michaeldorausch.com

What a great time in South Florida for Super Bowl XLIV. I didn’t bring along my Canon Rebel DSLR because I didn’t think it would get past security (but of course, I saw loads of people with professional cameras and no photographer credentials inside the stadium) so all I had was my iPhone and a Nikon CoolPix S560 camera. Taking photos with my phone turned out to be an easier task anyways. At some point during the Superbowl that would’ve certainly been beer spilled on my more expensive camera rig.

AFC NFC World Championship Game

I picked up my tickets at will call early Sunday afternoon, which left plenty of time to head on over to the stadium early. Tickets read… National Football League Super Bowl XLIV – AFC-NFC World Championship Game Sunday, February 7, 2010, 6 PM Dolphin Stadium, South Florida.

Dolphin Stadium – South Florida

Once we got past the massive security lines and screenings this is what things looked like on the inside. The huge Superbowl 44 Roman numerals can be seen from miles away. Like I’m seeing at lots of stadiums across the US, there was a Wal-Mart nearby, it was crazy packed, but there was no stadium parking permitted in the lot. Parking for Super Bowl XLIV was at a premium, starting at $75 and easily up to $300 for a premium parking space.

Raiders NFL display

Once you were inside the official tailgate area there was a multitude of things to do. There was lots of beer, BBQ’s, cars on display, vendors giving away Superbowl 44 schwag, and a player display for every team in the NFL. I really like that every team was represented, and the displays were really popular amongst fans. If you weren’t a die hard Indianapolis Colts or New Orleans Saints fan, you could get your photo taken with team colors of your choice.

Oakland Raiders – Silver and Black

I really liked that they had these NFL team displays set up. At this point I wished I had brought along my DSLR camera, but I settled for handing someone my iPhone and snapping pictures on several occasions. Fortunately, the Southern Florida sun was cooperating and giving us pretty good light throughout the daytime festivities.

End Zone Super Bowl XLIV

The view from our seats was spectacular. There were huge TV screens on either side of the stadium, and we had a clear view of all the action taking place on the field. I recently paid a premium to sit front row on the 40 yard line for a Ravens Raiders game, and while you are close enough to meet players, the seating turned out to be a horrible view of the field. I’d much rather sit up higher so I can get a clear view of action taking place.

Super Bowl XLV will be taking place in Dallas on February 6, 2011, at the recently built Cowboys stadium.

Disclaimer: There are links in this post that are potentially not safe for work (nsfw). I want to give credit where credit is due and I believe providing links to source material (and those who made this post possible) is the best way to do so. I’m also linking to twitter profiles (some of which may be considered nsfw) in cases where persons permitted me to take their photos.

Thanks to the Internet, what happens in Vegas, doesn’t necessarily stay in Vegas (especially when I’m traveling with two cameras and my iPhone). What fun would my trip down the red carpet for the star-studded adult video awards show be if I couldn’t share any stories or photos? How is it that I got invited to the 2010 AVN Awards and to walk the red carpet? I’ll address that in more detail in another post. For now, I will just say thank you to my friend Kimbirly Orr at Viral Media West.

Many of those who know me are aware I love taking photos. I post stuff consistently to my Flickr photo stream and I often use photos in posts I do about conferences and other topics. I took hundreds of photos while at the AVN Awards (I never actually got to see the show live as I backstage taking even more photos) and I got permission to post a few sets here. Please note that while I took these photos, they are exclusively licensed to AVN, and they (along with the talent featured) should receive link credit if used.

Enough already, here’s a select set of my photos from the 2010 AVN Awards Red Carpet Walk at the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. If by any chance I identified someone incorrectly, please post a comment and I’ll get the information updated, my apologies in advance if I’ve done so.

Jessica Drake & Jesse Jane

Jessica Drake and Jesse Jane hosting on the 2010 AVN Awards red carpet event. Photos were taken inside, before celebrities and adult superstars walked along the red carpet towards the theater inside the Palms. There were thousands of fans outside, and as you could expect, the place was a madhouse.

