Anybody ever been to one of these?

Nope. I'd like to though.

I'm hoping that they will come to Europe too!

AdSense Optimisation Session in London, UK
On Wednesday, February 16th, two of our optimizers will be in London, where they'll hold 20-minute optimization sessions at a local coffee shop in the afternoon. We’re aiming to keep this session casual, so we can provide one-on-one consultations to as many of you as possible.
We’d love to meet you, so please fill out this form

[adsense.blogspot.com...]

This is in Atlanta, GA folks..

On Wednesday, February 16th, two of our optimizers will be in London, where they'll hold 20-minute optimization sessions at a local coffee shop in the afternoon.

Errr...an 8 hour round trip for me to central London for a 20 minutes, non-guaranteed appointment?

It ain't going to happen...by the way, there are other cities in the UK if anyone ever wondered:-)

I went to the one in Santa Monica last year and it was very informative.
They went over the usual stuff plus offering some new information. Gave out free t-shirt, pens, books, etc and then one on one optimization sessions. Best part was the open bar on the roof top after the sessions. Fun day with the Google AdSense crew.

I got the invite for SF, and I'd love to drop in and hear the presentation on the new interface and pick up tips, but the part of the invite that changed my mind was:

"followed by group and individual optimization sessions with members from the AdSense team."

Group session? I'm not going to put it out there, sorry, nope.

Not that I'm bashful mind you, but you have no clue who else is in the room.

Europe has more cities than London.... :-)

Europe has more cities than London.... :-)

For one, London is a city, not a country. That is like saying Europe has more cities than Paris.

Secondly, Europe is a collection of countries.

For one, London is a city, not a country

Um... yeah, and the point was the UK has more cities than [just] London meaning "AdSense In Your City" could be at Bath, Brighton, etc.

Um... yeah, and the point was the UK has more cities than [just] London meaning "AdSense In Your City" could be at Bath, Brighton, etc.

I know that, but others obviously didn't. England alone has about 50 cities. Then there are the ones in Scotland and Wales too.

Even if he said "Europe has more cities than the UK" it still wouldn't be a fair comparison.

Anyway, I won't be going. Too far.

We have a few new locations for AdSense in your City this year -- the first one being in San Francisco, followed by Atlanta in the US. Definitely would love your feedback on other places you'd like us to go -- we're always looking for more opportunities to meet publishers face-to-face.

incrediBill & others - you should still plan to attend even if you don't want to share your website info with a broader group, we will have 1:1 optimization opportunities and it's a great place to network with fellow publishers.

Also, I'll be at the SF event, and would LOVE to meet those of you attending in person :)

ASA.

What about Germany?

Frankfurt would come to mind :)

Feeling the love this morning ASA:-)

Definitely would love your feedback on other places you'd like us to go

In my opinion they do not need to be in city centres, in the UK especially they're generally horrible to get to and bear in mind many UK AdSensers would be travelling by road or rail.

There are lots of decent function centres close to many UK cities with good motorway access such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, Cardiff and Edinburgh to name just a few. What Google needs to do is specify the venue size and then I bet there would be great feedback here.

Even though some of these cities are 5/6 hour road round trips for me they are a darned site easier than getting to London and back...I can be in Schipol airport faster than just hitting the M25 car park! And if you don't know what that means Schipol is in The Netherlands the other side of the North Sea.

Why tie us to expensive city centres when the Internet supposedly should have set us all free from these extortionate places?

Get the right hotel, have an evening do followed by a day of workshops and I'll be there...you have to make the trip worthwhile because the cost of travelling in Europe is horrendous.

Why tie us to expensive city centres

Because they expect you to be rich from your adsense earnings ;)

Why tie us to expensive city centres when the Internet supposedly should have set us all free from these extortionate places?

Why do it in person at all?

This is the internet and by using virtual webinars Google could show thousands of people simultaneously, even in vastly remote locations.

Not only that, the video could be saved for future review by people that missed the webinar.

