Joe Morin finally admitted what has been painfully clear to me for the last two years - Search Engine Strategies is no longer any fun in Yes, I just resigned as SES Official Party Coordinator.  Here's parts of his post and then I'll weigh in on it (sorta already have..):

"…..perhaps we are maturing as an industry, maybe it just isn't as new anymore and new client acquisition and branding isn't the goal of the engines and vendors and now its managing their brand and working with the audience that they have built. Years past have had a sparring between Google and Yahoo when Google had their GoogleDance and Yahoo rented out Great America Amusement park trying to compete for best conference party. Ask Jeeves retired their butler in style during SES NYC 2006's Code Red party and the revelers drank the bar dry sending the bartenders out to stores to replenish. Industry veterans will remember the Overture bashes and the dull Yahoo parties and how the Yahoo parties suddenly got better after the Overture acquisition. Coincidence? I think not. Remember the GoToast 'After Over' parties? I think those of us San Jose veterans will always remember The Flying Pig and how we drove those poor bartenders crazy."

Joe Morin was handling Webmasterworld also, and I noticed a change between the 2005 Pubcon in Las Vegas - which was a lot of fun, and the pretty boring and exclusive Pubcon in Boston in the spring of 2006.   All of a sudden, people who attended PubCon or SES were not invited to most of the good parties ….. you had to be "invited" and part of a "Who's Who" list.

Also, I noticed that the presentations at SES and Webmasterworld were pretty similar, often with the same speakers giving almost identical presentations.  If it weren't that I get press passes to these events, I'd stop going - and in Webmasterworld's case, I have already stopped …. there's too many conferences and the only people who go to them regularly are the speakers - and those they're trying to woo.  

I'm not saying SES or Pubcon is a waste of money … they're not …. but after a couple of them you have to choose what you want to spend your time and energy on.   Joe Morin goes on to say:

"…..Nowadays it seems to be all private parties as the engines and vendors try and trim their budgets, also the conference grew in size to a point where no one wants to foot the bill for a conference now numbering in the thousands of attendees. Perhaps it's the end of an era, but after compiling this years list and waiting forever for any word whatsoever to compile an even somewhat decent party schedule and getting 'we're only having a private party this show' or 'we aren't doing anything for this show' time and time again plus given that unfortunately PubCon Las Vegas 2007 and SES Chicago 2007 happen to fall during the same week (where I happen to be one of the conference organizers), I now have a good opportunity to relinquish my role as party coordinator and pass the torch on to someone else. I'm not sure who will take over my position or if there will be enough event activity to warrant an 'official person' but I wish them well and I cherish the time that I have spent in this role."

It is the end of an era …. but in more ways that one.  Why isn't SES fun anymore?  Because it's become part of the establishment - just another advertising conference …. it used to be a bunch of cool people that were doing something new and interesting ….. but now it's just business.

I found the Virtual World Community much more interesting and creative right now - and interestingly enough, pretty much everyone I spoke to at SES in New York earlier this year dismissed Second Life and other 3D Virtual Worlds…..almost as if it were a reflex action (a defense, because the people who are at SES, who are SES…are no longer cool, they've become another bunch of suits).

But I want to qualify that statement about "suits": as any group or movement becomes established, it changes.  The problem for me is not that SES has become for "business as usual" but that they've become more exclusive, more "inner circle" and "outer circle"; as they've gotten bigger perhaps some of that is unavoidable - but these conferences are getting pretty expensive and the main reason to go to them, honestly, is to connect with people - but making the parties and social opportunities more and more exclusive, the opportunities to connect in a meaningful way are diminishing for attendees.

To me, that's not a good situation. Also, as the same people are traveling to most every conference …. they're getting boring .. they're not reaching down and trying to come up with new stuff…why should they?  Besides, most of the speakers are too exhausted from all the travel and business they do to reinvent themselves that much.

I think, that's why you have to mix things up a little - or it gets stale and that's what I think has happened to some of these conferences.

Generally speaking, the conferences to go to are the one's that are fun and intersting - and offer you the most chance to connect with leaders in the industry - via Social Situations ….. if that goes away, as it has been - the whole purpose of going to them…..well…it's just not fun anymore ..that's my point.

And, as Joe says, Search Engines don't want to spend money on Parties anymore … let's face it …. the Party is over….it's been over for a while now and it's great that Joe Morin, who I have met a several times, finally admitted it.

Sure, I'm spinning it my own way .. but I don't have to spin it much …because what he's said is pretty much not far off from what I've been saying for a while now in posts like Search Marketers and Second Life don't seem to mix.  True, I got to go to one of the exclusive SES parties, but only because my friend, Mike Moran, invited me to one that he was invited to, and it wasn't given by a Search Engine, but by a few companies that were exhibiting at SES (Yesterday's exclusive SES Party Photos and Search Engine Strategies Party Time - and you could see that most of the parties on the list of the latter post that were private, there really was no way to be invited to unless you know the right people).

So, I'm glad that Joe Morin, more or less, said what I've known to be true, more or less for a while, that Search Engine Strategies no longer any fun (and even if he did not use those words, reading his post sorta says pretty much the same thing I'm saying).

In fact, Xchange is looking a whole lot better than anything I've been hearing out of SES for while and the Emetrics Summit, which is getting bigger and bigger, still is a much more fun, hip conference than SES and probably is much better for actual learning than Webmasterworld - but that's just my opinion.