Dylan Ryder w Tommy Gunn

You may think I am odd (it’s my anatomically correct mindset) but I love this photo of adult film star Dylan Ryder because her clavicles line up perfectly. You may not have noticed at first but I’m happy to point it out.

Sasha Grey Being Interviewed at 2010 AVN Awards

There were lots of interviews taking place along the red carpet. The above photo is of Sasha Grey being interviewed just before reaching the AVN Awards Twitter Pit (there was a whole group of social media peeps broadcasting tweets and pics of red carpet happenings live during the event).

Savanna Samson on AVN Awards Red Carpet

There’s something about Savanna that really grabbed my attention, thankfully Savanna Samson paused long enough so I could take her photo, while she was walking the red carpet.

Dana DeArmond Visits the Twitter Pit

No stranger to twitter, Dana DeArmond (who had iPhone in hand) stopped and visited the Twitter Pit during her walk along the 2010 AVN Awards red carpet. She has perfect teeth.

2010 AVN Awards Host Kayden Kross

One of the hosts for the 2010 AVN Awards was Kayden Kross. Not only is she a stunning beauty, in the brief moments I spoke to her, she showed a glowing attitude and a great sense of humor.

Angelina Armani Red Carpet 2010 AVN Awards

I’m so thankful people paused so I could take photos. It may not seem like it in the pictures, but the place was chaos with people, fans and photographers everywhere, trying to grab pictures or just say hello to adult celebrities. Angelina Armani not only stopped for photos, she paused so we could take photos with some of the people working the twitter pit (I will share those pictures in another post).

If I keep adding photos this page is going to take forever to load. I still have pics to share from backstage, and I’ll include a link right here when that post is complete. Once again, many thanks to the awesome folks at AVN and Kimbirly Orr of Viral Media West for making my entire AVN weekend in Las Vegas sensational!

WebmasterWorld’s Search & Internet Marketing Conference (PubCon Vegas) was held November 10-13 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. PubCon Vegas 2009 featured many incredibly talented individuals speaking on their areas of expertise, with topics geared for webmasters, affiliates, search engine marketers, SEOs, program managers and more. With as many as 6 sessions taking place at a time, PubCon Las Vegas offered something for everyone. I’ve already marked my calendar for PubCon South 2010 Dallas on April 13-15, 2010.

Being that there’s so many sessions taking place at the same time it’s tough for one person to get around to all the rooms and still be able to listen in on presentations. I found myself going to rooms to take photos of speakers, and then sitting down for the presentation, so I didn’t make it to as many rooms as I would’ve liked to. Fortunately, there are already hundreds of 2009 PubCon photos posted on Flickr. For those interested, my entire 2009 PubCon Vegas photo set is on Flickr as well.

Rhea Drysdale of Outspoken Media

Rhea Drysdale is the Chief Operating Officer at Outspoken Media, an Internet marketing company made up of respected industry leaders. Rhea did an excellent presentation on reputation management and it’s obvious she’s real passionate about what she does.

Marty Weintraub and Scott Hendison

Marty Weintraub of Aim Clear has crazy energy. Every time I see Marty he’s always smiling. He was on more sessions than I can recall. The 3 day schedule kept him busy for sure. Scott Hendison is a Portland, Oregon based Internet consultant. When I spoke on the local search panel and recommended businesses hire experts to handle their SEO campaigns, I was referring to people like Scott.

Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide

Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, one of the best sites I know of where small businesses can get information on search engine optimization and search engine marketing techniques. I sat in on Jennifer’s panel for the Reputation Monitoring and Management session, something every business owner and brand evangelist should have more knowledge of.

From left to right… Greg Finn – Chris Winfield – Marcus Tandler

The above photo is a great example of “it’s who you know not what you know”, I’ve been real fortunate to become friends with so many talented individuals in the SEO and social media space. Greg is the Director of Internet marketing for 10e20 and he puts on some butt kicking presentations. Chris Winfield is the 10e20 President and Co-Founder. He’s one of the most respected individuals in the industry. He lives an attitude of goodwill and when he says he’s got your back, your golden. Marcus Tandler is another online marketing superhero. Marcus is the CEO of a German-based SEO company. You can find him hanging out with the best of the best at the SEO Oktoberfest in Munich Germany.

