Web Programs
Thursday, July 15
3 pm
to
3:45 pm
4 pm
to
5 pm
4:30 pm
to
5:30 pm
Town Hall Meeting: Admittance of online pubs
Admittance of online publications to AAN would require a bylaws change. Members will have a chance to weigh-in on this potential move at this moderated town hall meeting.
Moderator:
Tim Redmond, San Francisco Bay Guardian
Friday, July 16
9 am
to
10 am
Seizing Opportunity in a Time of Chaos and Change: Some Inspiration from the Front Lines of Independent Journalism
From Guatemala to Indonesia and Russia to Zimbabwe, Media Development Loan Fund serves independent news outlets that have managed to survive and prosper in countries facing wrenching political and economic transitions, while making critical contributions to the advancement of democratic development there. Harlan Mandel, MDLF's deputy managing director, will share the stories of some of these heroes of journalism and how they seized opportunities during times of chaos and change to build successful news businesses. Perhaps these stories can offer some hope and inspiration for all independent news publishers as they navigate this challenging time of dramatic change for the whole news industry.
Speaker:
Harlan Mandel, Media Development Loan Fund
10:15 am
to
11:15 am
Local Online and Mobile Ad Spending and Trending
You probably know how much online advertising revenue you're making with your Web site, but do you know whether you're doing better or worse than everybody else in online sales? Borrell Associates has agreed to conduct a benchmarking report for newsweeklies' online revenues and will outline the results in this session. Learn where your paper stacks up against other AAN members.
Speaker:
Andrew Martin, Borrell Associates
SEO: Past, Present and Future
We all know that search engines can drive a lot of traffic, and SEO (search engine optimization) is important for any publisher to get at least your fair share of search engine traffic. However, there are a lot of changes in how search engines work, and more changes are coming as search engines incorporate more data based on location, real time information and social media and the social graph. Join Mike Volpe, VP of Marketing at HubSpot to learn how to adapt and optimize your website in order to remain competitive in the future, including:
• Why page rank and search rankings are not relevant measures of SEO success,
• The impact of social media on search rankings in the future,
• How real time search and local search is affecting SEO, and
• What to do now to prepare for the future.
• Why page rank and search rankings are not relevant measures of SEO success,
• The impact of social media on search rankings in the future,
• How real time search and local search is affecting SEO, and
• What to do now to prepare for the future.
Speaker:
Mike Volpe, HubSpot
Telling Stories Across Platforms
With the Web -- and now mobile -- there are so many different ways to tell stories. How do you choose the right platform for the story? How do you choose what parts in which ways? This session will help you sort through the story forms and learn to make good choices.
Speaker:
Regina McCombs, Poynter Institute
11:30 am
to
12:30 pm
Journalism and Location-Based Services: Making sense of place
In 2010 journalism is increasingly about location, location, location. News organizations and independent media producers are using location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla to add contextual layers to stories, break news, act as community guides, and engage readers. Learn how this smartphone-based technology is helping us reimagine the news in our communities.
Speaker:
Jeremy Littau, Lehigh University
3:15 pm
to
4:15 pm
SMO -- Social Media Optimization
Simon Owens, social media consultant, online journalist and founder of Bloggasm, will provide demonstrations on how he pitches bloggers, social media users, and online journalists to secure hits for articles and stories. In addition to showing the different measures for gauging reader engagement and how to retain more long-term readers, he will discuss the impact of online social news communities like Digg and Reddit and how to solicit help from those communities to drive traffic. Most importantly, Simon will stress the importance of journalists maintaining their own personal online "brands" that exist outside the publications for which they work. He will also present the results of a social media survey sent out to AAN member papers.
Speaker:
Simon Owens, Bloggasm
4:30 pm
to
5:30 pm
Renaissance or Ruin? Finding Your Way to Opportunity After the Fall
Patricia Martin, expert on commerce and culture, and author of the book, "RenGen: Renaissance Generation," reveals what to expect from the coming cycle of re-birth. Known for using culture as a medium to reach communities of consumers, Martin takes you on a journey to the heart of the social movements forming the next wave of prosperity. Having worked with some of world's most respected brands including Dannon, Discovery Channel, Microsoft and Target, Martin delivers:
• Competitive insight -- Discover how independent news and information fit into the next cycle of cultural change.
• Innovative ideas -- Get insight from the rarely revealed social experiments of Google, Red Bull, Ford Motor and others to engage your audience in new ways.
• Strategic thinking -- Create emotional bonds with your community that translate back to your advertisers.
• Competitive insight -- Discover how independent news and information fit into the next cycle of cultural change.
• Innovative ideas -- Get insight from the rarely revealed social experiments of Google, Red Bull, Ford Motor and others to engage your audience in new ways.
