Graphing Social Patterns Day 2 Recap – I Won a Wad of Cash!

Today was day 2 of Graphing Social Patterns East. I attended a majority of the sessions, moderated a panel and also met more awesome CN readers. I think Dave McClure did a great job in leading the overall conference. He was approachable all day, greeted many of the conference attendees and kept things moving basically on-time. One of the techniques Dave used was to play funny and viral videos between each session. Since the sessions were all in the same room, it was a great break between the sessions and lightened the mood quite a bit, especially with the miserable heat outside!

The one thing the conference seems to be missing is buzz, excitement and chatter. The media/press room was basically empty except for Adam Ostrow of Mashable. Maybe it’s the fact that all the sessions are in the same room but the conversations and typical high energy just seem to be missing here (maybe it’s the heat). It seems more like a training session atmosphere. Nothing like the photos and videos from the GSP on the West coast.

Kent Schoen – Facebook

Kent was supposed to lead a discussion about "Facebook Business and Marketing Solutions" but to me it felt more like, "Facebook Stats Showoff." Kent noted that Facebook ads will always be unique and social in nature. Basically he explained that the benefit of buying ads on Facebook is that your ads will be seen by your friends and they can then interact with the ad and spread it to their friends, etc.

Here are some of the stats and updates he shared:

• Four times the invites sent on eVite are sent on Facebook monthly (16m vs 66m)
• Over 150,000 pages have been created and 85,000,000 fans have signed up to the available pages.

Hooman Radfar – Clearspring CEO

Hooman spoke about widgets in general during his discussion. I liked his definition of a "social application" = "widget plus a canvas plus the ability to push socially and virally." One thing he said that I agree with is that analytics and tracking is the key for a successful social campaign. I see way too many companies investing in social media without any measurement. It’s like throwing money down the drain.

Hooman closed by speaking about cross-promotion of widgets and social applications and how it’s one of the keys for success. He explained that Slide and RockYou can launch a new widget or social app and receive immediate users because they can cross promote it into the apps that are already in use.

Evening Party

Tonight’s party was put on by the SocialTimes and SocialCash. Josh at ReadWriteWeb has some info on Social Cash today. The party was held at a very upscale sushi club (wtf?) and the crowd was hopping. The place was jam-packed and the conversation was good. I finally got to meet Chris Saad of the DataPortability project and Sean Ammirati of ReadWriteTalk and mSpoke.

As I was leaving, the folks at SocialCash handed me a bag – which looks similar to a "loot" bag I remember getting as a kid. Inside the bag was a t-shirt (who wants it, email me!), a credit card which apparently is used to cash out the rewards you earn on SocialCash. Also in the bag was $1 dollar bills – 100 of them!!! Damn. I am waiting for confirmation from SocialCash but I may have been given the "winning" bag with all of the loot inside. Somehow I am thinking each of the 100 bags were supposed to contain a $1 bill. I will update this post once I receive confirmation. Check out the photo below for confirmation.

See everyone tomorrow – don’t be a stranger – say hi and grab a CN sticker!