Krista Neher on PubCon Panel

You know when you attend a conference and somebody says one thing that you can take away, making the entire event worth the investment? While I got lots of great information at PubCon it was one thing Krista Neher said during the reputation management panel that resulted in a shifting of my headspace. I love coming home with a change in perspective.

Brian Combs on the Universal Search Panel

The Universal Search panel was my most “wow” attended session of the week. I was not prepared for the high level of presentations and was sort of expecting a same old same old discussion of stuff I already knew. It was pleasing to see how wrong I was. Brian Combs, owner of Local SEO firm, ionadas local, wowed the crowd with information on local search as it relates to universal. It’s a lot more than photographs and video.

Kate Morris of Marketing Demons

Kate Morris is a holistic search engine marketing consultant, she was on several panels I attended, and I really love the session on Landing Page Optimization. Kate has that positive energy attitude that I’ve seen in so many of my Internet friends, a quality that motivates me to attend more conferences, in hopes of discovering similar people.

Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick and Search Engine Roundtable

No Search Engine Conference is complete without the live blogging expertise of Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick Web design and Development, and the Search Engine Roundtable. Barry has his fingers on the pulse of the search community and he shows an incredible dedication to serving the industry of search, in part with his live blogging efforts, as well as with his numerous search engine topic related posts.

Michael Streko of KnowEm Username Check

Michael Streko is a cofounder of KnowEm, a service that allows people to search more than 340 popular social media networks, allowing them to secure their brand across the social web. While at PubCon, I sat in on Michael’s presentation on Competitive Intelligence, and I took away lots of juicy information.

Matt Siltala speaking at PubCon 2009

I caught the above photo of Matt Siltala during the Competitive Intelligence: Know Thy Competitor Well session. Matt is a search engine optimization consultant who specializes in Natural Search, Social Media Marketing, Link Building Strategies, Link Baiting and Reputation Management. He is also a huge Arizona Cardinals fan. You can never have enough friends that love watching NFL football.

Michael Gray speaking at 2009 PubCon in Las Vegas

Michael Gray, known to many in the world of SEO as Graywolf, who frequently posts on his Wolf Howl blog, is one of the people I most admire in the industry of search. What I like so much about Michael is that he’s a real guy that stands up for his principles and beliefs, regardless of what the current consensus is among others in online search and social media spaces. Respect.

Tony Adam and his BillShrink branded laptop

Tony Adam is the director of search engine optimization at BillShrink, a service that can save you money on gas, cell phones, cell phone plans and credit cards. Tony appeared to be speaking at the same times as I was so I didn’t get a chance to attend any of his sessions. I’ve known Tony for a few years now and he’s at the top of my list for Most Awesome Dudes. Has an amazing work ethic that carries over into his relationships with friends and industry professionals. He is another one of those “got your back” kind of people.

I have pretty much posted all of my daytime Vegas session photos to a PubCon photo set if you want to view them all, thanks to everyone that retweeted this post. @chiropractic

Last week I presented at the 2009 PubCon Las Vegas conference. I was on the Local Search panel, which had more people in attendance than I’ve seen in a long time for a local search (maybe the time for local has come), and to top it off it was the first session of the day.

I posted a copy of the presentation to slideshare and have embedded it here for viewing…

Viewing the slideshow presentation doesn’t get as much information as having attended the event, but you may find something useful in the presentation nonetheless.

I talked about convergence of the desktop shopper and the cell phone user, the increased activity we are seeing in wireless, and how local search is appearing in the SERPS.

I asked a few questions on twitter about the use of mobile applications in finding places to eat locally and received some pretty interesting responses. A few of those were posted and appear in the slides.

When I talk about SEO for local search like it’s 1999, I don’t mean spamming guest books with links. Link building is obviously important, but for local search, the basics still rule. I did a presentation earlier in the year on granular data , which is also related to the area of local search.

Thanks to all those that attended the presentation live in Las Vegas, I know it can be tough to be awake and at the conference center at 10 o’clock in the morning, you guys rocked!

