don’t just rehash what you put on Facebook on Twitter. Facebook ads are doing a lot better now than when they first came out and that is down to the ability to like/dislike the ads so they can become much more targeted.
A quick sit down lunch and then the final session was a panel discussion on mobile commerce. LinkShare’s Scott Allan hosted the panel and asked questions to ShopNBC, Skava, Ping Mobile, and Adlocal who discussed what they have learned in their efforts develop an m-commerce strategy. They gave great insights into mobile technology and how an increasing number people are shopping on the mobile on a daily basis.
After all of the keynote speakers the infamous DealMaker session began. This is a fantastic opportunity for affiliates and merchants to meet face to face and strengthen their relationships in a bid to work on more in the coming year. It provides a chance to work on bigger and better opportunities and to help secure those ever important promotions and deals. It also gives affiliates and merchants a chance to make new partnerships and talk to competitors and bounce ideas around.
After three busy hours of DealMaker the unwinding began and the after party was held in the very trendy Vessel bar in the heart of San Francisco’s Union Square.
Finally, I’d like to thank all the sponsors, attendees and of course the LinkShare Marketing team for making Symposium West 2010 so successful. All in all, it’s got me very exciting about our own UK Symposium which is happening in London on Tuesday 20th April and I look forward to seeing many of you there.
Darren Newmark, Network Development Manager
