Categories Mobile Beta Launch Events Press Release

Powerful Event Networking Tools Lead to More Partnerships for Leebug

February 17, 2010 Rob Arthurs

Argus Media and Other Event Producers Partner with Leebug to Offer Delegates an Online Networking Solution

Sarasota, FL (PRWEB) February 17, 2010 — Leebug, a social networking website that provides free, custom event communities for conferences and professional events, has attracted a growing number of event producer partners to its platform.

Launched in September 2009, Leebug has focused recent development on integrating its platform with existing social media. Event communities are set up for free on the platform and event producers can take advantage of registration integration, a suite of customization tools and revenue sharing through sales of virtual booths. Leebug has added the ability for users to import their profile from LinkedIn, saving them the time of manually entering yet another online profile. Last week Leebug’s new social media dashboard called The Hub was released. Feeds from Twitter, Flickr and YouTube stream into The Hub and give event participants a real-time visualization of the event.

Leebug Founder, Rob Arthurs, is excited to offer these new features to event producers. “Twitter, along with other social media, has become an indispensable tool for conferences,” says Mr. Arthurs. “Smart phones equipped with a camera or video allow attendees to instantly share across sites like Flickr and YouTube. I’m thrilled to be bringing these feeds together within each Leebug event community.” Event producers are discovering the platform and forming their own communities which range from private financial forums to large technology and insurance conferences. Angela Cai, Regional Marketing Executive for Argus Media says, “By integrating with Leebug we will enhance the Argus event experience even further. Delegates of our upcoming Asian Petroleum Coke conference will benefit from the platform’s robust networking tools and virtual booths.”

About Leebug
Leebug (www.leebug.com) is a free, interactive social networking site for people attending conferences. It allows event participants to network before, during and after an event. The platform provides tools to make every connection a strategic one and empowers interactions that will enhance the users ability to build relationships.

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The Hub – Your Event Social Stream Dashboard

January 28, 2010 Rob Arthurs

You have got to see this! We have just the launched The Hub 2.0 – a dashboard that pulls social streams from Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Now, in one place, under one tab, in each event community, attendees can join the Twitter conversation and view photos taken at the event from Flickr and videos uploaded to YouTube.

How It Works

The host of the event community, usually the event producer, selects the keywords and tags to create the feeds from each of the social sites. Leebug will then fetch the tweets, photos and videos and display them on the page. YouTube videos will play directly in The Hub – you will not be redirected out of Leebug – same with with Flickr, the thumbnails will enlarge within a Leebug popup. Delegates can participate in the Twitter stream by enabling their Twitter account and sending tweets directly from The Hub.

Display One, Two or All Three Feeds

If you don’t expect attendees to be taking photos or video during your event, you can simply skip the keyword entry for Flickr and YouTube and The Hub will adjust the columns to only show the Twitter feed.

Educate Attendees

Social media and conferences is still relatively new – though is Twitter is rapidly being adopted , just don’t display the live feed behind the speaker while they are presenting – and it will be up to the event producers to continue to push the adoption and to educate delegates. Smartphones such as the iPhone 3GS and the Nexus One place an incredible amount of promotional power into the hands of the delegates – so use it. Photos, videos and opinions can be instantly shared and propagated to the masses.

I am very excited about The Hub, our social media mashup. Along with registration integration, LinkedIn profile importing, v-Booths, and Meet ups, Leebug becomes one of the most powerful professional event networking websites on the internet.

Below is a screenshot of The Hub pulling Twitter and YouTube.

The Hub with feeds from Twitter, Flickr and You Tube.

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We Supply the Platform, You Supply the Users

January 19, 2010 Rob Arthurs

Leebug looks at the relationship with event producers as a partnership – we supply the platform and they supply the users. And this is reason we offer revenue sharing on sales of v-Booths.

We are truly a unique platform offering free, customizable event communities with an opportunity to increase the event producer’s bottom line through sales of our interactive advertising platform, v-Booths.

It is easy to set up an event on Leebug, however to realize the full potential of the website it will take a few additional steps such as auto-enrolling opt-in attendees at registration and creating custom attendee filters (so delegates can source each other based on their purpose for attending). Check out the NVIDIA Global Technology Conference event community to see it in action (sign in required). Our site tour also offers more insight into Leebug in the way of pictures.

We have posted some information on our new Partnering page. The website has some incredibly powerful tools to facilitate online networking, including the recently added ability to import your LinkedIn profile – so you can worry less about filling out yet another social networking profile and get to the more important business of making new connections and growing your network.