If you’ve never heard of it, PubCon is a four-day search marketing conference that features leading-edge education and networking in over 90 sessions and some 200 expert speakers on social media, affiliate marketing, search, SEO and SEM.

My PubCon badge arrived in the mail yesterday. It’s nice to have it in advance and avoid the lines at registration. It’s not an ordinary conference badge either (this thing could double as a mini survival kit). As I like to be prepared for 4 days on the conference floor in Vegas (3 days and one day in the bar), I put together a list of what I consider to be 5 essentials those attending PubCon may want to consider carrying in their badge packages.

6 pouch PubCon badge with key essentials

The photo above shows the front of the PubCon 2009 badge along with some key essentials. If you take a look at your conference badge holder you’ll notice it has six different compartments. One of the front compartments even has a zipper and there’s Velcro to help keep items in place.

I experimented putting various items in the front pouch like my iPhone 3G which fit snugly within the zippered enclosure. I don’t know that I’d recommend keeping your mobile electronics in your badge pouch as it could put an unnecessary strain on your neck. OK, here’s my five essentials for those attending PubCon 2009 in Las Vegas…

Back of pouch with business cards and pens

1) Business Cards — There’s a nice slot in the back pouch to hold plenty of your business cards. I was able to fit 30 of mine in there with no problem. You can never have too many business cards when attending an event like PubCon as there’s numerous networking opportunities.

2) Pen / Marker — Also on the back of the badge is a slot for two pens, pencils or other writing devices. Bring along a good pen (I like my Dos Equis XX pen since it lights up – can come in handy in Vegas) and maybe even a magic marker or some other writing device. History has shown it’s really good to have something like a Sharpie on hand, especially if somebody gives you one of those glossy business cards that you can’t write on with an ordinary pen. Best to be prepared.

3) USB Stick — This one is especially important if you’re speaking at PubCon. You never know what could go wrong, so it’s great to have a backup of your PowerPoint presentation on a USB memory card, tucked away in your conference pouch.

4) Gum — It’s Vegas, I suspect there will be lots of caffeine in the morning, and lots of alcohol in the evening, with plenty of conversation in between. It would do well to have plenty of gum handy (or mints if you prefer) and if you keep it in your conference pouch it won’t get all sticky like it does when you keep it in your pocket.

5) Vitamins — This suggestion may not seem to fit, but for the same reasons mentioned above (caffeine/alcohol and long days/nights), I found it can be helpful to increase the dosage on your regular daily intake of vitamins. Pack enough for your week in Vegas and keep them daily in your conference pouch. I think everyone in attendance will appreciate everyone else being in the best of health, while we all hang out in Vegas.

Business Cards from people attending PubCon

Aside from the five essentials, there are many other valuable uses for your PubCon conference badge holder. The slot right behind your name tag is perfect for placement of business cards you receive from others. This way, if you’ve had a few drinks while networking, you’ll have a strategy down… your cards in the back and cards from others in the front.

You may have noticed in the top photograph that there is cash shown inside the pouch. There’s plenty of room for cash (and the zippered enclosure makes things even better) but it didn’t make my top five list. Vegas is definitely a place to have plenty of dollar bills handy, especially if you’re taking cabs around town, and having people carry bags for you. So maybe, some extra dollar bills inside your conference pouch isn’t a bad idea.

Did I leave anything off the list that should be an essential? See you in Las Vegas!

I’ve been meaning to post this presentation since I spoke at PubCon Austin earlier this year. I was on the local search panel and my topic was Going Granular with local search.

On the Chiropractic Blogs site I’ve talked about granular data and location information quite a bit. It amazes me how many people to this day still don’t invest the extra time into things like filling out fields completely or including detailed information related to the topic they are blogging on. Getting very detailed with the information you are delivering can provide great benefit, especially with long-tail search results.

If you want to view the slideshow presentation it’s 19 slides long. I covered more in the talk but at least the slides offer some basics on the topic.

One of the last slides simply says “True Story” and it refers to a case where I used granular data in a blog post that resulted in a client calling my chiropractic office. That client was seeking specifically what I covered in the post (down to the model number of equipment used) and since has referred a half dozen+ other clients.

Cheers!

