David Pogue, the Lead Tech Editor for The New York Times, will be giving the opening keynote. On Wednesday, the morning keynote will consist of a social media panel that includes Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, Scott Stratten, and Sarah Evans. Tim Mayer, the former head of search product and business at Yahoo, will present Thursday’s keynote.

Tabke told us that this year’s show had a strong emphasis on social media. Although the core of the show is still based on search, social is playing an integral role.

Social media has actually influenced how WebmasterWorld markets PubCon. Up until about 2 years ago, they did traditional marketing. After seeing the hype that Twitter and other social outlets can provide in the conference space, they decided to market exclusively through social media.

“It completely changed the nature of our business and the nature of the attendee that comes to PubCon,” says Tabke.

He goes on to say that social media introduced them to many valuable speakers including some that are speaking at this year’s show.

Stay tuned to WebProNews for our exclusive coverage of PubCon Las Vegas 2010.

SEO is always a popular topic at every show but surprisingly, the in-house SEO track was also packed to the point of standing-room only. With the economy in the shape it is, many large corporations are opting to bring their SEO in-house to save their company money.

With so many people talking about social media, it is no wonder that it was another hot topic at the show. Twitter, specifically, topped the hype. Tabke is a strong advocate of Twitter since it has proven to be a valuable marketing tool for the conference. He said PubCon spent $75K on marketing for the event in 2008. In 2009, however, they didn’t spend anything and simply used Twitter. Incidentally, the show’s attendance was up 20%.

Twitter is advancing to many new levels and we can likely bet that it will continue to be a trend at future events. PubCon already has dates set for an event in Dallas and Las Vegas for 2010. Check out their site for more information.

As the service continues to develop, Brett says tools are and will continue to emerge that help define what type of Twitterer each user is. One such tool is Klout, which conducts a Twitter analysis on each user to measure his or her influence across the Web.

Another result of Twitter’s extreme popularity is a new type of search engine that has risen up. These search engines are real-time and instead of indexing pages across the Web, they index conversations taking place in the social Web. A couple of examples of these search engines are Topsy and Scoopler.

How do you see Twitter evolving in the future?

According to Brett, this was the first time they targeted one particular region for a conference. Brett told us they geared this conference toward the Texas region specifically, and that people really seemed to be happy with the intimate setting.

Even though this conference was relatively low-key when compared to other PubCon events, it still carried its weight by having speakers like Guy Kawasaki and Matt Cutts. Another highlight of the show was the super session on the last day, which included Chris Brogan, Lee Odden, Reem Abeidoh, and Wayne Sutton and discussed social media and business.

PubCon South placed a strong emphasis on social media, stronger than any other conference of its kind. In response to the non-stop talk of social media, especially the big “T-word” (AKA Twitter), Brett said:

“We eat and breathe search all the time …  and it was very enjoyable…”

For more information on the PubCon event series, visit their site.

PubCon has something for everyone. It doesn’t just feature SEO, marketing, IT, or social media – it’s a combination of all those and more. In the above video, Brett says how they tried to focus on quality sessions at this year’s show.

People pitch topic ideas and the PubCon staff matches speakers up with the topics they are most passionate about. This not only makes it easy for the speaker, but also gives the user a better end product.

Brett had an interesting session this year based off of a Webmasterworld thread that has been going strong for nearly seven years. The thread entitled 26 Steps is a step-by-step guide to building a successful and sustainable website. Brett says the key is to making it sustainable. Anyone can build a “one hit wonder” as he puts it, but it takes skill to make it sustainable.

Brett echoes the words of many others in the industry that we should expect changes in search in 2009. He said search is now in a “mature” state and that Google led the way to this point through universal search.

You don’t want to miss WPN TV’s video coverage of this Four Track Educational Conference, which includes an Exposition Hall. Topics that will be covered by some of the biggest name speakers and panelists in the business are Search, Net Marketing, Affiliates, SEO/SEM, and General Webmastery. Whether your primary job description includes business web site marketing, corporate IT development, or you’re in a technology business management role, you will find something of value in WebProNews TV’s coverage of PubCon Las Vegas 2006.