By nickoneill on September 30, 2008 9:30 AM

The Collapse of the Conference Bubble

Over the past two years I have spent countless hours traveling to conferences around the world to meet some of the most influential people on the internet today. As I traveled from one conference to the next I have found that there appeared to be an excessive number of events covering social media, social technology, and Web 2.0. I’ve participated in some of those conference and many of them were amazing productions but there has definitely been froth in the market.

Warning Signs Beginning to Emerge

The first warning sign that I saw was the shut down of DigitalLife Expo by Ziff Davis media. While I honestly can’t say that I heard about the event previously, it was a sign that perhaps bad things were to come. Yesterday while walking around a local conference I heard that the Social Media Marketing Summit being held by mthink was having trouble selling tickets.

These are only a few of the events that are in the process of disappearing. How many times can people possibly listen to the same speakers talk about the same topic? Ultimately this is a question that can’t be answered but it’s my inclination that there are most definitely some events being put on by individuals that don’t even have expertise within the industries they are promoting.

The Integration of Media & Events

It’s not over though. The real value is generated by the integration of online media and offline events. The business model for modern media companies is through event promotion. Just like the music industry is generating a large portion (if not the majority) of their cash flow through concerts, new media companies are succeeding by promoting conferences.

Last night I saw a post on the Facebook blog about the Future of Web Apps in London and realized just how nice it can be to be in the circle of influencers. For those events that don’t have event directors with the industry leaders on speed dial, it can be much more challenging to build a successful event. That’s why those companies need to rely on building media companies.

Unfortunately I see it time and time again that some random individual pulls in a few good speakers which snowballs into a decent lineup for an event and suddenly is able to sell-out to a packed crowd. I was fortunate enough to fill-up the Social Ad Summit a few weeks ago with great speakers and great attendees but I believe it was my reliance on creating content which drove the success of that event.

Content is still King and the same holds for the content within conferences. If you have the ability to consistently produce quality content, you are good to go. Unfortunately you can’t always hit the ball out of the park with conferences and that’s why generating other media to back up those events is so important.

This Economy Will Eliminate the Froth

Honestly, if there is one good thing to come of this downturn in the economy, it’s that the froth will be eliminated. You can’t run successful businesses without delivering high-quality service to your customers the majority of the time. Those that were able to pull revenue thanks to an environment with more excessive spending are going to face tough times ahead. You need to either be a thought leader, have a large reach (through your media), or have the best roledex (or any combination of these) to succeed in this environment.

There has been tons of events covering the exact same topics in the same geographic regions which has made for an extremely challenging environment. Do you agree that there has been somewhat of a conference bubble in this space?

Despite the collapse of Wall Street and what I previously considered a tech conference bubble, one person that continues to build value is Loic LeMeur. Yesterday he was announced as one of the most influential people on the web.