It’s Follow Friday on Twitter. Here’s a selection of around 925 humans, bots, and other machines or lifeforms I follow…

Sorry all, I had to kill this one since the 1000+ images loading messed things up too much.

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk on basic WordPress SEO while at Wordcamp Las Vegas this past Saturday. I’ve uploaded the PowerPoint presentation to Slideshare and you should be able to view it below. I also mentioned that I would make copies of both my robots TXT file and .htaccess file available for download. You can get both of those in a zipped file format robots-htaccess <– right here.

The discussion of permalinks kinda gets lost when just viewing the PPT presentation. I’m planning to do a post covering Permalinks in more detail so check back here for that soon.

Thanks again everybody for you’re awesome support!

Yesterday was the first full day of testing out my recently purchased Asus Eee box PC. I used it for about an hour on Friday when first unpacking it from the box, and was pleasantly delighted. Yesterday I spent most of the day using the included Windows XP home operating system and adding software applications to be used in my office.

It’s still a messy set up as I haven’t yet decided on how I’m going to organize cables. I’m dealing with a really small space so this PC setup was perfect. I used to use a laptop here but it’s sort of defeated the purpose of having a desk since often times I have to hand write chart notes.

The current setup includes a 20 inch BenQ LCD monitor, a Plantronics CS 50 USB wireless headset, a mini Microsoft wireless mouse, and the keyboard that came with the Asus Eee box PC.

I’m thinking of changing out the monitor to use one that includes speakers. So far haven’t had any problems displaying at all resolutions tested for a monitor of this size. Understand I’m not playing games or doing heavy graphics work, most work done on this PC is going to be audio recording and transcription related.

I installed audacity (a free audio editor and recorder), GIMP (the GNU image manipulation program), PuTTY (a free telnet/ssh client), WinSCP (a free sftp and ftp client for windows), and Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 (non free speech recognition software for windows). The Plantronics headset didn’t require any drivers and worked with both Audacity and DragonDictate after adjusting basic audio settings.

A few things I like about this set up so far… 1) people are relaxing and receiving chiropractic care within a few feet of this desktop station. It is whispery quiet and I like that. 2) Its small enough to fit under the desk where no one can see it (but cool enough to leave on the desktop to show off and still not take up much space). 3) The combination I have set ups been able to handle audio recordings from my headset while standing anywhere in my office (including the x-ray developing room).

There is still quite a bit of training to be done with the transcription software, but I’ve used previous versions for nearly 10 years now, so I’ve got a pretty good hang of it. I’ll definitely be upgrading from the included 1GB of RAM to the 2GB capacity. Hopefully that will speed up the process when transcribing MP3 files to text or directly dictating to text.

I purchased an under drawer keyboard tray but it was too big for the area, thinking of developing a modified solution and not sure if I’ll continue using the provided keyboard.

I figure that within the next week I will mount the power strip and tuck away all the cables. I will take more pictures then and do an update to this post. I love new toys like this!

This past weekend’s WordCamp in San Francisco renewed my spirit for WordPress and the ginormous community that supports it.

I’ve attended WordCamp events in the past, and they’ve been spectacular. The 2008 event however, exceeded all expectations I had.

WordPress Schwag

It started with a hasslefree flight to San Francisco Airport from LAX at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I had volunteered to assist while at WordCamp so why was internally a bit nervous about experiencing flight delays. Fortunately, my geek traveling buddy Curtis Cunningham and myself, made it to SFO airport early (thanks SWA), getting us to the convention center before the nine o’clock registration.

Unlike San Francisco WordCamp 2006 and 2007, this event was held at the Mission Bay Conference Center instead of the Swedish-American hall. In my experience, the conference center at UCSF was an excellent place to hold this event.

We hopped out of a cab in front of a welcoming WordCamp San Francisco placard. Of course we stopped to take photos in front of it, as did nearly every other person I saw getting out of taxis at our time of arrival.

We are in the right place -- WordCamp San Francisco 2008

Registration was a breeze and I really liked how the name tags included avatars (gravatars), blog URLs, and first names in bold letters. WordCamp staff and volunteers did an excellent job with those. Who has a photo of one?