If you would like to learn more about partnering with Leebug contact partner@leebug.com.

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Import your LinkedIn Profile to Leebug

Rob Arthurs

With LinkedIn’s release of their API last month we were able to do something I have wanted to since we began to develop Leebug – you can now import your LinkedIn profile into Leebug.

The process is very simple. Click the link in the status area of your Home page and you will be re-directed to LinkedIn and prompted to enter your LinkedIn credentials. After submitting your username and password you are re-directed back to Leebug and presented with your profile, completely filled in from info taken for your LinkedIn account.

This is an import, not a sync, so you can make custom edits to your Leebug profile after the import. If you make changes to your LinkedIn profile, you will have to re-import the profile.

The profile image that LinkedIn provides in the import is unfortunately quite low resolution, and therefore is somewhat distorted when viewing the full size Leebug profile image – it looks fine in the smaller thumbnails. You can get around this simply by uploading your own photo.

This profile import will get users over the major hurdle of having to spend time filling out yet another online profile. They can now get to the good stuff, and concentrate on networking and using the various tools on the site.

Most Leebug users are auto-enrolled into the website at the time of their event registration – they are presented with a temporary username and password. Now, with the LinkedIn integration, they can have a fully loaded profile in a few clicks and immediately get the most out of their event community.

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Case Study: Forums and Executive Events

December 10, 2009 Rob Arthurs

One of Leebug’s latest event partners is Hedge Connection, a hedge fund marketing company that places hedge fund managers and hedge fund investors together through a web platform and series of private networking events.

The Hedge Connection event on Leebug is their 3rd Annual Members Only Networking Reception. It is a private networking reception for their members and they are expecting around 100 attendees. They have 3 sponsors and during the networking reception they will be hosting a Fireside Chat between two industry professionals.

Though being a small, boutique event, Hedge Connection has been able to harness all of Leebug’s suite of features. Here is what they did:

Registration and Privacy

Registration is through the Hedge Connection website and participants opt-in to the Leebug community at this point and are auto-enrolled into the system. The event is set up as Private on Leebug. Meaning, only those attendees registering for the event can network amongst themselves online. If someone on the outside wants to join the event community they would have to request to do so, and this request is administrated by the event producer at Hedge Connection.

Custom Attendee Filtering

Hedge Connection setup 3 custom filters for their event: Meet Fund Managers, Meet Investors, Meet the Sponsors

Sponsors and v-Booths

All the sponsors have v-Booths and have uploaded marketing materials, linked to promotional videos, and have multiple Representatives affiliated with their booths. Hedge Connection has created a v-Booth for themselves as well.

Meet Ups

Hedge Connection used the Meet Ups feature to promote the Fireside Chat at the Networking Reception. Here they can give details on the speakers; give the time, location and gauge attendee interest to get an idea of how many people might be expected to listen to the chat.

The Hub

Since the event is private and a member exclusive affair, Hedge Connection decided not to create a specific Twitter hashtag. However, they are pulling their company Twitter page, @hedgeconnection, and the industry #hedge hashtag, and displaying this stream on The Hub page.

The power of Leebug becomes apparent when used for events big and small. For no cost, Hedge Connection has been able to set up a private environment where their members can meet and mingle online before meeting in person at the reception. The sponsors gain additional exposure and can proactively build relationships with attendees prior to the event.

Contact me if you would like to learn more about partnering and setting up events on Leebug.

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Leebug Launches and Powers Online Networking for NVIDIA’s GPU Tech Conference

September 30, 2009 Rob Arthurs

New Website Leebug Powers Online Networking For NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference

Leebug is a new interactive social networking website that allows NVIDIA’s GPU Global Technology Conference attendees to network and build relationships online before, during and after the event.

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) September 30, 2009 — Leebug.com, the newly developed professional event networking website, launches today at NVIDIA’s GPU Global Technology Conference.

Developed over the past year, Leebug has been designed to harness social media tools to enhance the event experience and make networking more efficient and strategic. Advanced attendee filters, Meet Up scheduling, v-Booths, Twitter integration and a mobile web app combine to bring a powerful and proactive networking solution to events.

“When organizing the GPU Technology Conference we were looking to both enhance the event experience and provide attendees with a modern way to meet and build relationships,” said Sheryl Huynh, NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference organizer. “Leebug will provide us and attendees with the ability to visit virtual exhibitor booths, experience the power of the attendee list in their pocket via Leebug Mobile and help attendees network and connect with one another.”

