UPDATE: The blogging programme is now full, so we are no longer accepting new applications.

Alongside Stephanie Booth and Nicole Simon, I’m organising the Web 2.0 Expo Europe blogger outreach programme which we’ve snappily titled “Blogging Web 2.0 Expo Europe”. The idea is to gather together a community of enthusiastic bloggers who are interested in writing about the event and spurring their readers/colleagues/friends to sign up. In return, they’ll get a complimentary pass to the conference worth, well frankly, lots of dosh!

You probably already know about Web 2.0 Expo. It’s aimed at web designers and developers, product managers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketers, and business strategists who are embracing the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies. It takes place in Berlin, on 21 – 23 October 2008, and keynote speakers include John Lilly (Mozilla), Martin Varsavsky (FON), and Tariq Krim (NetVibes).

The way the blogging programme will work is that we’ll ask participants to do these few things between now and 6th October:

• publish at least 4 Web 2.0 Expo-related blog posts, podcast episodes or videocasts, e.g. announcement of the event, speaker information, speaker interviews, or any other event-related stuff
• encourage readers, friends, and/or community to register for the event
• display the Web 2.0 Expo logo on their blog, with a link to the registration page, until the day of the conference

We think that’s pretty easy, but to help you along, we’ll provide participating bloggers with:

• event badges
• a discount code to share with readers, colleagues and friends
• access to information about the event suitable for re-blogging, such as announcements and speaker information/interviews (when possible)

In return, bloggers will get a full conference pass to either use themselves or give away to readers.

But that’s not all… The five bloggers who have done the best job of promoting the conference, measured both by effort and referrals, will be upgraded to a Premier Blogger Pass with full conference access, e.g. to the press room, to speakers for live interviews and other goodies we are in the process of putting together. We will announce the winners of the Premier Blogger Passes and confirm Complementary Passes on 7th October.

But wait! Even that’s not all! As participants’ discount code will be unique to them, we’ll be able to tell how many people they’ve referred to us, and there will be something special for the person who has referred the most attendees, counted right up until the moment registration closes.

What type of bloggers are we looking for? We want to spread our net wide, so we will welcome blogs, whether monolingual or bilingual, in any of the major European languages. (Indeed, we’ll be trying to ensure there aren’t too many English-only writers!) Size doesn’t matter – whether you’re the biggest Czech tech blogger there is or have a small but enthusiastic audience who you think will be just chomping at the bit to get hold of a discount, get in touch. We’re after passion, enthusiasm, and persuasiveness: It’s your ability to persuade people to sign up that counts!

We’ve a limited number of places on the programme, so act now, and we’ll let you know as soon as we can whether you’ve secured a spot.

We’re aiming to kick things off properly next Tuesday 9th September, so please do email me right away if you’re interested.

One thing to note is that not only might things change as the programme develops, but they may change in direct response to your feedback. We’d like to know what you think about this outreach programme, so do leave a comment and give us your thoughts.

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