Yep, it’s true. New Media Expo and BlogWorld will be the same event in 2009!

When we held the first Portable Media Expo in 2005, I knew nearly everyone at the event by first name, or at least by the name of their podcast! It was exciting to walk down the hallway of the convention center and catch bits and pieces of the conversations. I heard, “I’ve been listening to your show for months – it’s great to finally meet you!” over and over again. As podcasting grew, it became obvious that most podcasters had not only their show, but a blog, a twitter account, a Flickr account, a YouTube channel, a Facebook account, and more. Podcasting was another way people were communicating with their networks and we could see that an event that focused just on podcasting was missing parts of the picture. We added other types of online multimedia to the conference and the scope of the Expo continued to grow.

Rick, Dave and Libby then started BlogWorld because a national event for bloggers was missing and they did a tremendous job of bringing together all aspects of the blogosphere. I’ve known Rick for several years now – we met a few years before he started BlogWorld because we were both in the tradeshow business and met at industry events. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Rick and his colleagues at BlogWorld and as I thought about it more, I realized the two events really did need to come together as one. Rick and I had been talking about doing something together for a while.

Ultimately, I’m an entrepreneur. I love starting events and websites and seeing where I can take them. But I also know when it’s time to let someone else take that vision and run with it. Taking the New Media Expo to the next stage is something I know Rick and his team at BlogWorld can do well. Handing over the reigns of the New Media Expo to the passionate and capable team at BlogWorld is going to allow me even more time to develop several podcasting sites I’ve been working on for a while.

This is going to be a great move for both attendees and exhibitors. A single event that covers blogging, podcasting and all other forms of new media is truly needed for everyone to create better content and provides a huge networking event for everyone involved in this space.

I thank all of the podcasters, bloggers and online video creators that have supported the Expo and the Podcast Brothers over the years. I’m excited to see where it all goes from here – it’s an exciting time to be in new media – and I’ll see you at BlogWorld and New Media Expo next year!

We’ll have more information on a Podcast Brothers show coming up tomorrow.