Just got back from IZEAFest, which was extraordinary…. but MUCH more on that later.

I was one of the folks who had the fortunate opportunity of taking the Dolphin Spotlight Tour at SeaWorld Orlando yesterday and I’m still jazzed up about how awe-inspiring it was.

Michael Gray, Chris Heuer, Zena Weist and Amanda Stewart were also on my tour group, which I knew would make for an even more awesome time.

While I do live in Orlando and have been to SeaWorld dozens of times with my family, I’ve never been on the Dolphin Spotlight Tour before.  The idea of going behind-the-scenes at SeaWorld and being able to get up close to the animals was something I really was looking forward to doing.

And, it did not disappoint!

The Dolphin Spotlight Tour at SeaWorld is a 1-hour walking tour that took us backstage of the Whale and Dolphin stadium where we got an overview of what is involved in training and taking care of the headliners of the Blue Horizons Show, which is my personal favorite at SeaWorld. No matter how many times I see it, I’m still blown away at how visually spectacular it is.

While I don’t want to say that I took for granted how much work goes into take care of and training the dolphins, I now realize how much I underestimated it!

We then went over to Dolphin Cove where we got to become “Dolphin Trainers”. We were shown the commands to use to interact with the dolphins including the signal to get a little dolphin love. That just blew me away and is a moment that I will cherish forever.

I’d like to thank IZEA and SeaWorld Orlando for making it possible for me to participate in the Dolphin Spotlight Tour. I can’t wait to go back and take my li’l guys on it.

Here are the pictures that were taken by SeaWorld photographers during the tour, which were made available to purchase on a thumb drive immediately following.

Click Photo to View All Pictures.

I just hijacked Missy’s blog at IZEAFest and decided it was a good idea to let everyone know that I, Aaron Brazell, aka Technosailor was here…. Owned.

Boobies Rock. (Pink hat for Breast Cancer Awarenesss)

The world never sleeps.

Ted Murphy, CEO of Izea just announced that IZEAFest 2009 will be at SeaWorld in Orlando, October 1-4!

w00t! A conference that I can get to without hopping on another darn plane this year!

Here are the reasons why I think this is a must-attend event:

1) Robert Scoble, Aaron Brazell, Chris Brogan and Darren Rowse will be speaking there. (If you can’t learn about blogging from these guys, who can you learn from?)
2) Every blogger in attendance gets a free ticket to SeaWorld. (Hellooooo Manta. I’ve been waiting to meet you!)
3) It’s only $179 bucks which includes a day at SeaWorld, lunch on Friday and Saturday, parties, drinks and a free t-shirt. (Heck — getting into Seaworld would cost you $75 bucks alone!)

Although I missed last year’s IzeaFest because I was leading the AffililiateMarketersGiveBack.com 60-mile walk for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, I heard that it was a fantastic educational and networking experience.

And with the lineup above, really, how can it not be?

Just in case you need a little more motivation to attend, here’s a video of what you can expect:

IZEAFest at SeaWorld from Ted Murphy on Vimeo.

If you haven’t registered, there are still some early bird tickets left.

If you’re planning on going, let me know. And, if you’re brave enough to ride the Manta Roller Coaster, I’m going with you!

I get a lot of requests asking me what conferences I recommend to folks that are into affiliate marketing, search marketing and social media.

There’s certainly a lot to choose from and since every dollar counts these days, I decided to put a list together of conference and tradeshows that I personally recommend and plan on attending this year.

If I run out of steam based on this schedule, my wonderful business partner Shawn will be there in my place.

PubCon South – March 11-13 – Austin
SXSW Interactive Show – March 13-18 – Austin, TX
Search Engine Strategies - March 23-27 – New York
BarCamp Orlando – April 18 – Orlando
Ad:Tech – April 21-23 – San Francisco
SOBCon – May 1-3 – Chicago
Inbound Marketing Summit – May 27-28 – Dallas
Internet Retailer – June 15-18 Boston
Linkshare Symposium East – June 22-23 – New York
BlogHer – July 24-25 – Chicago.
Affiliate Summit East 2009 – August 9-11 – NYC*
Gnomedex – August 20-22 – Seattle
Avon Breast Cancer 40-mile Walk – September 12-13 – Los Angeles
IzeaFest – October 1-4 Orlando
SMX East – October 5-7 – New York
a4Uexpo – October 13-14 – London
BlogWorldExpo – October 15-17 – Las Vegas
Ad:Tech NY – November 4-6 – New York
Social Fresh Cruise – November 12-16

If you’re going to be at any of these events, let’s make plans to meet up. I just love seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

If you’re not going to make any of these, look for coverage of the events in upcoming issues of FeedFront Magazine.

Lastly, if you know of an established conference not listed here, that you think I should be attending, let me know. I’m always looking for new opportunities.

*Shameless plug. But hey, it’s my blog, I can do whatever I want.

Just back from Izea Devasaurus put on by Ted Murphy, Founder/CEO of Izea. The idea behind Devasaurus is to get the Orlando Dev Community to meet the folks at Izea, foster local innovation and get us crazy O-town folks mingling.

I got to check out their offices, which were pretty cool and their new innovation, CloudShout which is a tool that enables conversation across blogs and websites. I have to tell you, I was very impressed. While I didn’t get the Dev Mumbo Jumbo, I definitely got the idea of what they were trying to accomplish — and it rocks.

They opened up their request for blogger and dev invites today for their alpha phase and I just signed up. They also announced their “Gadget Challenge” in which they are inviting developers to create the coolest gadgets for a chance to win a $5,000 prize to be awarded at IzeaFest.

Unfortunately, I will not be attending IzeaFest this time around as I’ll be walking 60-miles in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-day as captain of Affiliate Marketers Worldwide. Maybe the lucky winner, will donate some of their winnings to the walk

There are some slides of the presentation in my pictures.

Check them out and let me know what you think about CloudShout.