Highlights from Blogs with Balls

As I mentioned in my last post, I attended the “Blogs With Balls”sports bloggers conference on Saturday.  I have to say the event was a great success.  The discussion panels were excellent and covered a wide range of topics, including how to leverage social media, generating advertising revenue, contrasting mainstream media vs. “new” media and much more.  There were panelists from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, YardBarker, SB Nation, Bleacher Report, Octagon and too many quality sports blogs to list.

Many people were “live tweeting” the event, including myself.  Here are some of my favorite comments and thoughts from the event, all collected via search.twitter.com:

• AnnaLindow “Content is king, marketing is the queen” -from@garyvee at #blogswithballs
• mikehall03: Perhaps the takeaway of #blogswithballs is that any blog written with a clear purpose can be successful within constraints. Is thàt enough?
• rscibetti: From @bankoff There is a demand for quality. Sometimes there is a need to moderate the conversation. #blogswithballs
• joshuaduboff: YardBarker CEO: online advertising revenue for sports blogs will be up a few % despite economy #blogswithballs
• BlueWorkhorse: “best way to luck into something is to work really hard” – matt ufford from with leather #blogswithballs
• StephBags: You need to use google analytics on your blog so you know where your readers are going/why they leave: @joesportsfan #blogswithballs
• CompanyWoman: Wow. Daily twitter circulation of @The_Real_Shaq (1.2MM+) surpasses the NY Times. #blogswithballs

Here are links to some other articles and blog posts that wrote about the event.

• http://www.lacrosseallstars.com/blog/2009/6/14/we-just-got-struck-by-blogs-with-balls.html
• http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/pretzel/Maybe_we_arent_all_going_to_die.html
• http://www.thejetsblog.com/2009/06/14/my-blogswithballs-report/
• http://jeffpearlman.com/?p=1853
• http://gogameface.com/blog_detail.php?postid=291
• http://thedugoutsportsshow.com/?p=244 (Podcast recorded live during the event)

Thanks again to everyone from HHRMediaGroup who created Blogs With Balls. I can’t wait for the next one, and I encourage anyone else who is interested in learning more about blogs and social media to attend.