Just a thought ;)

Going to SF is a PITA for me, just like London. Although I'm 20 miles away it's like going to a beehive of swarming car and pedestrian traffic everywhere. No place to park, pedestrians that ignore stop lights and step right out to get run over, red light traffic runners trying to kill people, and worse yet - those that simply don't know where they're going and don't look before rapidly changing lanes. Assuming you live long enough to find a place to park, parking will cost about $8/hour and since I'll be theoretically attending the afternoon session which ends at 4:30pm, I'll be leaving Google to face complete SF gridlock and assuming I can even inch my way back to the freeway, it'll take up to an hour to make a 20 min drive home. Therefore, I'll probably find a local pub and park my carcass for a couple of hours until everyone else has cleared out of the city and take a somewhat leisurely drive home, assuming it doesn't turn into a cab ride home! :)

I been to one, in Kirkland, WA. Meet some cool people.

I went for the 1v1 free optimization advice (if they have some time). Met a pretty cool guy by the name of Marty, who was a google worker. Also you get to see, first hand what it looks like to work for Google.

They do a presentation, but most of the stuff is basic info. Also you can ask questions. But yea, like I said, I went for the possible 1v1 optimization.

The other good thing, is you get to meet a lot of cool people who make money through Adsense. Also saw some really hot chicks =D. Adsense caters to all type of people.

So in summary, my experience was pretty good.

Why do it in person at all?

I wouldn't mind meeting some of the people who post here and have a few beers with them...could be beneficial all round but as I wrote I would prefer to have more time with perhaps an informal evening session followed by an all-day whatever.

After all it's a 100% tax deductible expense therefore we ought to make the most of it.

Interestingly about 11 years ago Adobe had a national roadshow presenting all their latest stuff. It was at an old English Tudor hall in the middle of nowhere about 30 minutes from Nottingham and it was PACKED with hundreds of up-and-coming Netpreneurs/designers/etc a few months before the dot com bubble burst if I remember correctly!

It was a fantastic day and certainly had an enormous effect on our thinking and our way forward.

ASA: Chicago or somewhere in the midwest?

Be good for you to get out in corn country. Eat some great hot dogs.

Went to the one they had in Boston 2010 in the summer. I am no way a big publisher but more an affiliate marketer so surprised that I got an invite. So grateful for that nonetheless. If you are a veteran Adsense user and have been tweaking your acct for a while I suspect it would be much of what you already know (read = waste of time), but sometimes you can just pick up one miniscule tip that can make a world of difference, so you never know.

The session was broken into two. First part was a general session with everyone in one room (about 50 of us) and then the second session you got an one-on-one with an Google individual that will take a look at your site(s).

The highlight for me was getting an Adsense t-shirt in the end for filling out a survey. :-)

I like IncridiBill's idea though about doing everything virtual though. It does makes sense especially if you live far away or resources not available to make the trip.

I'm going to the San Francisco event. Looking forward to meeting the new ASA. ;)

I got my confirmation email with instructions, etc...

I have been an AdSense publisher since 2003, I think I have tried every ad configuration imaginable multiple times. I do plan to shutup, listen and hope they tell me something I don't know.

Should be an interesting opportunity to network with other AdSense publishers.

I attended an event at Google's offices in Cambridge MA.

Bill, GO. It was great, you can share anything or nothing. They answered tons of specific questions, and didn't seem evasive in their answers AT ALL. I met 1:1 with an employee and it helped me with a few things, and I was able to get policy clarification on some other items directly from the policy team. I met some other publishers and got to hear what they were thinking.

GO!

Philly, Phila., PHL, Philadelphia?

Did it, went well and met interesting and open people when discussing their websites. Have many new and interesting contacts.

AdSense team did a good job presenting optimization information (stuff I already knew).

Met with a Google representative and reviewed my high traffic site - his observations where parallel with mine.

Weird. I didn't get an invite to Atlanta which was closest but I'm going to Austin.

How was Atlanta?

Anyone going to Austin later this month want to meet for a pint?

The current state of AdSense won't even buy me a pint...pointless!

Would love to attend the Austin but have not rec'd an invite.

Are they going to be discussing the old optimization tips, or the new ones that the search division imposed upon them with Panda?