Top Bloggers Blow Off Blog World Expo
There is a bit of flack flying around after Blog World Expo, with a couple of very notables not attending.
Apparently there was an advertised session titled The Cult of Blogging which was to be presented by Leo LaPorte, and ‘A’ listers Om Malik & Michael Arrington from TechCrunch. This session was running a little late in starting, as Leo had run over time in his keynote. When Leo made it to the stage he made the following announcement:
“This was supposed to be a session with A-Listers talking about the cult of blogging. Om Malik has hurt his back and won’t be able to join me.â€
“Michael Arrington forgot to come.â€
So Om has a bad back, fair enough I guess, but Mike having forgot, that doesn’t really wash.
For Mike’s part, he totally denies that he ever agreed to attend and says that the fallout will prevent him from speaking at conferences again, except for one or two for friends next year. He also does not appear to be real impressed with Leo for saying that he forgot, or blognation for posting their story. For Leo’s part, if he was up for the session and at the last minute was told that Mike would not be attending for an unknown reason, and that he would have to hold the can, you can imagine that he would be a little pissed about the whole thing.
The conference founders are still claiming that Mike agreed to come, so it is a little difficult to really form a judgement unless we actually see the communication between the parties and I can’t see that happening too soon.
You can read more at blognation and eMoms.
Update: Andy Beard has a good post on the whole saga. He mentions some aspects of Michael’s denials which do not quite jell, such as the excuse that he hadn’t noticed all the publicity surrounding his attendance. I must admit, I had my tongue planted firmly in my cheek when I read that. And the reasons for it all? I think Andy is pretty correct in his interpretation. Lots of links and free publicity, both before the event and after the non-appearance.
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