Leebug founder, Rob Arthurs said the idea to create Leebug grew out of his previous experiences attending conferences that lacked a structure to network with other participants. “The mission is to make networking more efficient and provide greater ROI for all event participants – attendees, exhibitors and sponsors,” said Mr. Arthurs. “Working with NVIDIA has been a pleasure and has allowed us to bring the vision of Leebug to life.”

About Leebug
Leebug (www.leebug.com) is a free, interactive social networking site for people attending conferences. It allows event participants to network before, during and after an event. It provides tools to make every connection a strategic one and empowers interactions that will enhance the users ability to build relationships.

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Website Tour

September 3, 2009 Rob Arthurs

We recently did some polishing to the splash page and added a site tour. The tour is heavy on the screen shots and light on copy.

I broke the tour into three sections:

Participating – general usage of the site and it’s features

Listing an Event – overview of the options available such as privacy and customization

v-Booths – details on the functions and benefits of posting a v-Booth

See the tour here

Note: You will have to be logged out of Leebug to see the tour but this will be corrected shortly.

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Misconceptions…corrected

August 28, 2009 Rob Arthurs

We would like to dispel some misconceptions about Leebug. Below are some common thoughts of people considering listing their events on the site and enrolling their attendees into our social networking environment. The goal of Leebug is to protect user privacy while making event networking more efficient and increasing revenue for both of us. So let’s nip this in the bud shall we.

Attendees will be angry to find themselves on Leebug without their consent.

Nobody ends up on Leebug without their decision to be there. Users must either sign up for Leebug themselves through the website or opt-in while registering for an event.

Your attendee list will be downloaded and distributed.

There is no way to download or export any individual data or participants of an event. There is no button or option for this. It can’t happen.

Your attendees will be exposed for everyone to see including your event competitors

The only attendee details shown are profile photo, company, title and location. No contact or profile information is displayed without the approval of the user. You must seek the user’s permission for these details. In addition, events can be made “Private” whereas only attendees of your event have access to each other. Meaning no other Leebug users can view your event or attendees without your permission.

Your attendees will be spammed

Direct messages to attendees can only be sent one at a time. Any abuse of this will result in the immediate removal of the user.

For users not interested in receiving mail, message notifications can be turned off in the Control Panel.

Competitors or unsavory businesses will set up a v-Booth on your event listing

You can set a pass code so only users with the code can set up a v-Booth

Leebug is a virtual conference website

No it’s not, there are no avatars or no animation. Leebug is a professional social networking website built to make networking more efficient at events.

No one is going to bother coming to your event if they can network online.

People are going to your event to educate themselves with your speaker line, network fact to face, go to parties and explore the booths. Leebug is setup only to enhance the event and make networking more efficient. In no way is Leebug attempting to replace the live conference experience.

Posting an event on Leebug is just like posting an event on LinkedIn or Facebook

Not even close. We offer registration integration, Meet Ups, v-Booths, advanced attendee filtering, the Concierge, mobile app, customization and more.

It’s complicated to integrate enrolling your attendees into Leebug

It’s simply a matter of adding an opt-in button on your registration and having a developer send the couple of fields of registration data to us. We are set up to receive the info and take care of the rest of the enrollment.

There are hidden costs. Using Leebug is going to cost you something.

Leebug is free and there are no costs – but you can make money using Leebug. We do revenue sharing for sales of v-Booths. Contact me to learn more.

Leebug will solicit, spam, hassle your attendees.

Nope. We don’t send emails and we don’t share information. Take a look at our privacy policy if you must.

I write this post to dispel any fears and misconceptions people may have when considering listing their conference on Leebug. If you have concerns that are not addressed below, please let me know so that I can clarify the value proposition of using the site. We will be pulling the beta tag off the site very shortly and beginning a large marketing push and are excited to make partners.

The goal of Leebug is to protect user privacy while making event networking more efficient and increasing revenue for everyone. So let’s nip this in the bud shall we.

Misconception #1: Attendees will be angry to find themselves on Leebug without their consent.

Nobody ends up on Leebug without their decision to be there. Users must either sign up for Leebug themselves through the website or opt-in while registering for an event.

Misconception #2: Your attendee list will be downloaded and distributed.

There is no way to download or export any individual data or participants of an event. There is no button or option for this. It can’t happen.

