Don’t Mess With the Talent
Jason Calacanis realized early that you don’t mess with the talent, you support it.
The king of the small little world we inhabit, Danny Sullivan, is an example of that. Earlier this year, SES, the show and accompanying web-site searchenginewatch was sold by Jupitermedia to Incisive Media to help Alan Meckler gain greater scale in the images division, where the proceeds of the sale were used to buy more companies.
From there Incisive Media basically killed their golden goose by not upping Danny’s deal. If they had been to the shows that attract thousands of people, they would know that the reason people show up is because of Danny. Not only that but every speaker and sponsor’s loyalty is to Danny.
Now Danny is launching a web-site, a series of webinars on search marketing and a search conference.
Let’s take a tally:
Nearly every writer who wrote for searchenginewatch, now writes for searchengineland too.
Chris Sherman, who is a fantastic person, and used to run the webinars, now runs Danny’s webinars and plays Robin to Danny’s Batman once more (unfair categorization if you know Chris but I couldn’t think of them separated).
Chris Elwell, who used to be a publisher and senior exec with Meckler, including to help start the SES shows, is now working with Danny on the business side.
Claire Shoen, who used to sell advertising on the webinars, now - you guessed it - sells Danny’s search webinars.
They haven’t announced the agenda for the conference in Seattle next year yet, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who might be speaking and sponsoring.
They are aiming the conference at attendees with more advanced levels of knowledge. That’s smart because that audience is most loyal to Danny. And smart to minimize the apparent pain to Incisive because so many first time people attend the search engine strategies shows, it probably means there will be a market for more beginner style content in the short term. But only temporarily.
I don’t imagine SES to die a quick death, but it will no doubt will wilt and die eventually. Don’t mess with the talent.