• Strategic thinking -- Create emotional bonds with your community that translate back to your advertisers.
Speaker:
Patricia Martin, LitLamp Communications
Saturday, July 17
9 am
to
10 am
iPad: New Opportunities for Content Creators
iPad: It ain't gonna save us...but our papers look great on it, and we can make some money off it! With the launch of the iPad, Apple is creating a third category of mobile devices positioned between smartphones and laptop computers. The bad news is, it's not going to save newspapers by itself. The good news is, our content--and our ads--look fantastic on it. There is money to be made and there's an opportunity for AAN papers to create digital versions of their products with innovative features, such as gps targeted ads and listings, to make the digital paper reading experience profitable and enjoyable to the reader. Hear from both outside experts and AAN papers that are investigating iPad development and business opportunities.
Panelist:
Raven Zachary, Small Society
10:15 am
to
11:15 am
Everybody is a Correspondent: So Now What?
Those people formerly known as the audience are consuming plenty of media, but a lot of it is generated by their pals, crowd-created on Twitter and Facebook, or by some guy in Lawrence, Kansas, whose cat plays a pretty mean piano. How can professionally generated content -- give or take, this is AAN we're talking about -- compete and rise above the clutter? We'll talk about friending social media in a new informational ecosystem.
Speaker:
David Carr, The New York Times
Mobile Application Development -- Bringing Home the Bacon!
There is a sea-change occurring in the way people are interacting with the internet. More and more, consumers are using mobile devices as their connection to content. The choices facing content providers are as important as they are confusing. What platforms are out there? What devices? Where should I spend my development dollars? And most importantly, How do we make money with this?! This session will explain the current state of mobile use and explore the choices that are out there for AAN papers to move content onto these remarkable devices. We will talk about some of the models for income generation in the mobile world. There is a tremendous opportunity to reach an incredibly large and diverse audience with both content and advertisements. From iDevices to Androids, we will cover what you need to know to make the right choices for mobile development.
Speaker:
Brian Gentry, Chilly Primitive, LLC
3:45 pm
to
4:45 pm
AAN Convention Fishbowl
Convention what? No, there's no water or goldfish or tiny castles involved, just the unleashed creativity and knowledge of convention attendees. Various forms of "unconference" sessions have become de rigueur at conferences of late, and for good reason: attendees have a lot to offer and interaction enhances learning. Although AAN has a tradition of offering "unconference-type" programming, we'll take it a step further with the fishbowl. Or fishbowls. Attendees will have a chance to submit discussion topics on Thursday and Friday. A facilitator will review the ideas in advance and assist attendees in forming groups and determining the exact style of the fishbowl. There may be one, there may be several. There may be flipcharts, there may not. It may run longer than 4:45 pm. It's up to you! What better way to wrap up the 2010 Convention
Moderator:
Susan Percy, MacGrercy Consultants
Please note: Programming and schedule subject to change.



Tim Redmond is executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and AAN first amendment chair.
Harlan Mandel is deputy managing director of
Andrew Martin is a senior associate with
Mike Volpe is vice president of inbound marketing at
Regina McCombs is a faculty member of the
Jeremy Littau has almost 10 years of experience in journalism after working at newspapers of different sizes, specializing in editing and writing both in print and online. He got his start at the Daily Democrat in Woodland, Calif., and did the typical "move up the ladder" part of his career, landing at the Los Angeles Daily News in 2000. He spent four years at the Daily News before returning to school at Missouri. He earned his M.A. in journalism from Missouri in 2007 and his PhD in journalism from Missouri in 2009. Jeremy has extensive experience researching new media trends in journalism and is the author of several publications on the subject, specializing in multiplatform storytelling that makes use of audience conversation in the news process.
Simon Owens is a 26-year-old social media consultant and online journalist. Over the years, Simon has secured hundreds of placements on top blogs and social news sites for clients. He has conducted digital PR for both major and small brands and has driven millions of page views for clients, getting them on the front pages of Technorati Top 100 blogs and major social news sites like Digg and Reddit. Simon has been interviewed by reporters from numerous newspapers, television and radio programs about his expertise in new media. His blog,
Patricia Martin is an author and noted expert on commerce and culture. She is CEO and founder of
Raven Zachary is president of
David Carr writes the Media Equation column for the Monday
Brian Gentry has been working in the fields of software architecture and application development for 15 years. He has led development efforts to push computing to mobile handsets for clients in the transportation, insurance, financial, and medical industries, integrating legacy systems with modern mobile hardware. He currently is the president of
Susan Percy is the founder of Toronto-based













