ForumCon 2013

Carlos

Well-known member
Yes, I do realize there's a thread by Brad. But this is my thread, where I talk about my experience at ForumCon 2013. Last year, I made a thread at Admin Talk about ForumCon 2012 and have been met to popularity. Due to some personal problems with AT, I decided to take my ForumCon 2013 thread here.

I could post it at AdminForums (ya know, the one @ShadyX owns?), but I'm going to post it on the largest stage of them all: xenForo.com's official forums. :D

This year, I woke up bright and early. I went, and was surprised that ForumCon isn't in the same place within' the hotel [Kabuki]. In fact, it goes downstairs. Puzzled, looking around, and trying to figure out what the #^@& is going on. Lo, and behold:

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As you can see, ForumCon now takes place in a larger room. Likewise, it's being attended by a few hundreds people more than last year. :cool:

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More, and more breathing room for the panel folks.. On the other side of the ForumCon 2013 room (which is called the Spring Room)...

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ForumCon's 2013 Twitter feed was improved over last year...

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Here's last year for reference...

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This year's ForumCon panels were a little better than last year, everything is easy to follow, easy to understand, and likewise - the event organizers (VigLink) made it a point to have better speaker equipment. Better lighting, so everyone could see a lot of the slides - with the exception with a few that was [a little] hard to read.

We were provided with charge stations, we were provided with free glass cups (for anything to drink), free water (and it's freakin' cold too! :D), and of course, free lunch. You want coffee? Go here!

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And like last year, Internet Brands was there.

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It's actually a pitch for vBulletin, proBoards, Vanilla Forums. The funny part is, Internet Brands doesn't even realize their direct competitors are sitting right next to them! Worse yet: Internet Brands takes xenForo like a joke. I asked John (the general manager at IB) "How do you think vBulletin can compete with xenForo?" He laughed it off, and then answered it.

What's even more glaring is that IB didn't even have a booth there. proBoards was killling it there:

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This photo does not do the booth justice.. This was the most visited booth at ForumCon. Period. In fact, that area was so packed, that it blocked the entryway to... the restroom - which is on the left side of that image. Very good product placement by proBoards. No, they're not done.... At the drinks recpetion...

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I dunno about you, but as a marketer, I thought this was genius.

The lunch and drinks receptions were networking opportunities, but literally half of ForumCon 2013 are people I don't even #^@&ing know! People complained about last year, where "It's the same $h!^ as the first one!" It's like the dynamic changed at ForumCon 2013...

Here's lunch...

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Here's drinks reception...

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Here's when you come downstairs...

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Here's ForumCon's booklet and Panjo squishy swag...

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Literally every single person took one home, it was that popular. :eek:

Annnnd that ends my ForumCon 2013 thread! :D

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To see more images from ForumCon, check out my Flickr photostream.

See you next year! :)

I have an article to share pretty soon - it's being prepared and awaiting posting on ForumCon.com

I also took a picture with the C.E.O of VigLink, courtesy of Murray Newlands. I am awaiting his posting.
 
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It's actually a pitch for vBulletin, proBoards, Vanilla Forums. The funny part is, Internet Brands doesn't even realize their direct competitors are sitting right next to them! Worse yet: Internet Brands takes xenForo like a joke. I asked John (the general manager at IB) "How do you think vBulletin can compete with xenForo?" He laughed it off, and then answered it.
What was the answer he gave?
 
1 boring screen in the middle of the room running power point? They would be wise to invest in making it a little more interesting. This is stuff we were doing 5 years ago... Looks to be a similar sized room.

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1. Did they have booth babes?

2. What have you learned from Forum Con?

3. Are you domain squatting because there is no one online on any of your forums?

4. Just by throwing ads up on non-active sites, how much does that make?

5. Will you upgrade your forums to Xenforo 1.2 Beta?
 
I also took a picture with the C.E.O of VigLink, courtesy of Murray Newlands. I am awaiting his posting.
FC2013.webp

1. Did they have booth babes?
No. But there are some cuties at ForumCon 2013. ;)
2. What have you learned from Forum Con?
A lot.
3. Are you domain squatting because there is no one online on any of your forums?
Topic not covered.
4. Just by throwing ads up on non-active sites, how much does that make?
Not covered at ForumCon 2013. But I can tell you that you can monetize your community through a lot of avenues. In fact, the more commercialized your forum seems, the better off you'll be. Now, that was covered at ForumCon 2013.
5. Will you upgrade your forums to Xenforo 1.2 Beta?
No. Not recommended, anyway.
 
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It is a good thing "ForumCon" has nothing to do with communications because so far it seems hard to get a straight answer on what information exactly was presented other than vague descriptions. :cautious:

This was posted on TheAdminZone by dethfire:

Forum Monetization was very disorganized and the moderator was terrible. Nothing really interesting was said.

Building your Community. From SEO to Social was not put together very well. Not sure what the point was and included very little SEO.

The Importance of IRL - Connecting your community "In Real Life" was interesting and really motivated me to start thinking of holding meet ups whether in real life or just google hang outs.

Forum Technology: Past, Present, and Future I heard this was not interesting. Disappointing because obviously the future is a huge unknown and we'd like some ideas, but overall I heard it was all shallow talk

How to make social work for your forum was very good. Lots of great tips and insights into making social media platforms work for your community.

Hooked Model. Harnessing the Power of Habit was really fascinating. The speaker was a professor from Stanford and he was an absolute pro. Lots of marketing and psychology talk.

Industry Insights was mostly a bore. There didn't seem to be a point to the discussion. Mostly haphazard, but some good stuff.

Keynote Address Wow, this dude is for real. One of the best talks. He basically told the state of the forum world as it is, so refreshing. Talked about problems with forums and possible solutions. How we need to think of better ways of displaying and doing things. Overall really impressed with this man. Good speaker too. Going to keep my eye on his discourse platform.
 
1 boring screen in the middle of the room running power point? They would be wise to invest in making it a little more interesting. This is stuff we were doing 5 years ago... Looks to be a similar sized room.

827sales_conf_2008.jpg
Actually, there was two screens at ForumCon 2013. Look at my photos again; they were from two different perspectives.

In fact, there are more photos from ForumCon 2013 here.

Here's the wide view of the Spring Room:
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His response at 36:00 explains it perfectly, "he's on the business side" and exactly that he seems clueless when it comes to the actual product.
 
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