I want to thank Shawn Collins and Missy Ward for the press pass they graciously provided Gartner Web Development. I got a chance to meet with Shawn Collins by the bloghaus and a nicer guy could not be found. I didn’t get a chance to personally thank Missy or talk to her- she was too busy being a gracious and ever present hostess welcoming all attenders everywhere I saw her. A big warm Wisconsin thank you to you both- you are a credit to the Affiliate industry.

You won’t be hearing a discussion or recap about Jason Calacanis’ controversial keynote here- it’s being played out in the press enough. He obviously enjoys the publicity he receives from talking down to the hard working people who pay him to speak at their conventions.

Rather- I want to recap the highlights of Affiliate Summit while they are fresh in my mind. First and foremost I met my friend and colleague, fellow marketing blogger Chris Bloczynski for the first time at Affiliate Summit. Chris is the hottest new internet marketing blogger and a must read for webmasters and bloggers. On Chris Bloczynski dot com you will find advice on entrepreneurship and internet marketing. You can check out my Thursday column on Chris Bloczynski dot com as I can be found guest blogging there with my personal take on the ins and outs of internet marketing.

I want to thank James Traynor, Director of Operations of Syntryx Executive Solutions for meeting with me. Stop back at Gartner Web Dev for more information about Syntryx in the near future as I will be getting an in depth look at their amazing services. Syntryx provides high-end serious market research tools to the big players in the internet world. If you are looking for real data that will help you zoom in and target your big game competitors- Syntryx is THE company to equip you with the data and research you will need to get ahead.

I also had a chance to talk with Mike Blumenkrantz of Affiliate Program Advice. Mike is the US Operations Manager of Affiliate Program Advice a company based out of the UK. For those of you not familiar with Affiliate Marketing I want to direct you to their page “What is Affiliate Marketing.” I actually found this to be the best working definition of Affiliate Marketing. In fact I printed off this page to bring to a marketing client I met with on Saturday afternoon.

Besides meeting so many brilliant marketers, astounding companies, and publishers- the sessions were incredibly enlightening. I have already come back and met with some of my clientèle about adopting the strategies I learned from Affiliate Summit. In particular, I found the session on Video Innovation in Affiliate Marketing eye-opening. Tim Carter of Ask the Builder and Gary Vanerchuk of Wine Library TV really impressed me with their knowledge and valuable insights. Upon returning I visited both of their websites and felt that clearly they were both experts on video content on the internet. After returning from Affiliate Summit I truly believe as stated at the conference- “websites without video will go the way of the dinosaur.”

I am going to wrap up my thank you at this point, be sure to stop in later this week and you’ll will find out more about the valuable internet marketing strategies and tools I learned at Affiliate Summit.