First, when you are building a web business, there are really three components you need to get right: your design, development and your management (of things like sales and marketing). This year, Toronto will be welcoming some of the finest minds who have ever built web apps – you may not have heard of them all, but take it from me, you don’t want to miss out on what they have to say.

Building a dev team? Who better to learn from than the Chief Architect who took Digg from nothing to something Joe Stump, and only recently struck out on this own.

What about low cost marketing to acquire users? Ever heard of services such as Box.net, Xobni, or logmein? Their services are all know for touch-less sales cycles – many using freemium products – and they are among the most successful products that aren’t G, Y!, FB, T. And I’ll bet you didn’t know this – one man had his hand in making all these products viral by helping to design their registration process: Sean Ellis. Don’t miss your chance to learn from Sean.

Geez – while we’re on the topic of sales, let me tell you about one of my favourite entrepreneurs – hugely successful and you’ve probably never heard his name. He’s Isaac Garcia, and he’s the founder and CEO of Central Desktop, a massively successful online project management app. You may not know them, but Isaac has built one hellevua business that’s based on profitable high growth. He’s going to teach you how to run an inside sales team. Any VCs out there? Get your portfolio companies to this one.

That’s installment one on the meshU lineup, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg…we didn’t even talk about the designers coming. Please pass this post along to anyone you know who wants to build a web business. MeshU is one day, and at $289 it’s a steal for this calibre of content – get your ticket now.

And so we’re looking for introductions to interesting people who think about these issues, and are now reaching out to people in our community who might have great ideas about moderators and panelists for such a panel, or thoughts about aspects of this topic that ought to be discussed. Perhaps you know of a neuroscientist who’s doing interesting research on how brain pathways are remapped under intensive internet usage. Or perhaps you know of someone who’s studying the way children learn when they have the web as a research tool.

Whatever your ideas are we’re interested! We’re looking for smart, dedicated and provocative big-thinkers and interesting perspectives on this larger topic to help us make the most out of this opportunity. We do have one request though – please help us to manage the inflow of suggestions by making serious suggestions only.

You can enter your suggestions here or below. Thanks for helping out!

Today, mesh ‘10 (which takes place on May 18/19) officially goes on sale. You can register here. The mesh gang has been meeting for months to talk about potential speakers and programming, and we’ll start to unveil more information in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we’re excited to announce two of our four keynotes.

Our media keynote is Chris Thorpe, the Developer Advocate for the Open Platform at The Guardian. His background as a research scientist and his early involvement in Open Access publishing makes him fascinated and passionate about what happens when data, content, platforms, identity and pretty much anything opens up.

Chris spends his time at The Guardian working on how to integrate its content, data and APIs with other people’s technology and businesses as part of the drive towards building the distribution and engagement channels of a mutualized newspaper.

Our society keynote is Joseph Menn, who just published his third book, “Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet”, a part true-life thriller and part expose that has become a bestseller.

A speaker at major security conferences, Menn will talk about the growing threat of cyber-criminals, and the involvement of organized gangs.

We’re looking forward to seeing everyone in a few months. In the meantime, we’re having a mesh meet-up on Feb. 25 at The Pilot Tavern to get everyone together, as well as celebrate mesh co-founder Mathew Ingram’s new gig as a senior writer for GigaOm.

It’s a free event but we ask that you register so we can get a handle on the number of attendees.

After a lot of thought, we decided to do a marketing conference. It was a big decision because putting on meshU and mesh is a lot of work, and doing a conference in October meant working on it over the summer. Still, it was something we wanted to do so meshmarketing was born.

Over the past five months, there’s been a lot happening behind the scenes (particularly by our event planner extraordinaire, Sheri Moore), so it’s really exciting that meshmarketing is now only three days away (Oct. 22.)

We’re particularly satisfying is the high quality speakers that we’ve been able to attract – everyone from keynote speakers Hugh MacLeod, Ferg Devins, Katherine Fletcher and Mitch Joel to Dan Martell and Amielle Lake. And we believe the concept – a morning of a keynote and panels, followed by eight workshops – is the right content mix.

As well, it’s also been rewarding to see that the decision to hold meshmarketing was the right one – people are still looking for insight into what to do when it comes to digital marketing and, as important, how to do it.

For those of you attending the conference, things kick off at 6 p.m. on Wednesday at The Drake Hotel (Underground) with a pre-party featuring the artwork of Hugh MacLeod.

See you there!

Note: If you haven’t registered yet, you can do so here.

A blog post on Silicon Valley Insider talks about how Facebook was the only social network being enthusiastically discussed at the recent Ad Week and Social Ad Summit – even though other social networks have large numbers of users.

The post’s author, Rory Maher, contends that Facebook’s edge is the high levels of engagement among users who are spending more of their social networking time on Facebook.

The chart below shows how time on social networking social has social over the past year:

Mark you calendars with these dates!

