Well, it’s been just over a week. I’ve been busy prepping for my next events.  I wanted to take a moment and send some FailCon updates as well.

First off, a huge thank you to everyone who came and supported FailCon. Within our 400 registrants, there were a huge variety of titles, representing a wide range of industries.  But a quick count of common titles suggests that over 35% of our audience was founders and C-level executives, 10% were developers or engineers, 20% were in business and marketing, and 5% were angels and/or VCs.  What a great turn out!


Many thanks to our amazing sponsors, as well!  Each of these guys took a big risk, investing in a conference associated with failure.  But they had confidence in us, in you guys, in the topic matter, and in the industry.  So please reach out and take a moment to thank:

• GoGrid, a leading provider of cloud hosting
• Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, a leading startup and small business law firm for the Bay Area
• SuperRewards, one of the top providers of virtual goods monetization
• VerticalMove, an amazing provider of technical contractors to the businesses that need them.

Finally, congratulations to our demo contest winners.  They have each been rewarded with credits toward service at Cooley, GoGrid, and oDesk, as well a 1 minute pitch on NBC Bay Area News.

• FidoFactor is a Yelp! for dogs, letting dog owners know what hotels, cafes, parks, and venues around a city are pet friendly.
• YourVersion is a real-time discovery engine that lets you easily discover, share, and bookmark web content tailored to your interests.

We are currently working on getting slides and audio recordings up on the website, but for now you can see an amazing list of press, blog posts, and notes people took at http://snapsummit.com/press


If you’re interested in next year’s event, please be sure to join our event mailing list (on the side bar) and our Facebook Fan Page!

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We had a killer advisory board. We tested our site with user after user. We listened to feedback and iterated quickly. We launched our public beta in less than three months. We built relationships with investors, and applied to YCombinator, getting as far as a final-round interview.

Six months later, we walked away $50,000 poorer, and no closer to success than when we started. What went wrong?

For the first time, I’m sharing my startup lessons — and my story — with the public. (more…)

I’m taking the next week or so to nail down speakers for FailCon. I’ll be adding them up here as I know, so keep your eyes on our speakers page.  

I just finished chatting with Kavin, the CEO over at LOLapps, and he’ll be joining us for my favorite talk of the day so far, a panel on how NOT to build social apps.  :D  He’ll be joined by Kevin Barenblat, CEO and Founder of Context Optional, and Vinay Mahagaokar, the Head of Director of Product at RockYou.  I’m talking with Dave McClure about moderating the panel, though we haven’t confirmed yet, and have invites out to PlayFish, Buddy Media, and Appssavvy to join in the discussion.

My partner in crime on this event, Diane, has also been talking with the guys over at GetSatisfaction.  Lane and Thor will be tag teaming with us to help kick start the day!  I’m excited to welcome them on to the agenda.

I’ve still got about a half-dozen slots open, so do let me know if there are great C-level folk in the social web world that you want to see there.  :)

We’re very proud to welcome Yahoo! Developer Network as our Platinum Sponsor for SNAP Summit ^3. They will be the sponsors of our party, host a workshop during the day, and in general have a big presence at the conference.

It’s an honor to be working with Yahoo! and we’re extremely excited to have them with us, especially as they come increasingly close to launching their own developer platform.

Last week, we sent out a survey to everyone who attended SNAP Summit 2.0. Now, the results are in, and you can see them for yourself. We love hearing how people enjoy our events, and we especially pay attention to the ways we can improve.

Here are some of the highlights from the survey:

• 90% of attendees rated our conference favorably, either as “Good” or “Great.”
• Our venue, the Commonwealth Club, got less flattering remarks. 51% rated it positively, with the rest viewing it in an average or negative light.
• Biggest gripe: overcrowding. Most talks and workshops were standing room only, due to a limited number of seats for an overflow audience.
• Second biggest gripe: small nametags. The size of the nametags made it harder for people to network.
• Josh Porter and BJ Fogg split the award for best speaker. Josh spoke on Social Interface Design, while BJ talked about Mass Interpersonal Persuasion, a new field he’s researching at his Stanford lab.
• Many people enjoyed the workshops, while others complained that they couldn’t be two places at once. We will continue offering workshops, since we feel they give attendees a better choice of topics and interests.

We learned a couple things from the survey. First, make sure that everyone gets a seat. Second, we’ll focus on finding more independent speakers like BJ and Josh, who people really enjoyed hearing. Third, we’ll buy bigger nametags

If you have any other feedback or suggestions, please comment!

We’re really happy to announce GigaOM as our newest blogger partner. As one of the biggest tech blogs on the web, their endorsement gives us a big boost right as we start promoting the conference.

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Like SNAP Summit? Want free tickets? We’re happy to announce a brand new giveaway for Facebook app developers.

At least 25 developers will win free tickets to attend SNAP Summit, along with other prizes and discounts to be announced.

If you’ve launched at least one Facebook app, you’re eligible to win. See our Ticket Giveaway page for more information.

We’re extremely pleased to announce that SNAP Summit has recently confirmed Ami Vora, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook.

Ami will join us to deliver a State of the Platform address during the afternoon portion of the event.

We’re thrilled to have Facebook’s support at our event, and look forward to hearing more about what they have to say.

We’ve launched! Tickets for SNAP Summit are now available to the general public.

» Order now on EventBrite.