I’ll be out there for Blog World Expo, my second such trip. Last year was so great that I decided I had to go back again this year. One of the highlights of last years trip, for me, was solidifying a solid friendship with Read Write Web Content King, Marshall Kirkpatrick and Wendy Piersall of Sparkplugging.com.

This year, I’m expecting to reunite with friends from b5media and other places, but I definitely am blocking off lots of time to have dinners, coffee or beer with other folks.

You might have the chance to grab me for a minute or two on the floor, but why do that? Shoot me an email and let’s see if we can sit down and talk business, life or other gossip.

It’s Vegas, baby. As long as you don’t try to suck me into being the best man at your Vegas wedding (as also happened last year), we’ll be fine. :)

What a fantastic week in Vegas last week. People have asked me what my feelings were on it and I keep summing things up in one way: It was the only single time when all of the blogoshpere came together at one time, in one place and enjoyed it.

There are well over 2000 photos on Flickr right now tagged blogworld or blogworldexpo. Most of them display geeks ability to party and of course, it was Vegas – partying was expected.

But more so were the people I met. When I first started in blogging, the Instapundit Glenn Reynolds was sort of my idol. Not so much these days as I avoid politics like the plague, but it was awesome to meet him and share a brief few minutes talking about blogging.

Photo by Brian Solis

Also very cool was the chance to connect with Wendy Piersall. I am apparently now her BFF. :-)

A drunken evening was spent at the bar with Marshall Kirkpatrick – what a guy! And I can’t forget about old friends Jim Turner and Tris Hussey and new friends Jeremy Pepper, Brian Solis and MyBlogLog‘s Robyn Tippins – love that girl!

Of course, there’s hundreds of people I could list… like Rick Klau who I’ve finally had the pleasure of meeting… but this entry would be too long.

Photo by Stephanie Agresta

Again, the value of this, like many conferences, was in the hallways. Better conversations. More productivity. B2B opportunities. It was also really productive to have the political bloggers in the same room with tech and business bloggers in the same room with social media networks in the same room as military bloggers, advertisers, service providers, etc. It’s hard to get everyone in the same room, but it happened in Vegas.

b5media’s own WordPress ninjas Brian Layman and Mark Jaquith will talk about using WordPress to its fullest. Leora Zellman and Mary Jo Manzanares, two of our Channel Editors, will be dishing out survival tips for network bloggers. I’ll give the CE that mentions my name first on the panel $50 in cash. ;-)

Of course, there’s also Alex Hillman from Philadelphia’s Independent’s Hall (whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Podcamp Philly) and Jake McKee from Community Guy who will bring their experience to Creating Conversations. Finally, there’s a private session for b5′ers who want to join us at the end.

I’m really looking forward to BWE, and not because I’m flying Virgin America. This is going to be a fantastic chance to catch up with folks that I haven’t seen in awhile and meet folks I’ve yet had the chance to meet. Plus it’s Vegas and is by nature unbloggable. ;-) Kidding!

If you’re a full conference badge holder, you get access to this bonus day for free. You can also opt in and if you want to get into a session but can’t for some reason, just drop me an email and I’ll see what I can do.