October 21
The meshmarketing pre-party
Brought to you by Molson Coors
Join the meshmarketing gang in an event showcasing the artwork of Hugh MacLeod.
Time: 6 pm to 10 pm
Location:
The Drake, Underground
1150 Queen Street West, Toronto
Thank you to our hospitality sponsor and host: Drake Hotel Toronto

October 22
The meshmarketing after party
Brought to you by the Social Media Group
It’s a wrap! Join us to celebrate a fantastic day of meshing! The festivities continue with the gang at SMG.
Time: 5 pm to 8 pm
Location:
CIRCA
126 John St., Toronto

We look forward to meshing with you on Oct 21 and 22. See you next week!

You can purchase tickets here.

The emergence of social media as a new, different and effective marketing medium, however, has changed the competitive landscape. Today, public relations, advertising and digital agencies are all providing or moving to provide clients with social media services – everything from strategic plans and tactical implementation to creative and applications.

It means that the days of working in isolation are over. Instead, the different agencies are competing for business and increasingly working together to meet the needs of clients.

The challenge for clients is determining who provides what services, and who should be the lead agency when doing social media marketing campaigns. Do companies lead with their advertising agency, and get them to coordinate with the public relations and digital agencies on record? Or do all three agencies need to be at the table at the same time so they’re reading off the same script?

At meshmarketing, one of our two panels is focused on marketing within the social media landscape, how marketing fits into the scheme of things, and how public relations, digital and advertising agencies are competing and co-existing. Our panelists – Fleischman-Hillard Canada president Mia Wedgbury, iStudio co-founder Katherine Fletcher and Juniper Park president Jill Nykoliation – will be offer their perspectives on what’s happening and what it means to their businesses and their clients.

You can register for meshmarketing here.

One the major reasons why we’re so enthusiastic about meshmarketing and how it meets the needs of people within the digital marketing space are the eight workshops that are happening in the afternoon after Hugh MacLeod’s keynote and two panels in the morning.

The workshops are happening because people who attended the marketing stream during the last mesh conference said the keynotes and panels were interesting but they wanted more insight and information into the tools and tactics to help them get things done.

As a result, we’ve put together workshops featuring people who are working in the digital trenches, which means they can provide hands-on insight into best practices, the most compelling tools, and real-world examples of what works and what doesn’t. Here’s a snapshot of the eight workshops.

Insight Into SEM/SEO
Search engine marketing and optimization continues to attract more attention and advertising dollars because advertisers like the fact it is an activity that can be tracked and dynamically adjusted to get the best results. Jeff Quipp will provide insight and perspective on best practices and how to be more successful with your SEM and SEO spending and programs.

Social Media Analytics – What, Why and How
As social media becomes a bigger part of the marketing/advertising landscape, more companies want to know who’s talking about their brands and products, and how they can engage with key influencers and opinion leaders. Katie Delahaye Paine will talk about why social media analytics is being embraced so enthusiastically, the benefits its provides to companies who want to get a better handle on the social media ecosystem, and tips into using social media analytics services.

Tapping Into Facebook
Facebook has more than 300 million registered users – a number that makes it an interesting advertising medium. But many companies are still trying to figure out what works within Facebook. Is advertising effective? Or should marketing activity be focused on Facebook Pages that engage consumers while offering them information about products and services. Facebook Canada’s Elmer Sotto will offer his thoughts on how companies should approach Facebook to reach consumers.

How to Approach Mobile Marketing
With the continued growth of wireless device usage and the emergence of high-speed networks, the mobile advertising market has huge potential for advertisers and marketers. eMarketer suggests the U.S. market will grow to $1.3-billion from $320-million in 2008. One of the big challenges facing advertisers and marketers is determining the most effective mobile campaigns. Tagga Media CEO Amielle Lake will talk about how media planners can create, deploy, manage, and analyze mobile marketing campaigns for their clients.

The Keys to User-Generated Creative
One of the more interesting parts of social media marketing is how a growing number of companies are “outsourcing” the creative process by encouraging consumers to come up with videos and new product designs. Among the most successful campaigns was Dorito’s, which attracting a huge amount of attention with a program in which consumers created Super Bowls ads. Frito Lay’s Andrew Sutherland and BBDO’s Dino Demopoulos will provide behind the scenes insight into how user-generated creative campaigns work, and how they can be effective in driving brand awareness and consumer engagement.

Build Web Properties that Convert
After you have managed to attract people to your Web site, how do you get visitors to convert into customers? What are the tricks in getting them to make a purchase, fill out a contact form, or make a phone call. Dan Martell promise to offer nine tactics focused on Web conversions and user retention to drive real results.

Creating Inbound Marketing Campaigns
Finding it hard to get leads and customers? Are things such as tradeshows, advertising and telemarkteting not working that well? Dharmesh Shah will show you how to attract people using through Google, blogs and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and provide insider tips from the trenches about what works and what doesn’t when trying to “get found” online.

Targeting Audiences: Practical Uses of Behavioural Targeting and Retargeting
This workshop is an introduction into the world of online audience targeting through the use of behavioural and retargeting technology. In this session, you will get a better understanding of audience targeting and how data is collected and used, receive insight about current privacy issues, and practice advice when it comes to best practices for marketers. Olive Media’s Mladen Raickovic will provide insight how advertising networks work and what they offer.

Here are the details for next week’s meet-up:

Where: The Pilot Tavern, 22 Cumberland Avenue, Toronto (Map)
When: Sept. 30, 6 p.m to 10 p.m.