Misconception #3: Your attendees will be exposed for everyone to see including your event competitors

The only attendee details shown are profile photo, company, title and location. No contact or profile information is displayed without the approval of the user. You must seek each individual user’s permission for these details. In addition, events can be made “Private” so that only attendees of your event have access to each other. This means that no other Leebug user can view your event or attendees without your permission.

Misconception #4: Your attendees will be spammed

Direct messages to attendees can only be sent one at a time. Any abuse of this will result in the immediate removal of the user. For users not interested in receiving mail, message notifications can be turned off in the Control Panel.

Misconception #5: Competitors or unsavory businesses will set up a v-Booth on your event listing

You are able to have complete control over who sets up a v-booth at your event by setting up a pass code. Only users with the code can set up a v-Booth.

Misconception #6: Leebug is a virtual conference website

Leebug is not replacing the conference, it is enhancing the conference experience. There are no avatars or animations on the site. Leebug is a professional social networking website built to make networking more efficient at events.

Misconception #7: No one is going to bother coming to your event if they can network online.

A social networking tool could never replace the actual event. People attend an event to educate themselves, network face to face, go to parties and explore the service provider booths. Leebug is a tool to enhance the event and make networking more efficient. In no way is Leebug attempting to replace the live conference experience.

Misconception #8: Posting an event on Leebug is just like posting an event on LinkedIn or Facebook

Not even close. We offer registration integration, Meet Ups, v-Booths, advanced attendee filtering, the Concierge, mobile applications, customization and more. In addition, Leebug is branded for use by professionals who are going to conferences. People using the site are actively attending conferences or looking for conferences that could be interesting to attend.

Misconception #9: It’s complicated to integrate enrolling your attendees into Leebug

It’s simply a matter of adding an opt-in button on your registration and having a developer send a couple of fields of registration data to us so we can add it to the backend of the site. We are set up to receive registration information and take care of the rest of the enrollment automatically.

Misconception #10: There are hidden costs. Using Leebug is going to cost you something.

Leebug is free to use. Your conference will get free exposure to thousands of Leebug users. In addition, you can opt to have a revenue sharing arrangement with Leebug linked to sales of v-booths if you so desire. In brief, your company gets free advertising, a free networking tool for attendees plus a revenue sharing opportunity. Note: If there is a special feature you would like us to build into the site for your conference, there may be a charge to build. Contact me to learn more.

Misconception #11: Leebug will solicit, spam, hassle your attendees.

We don’t send emails soliciting Leebug or any other businesses, and we do not share information with anyone.

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Twitter Integration

August 20, 2009 Rob Arthurs

A little birdie has joined us on Leebug. Log into your Twitter account from within the Leebug status area. Status updates are pushed instantly to your Twitter account and your most recent updates are pulled to Leebug every six minutes.

This is just the start. We have some cool plans that will make those of you posting events on the site excited.

Happy tweeting!

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Leebug Mobile – Your Connection at the Event

August 19, 2009 Rob Arthurs

Version 1.0 of the other half of Leebug has been created – the Leebug mobile app. The app is a streamlined version of Leebug, formatted for the mobile browser and built with the objective of easily connecting participants at events. And we are super excited about it.

The app is web based rather than being device specific, such as an iPhone app, because it easily handles our initial mobile goals while not excluding any mobile platforms. The goal of the app is provide quick, easy access to the participants of the events that they are attending. Note, you have to RSVP to events through the main site before using the app. Only the events that you have RSVP to are showed on the app.

Once logged in, you can view your profile, update your status and view all your contacts and their complete profiles. As mentioned above, the Events section of the app gains access to events that you have RSVP to. Full event details are shown, such as start and end times, description and venue details.

Within the Events section you can click the View Participants link and see the complete attendee list for the event. Flick through and view the attendee’s profile photo, name, title, company – direct message and set up meetings instantly. And, of course, with attendees that are your contacts you can view their complete profile and status.

Mobile is truly the other half Leebug. The main site is a great way to make connections, interact with the v-Booths, set up Meet Ups etc in the months leading up to the site, but having an interactive attendee list to your pocket at the conference is especially powerful. Our mobile road map is teeming with ideas, so keep posted for updated offerings.

Leebug Mobile – Your Connection at the Event

m.leebug.com

Make sure to bookmark the Leebug mobile home page on your phone and add our icon to your home screen. On the iPhone this is done by clicking the + sign at the base of the screen.