I was in the second floor sessions all day didn’t get a chance to listen to any of the developer sessions that were held down stairs. If anyone has some good summaries of those, leave a comment and I’ll update this with some links.

Among presentations given upstairs were an SEO basic and best Wordpress practices presented by Stephen Spencer of Netconcepts. He gave some great tips regarding optimizing pages so they don’t squander crawl equity, talked about offering more than one RSS feed, and discussed the importance of properly formatted SEO title tags. Although I’m aware of the practice, I was reminded to no index and no follow link use going to my admin pages on WordPress sites.

Ben Huh of I Can Has Cheezburger did a funny presentation on how to Achieve Viral Virility. The summary of his presentation was don’t be a Dick. He graciously uploaded the PDF presentation for anyone that wants to view it.

Aaron Brazell had kicked off the morning with a presentation on Search and Findability which was brought across again later in the day by Tantek Çelik and his presentation on microformats. Each presentation on Saturday seemed to build on the last, inspiring me with new ideas and motivations for getting things done.

I saw lots of familiar faces from WordCamps and BarCamps past and got to be face-to-face with lots of people I had only known from twitter profiles. I was reminded that when at events like these you should make an effort to introduce yourself to the guys and gals sitting next to you, as you may have already been conversing with them online.

When Matt Mullenweg was giving his State of the WordPress talk the guy next to me was excitedly publishing a post regarding WordPress favorite plug-ins. It turned out to be Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club. Being that I just spoke two weeks previously at a Social Media Club Los Angeles (SMCLA) meetup (thanks to Mahalo.com for hosting the event) with Jackie Peters, Nicole Jordan, Brian Solis, and Robert Richman, I thought I’d introduce myself and say thanks for bringing SMC to LA.

Steven Zabronsky & Derik Anderson

Chiropractor turned SEO, Steven Zabronsky introduced himself when we were at the Genius Bar on the first floor. Turns out he and business partner Derik Anderson (also a chiropractor) operate a company called Rocket SEO.

Not only were the presentations above my expectations, at a really good time hanging out with Curtis, Patrick Sexton, Todd Malicoat, Stephen Spencer, and David Klein (another chiropractor).

When it comes to the food I ate, I could have used the Saturday session as a carb loading day preparing for a marathon. Caffeine, bagels, some kind of sweet sugary pastries, followed by more bagels, macaroni and cheese, tri tip beef and barbecued chicken, pizza & Anchor Steam beer, and lots and lots of hefeweizen at the Saturday night open bar.

Finding pizza was an adventure. Since I pay a monthly service fee I was determined to use the GPS on my Verizon LG Voyager. As a discovered, it works better when you are in an automobile or some kind of moving vehicle. We did locate some great pizza on Potrero Hill at a place called Goat Hill Pizza. Excellent pies and hot wings with ranch dressing. Having not paid attention and just following the GPS, we ended up walking a few miles in the opposite direction of the after party, which was at Pete’s Tavern on King Street. That was some good exercise walking back.

Since we were leaving Sunday and were going to be out late I figured we were better off booking a hotel near the San Francisco airport so we wouldn’t have to get up too early for transportation. The Marriott Hotel did us right (although it was a few miles further from the airport than I expected).

We were fairly wasted when leaving the bar Saturday night and I hailed a cab ride outside the pub. The cabbie decided the rate was meter and a half (neither Curtis or I have ever heard of such a thing) since we were technically traveling into San Mateo. While the meter at the end of the trip read $44 and change, the driver calculated the total in his head to be about 80 bucks. I put it on my AMEX and figured I to check into the legitimacy later. Too drunk to argue.

Two of the idea highlights I had from the weekend were thoughts on a new WordPress plug-in that involves conditional IP redirection. Some of the guys I was hanging out with inspired me to hammer out some of my ideas and experiences dealing with big Yellow Page type companies and how they are extorting millions of dollars from business owners all across North America. Lots of blog post ideas from that.

If you’ve stuck around this far, here is a link to my wordcamp 2008 flickr set.

BTW, think I’ll be blogging here more often, so I’ve got a start working on a theme that successfully  encompasses the different activities I’m engaged in.