PressNomics 2012 : The Economics of WordPress Conference

PressNomics is 3 day event in Chandler, Arizona bringing together the companies powering the commercial WordPress economy to discuss business topics of interest and foster collaboration among peers.

This is the inaugurial year for this conference, which is the brainchild of Page.ly founders Joshua and Sally Strebel.

Why PressNomics?

The overall Community of WordPress users is growing by the hour, with the estimated number of self-hosted installs currently around 70 million…it goes without question that an event, such as this, that focuses on the economics and business aspects of using WordPress as a revenue generating source is greatly needed.

Probably the first question those of you involved with WordPress are wondering, “Is this a WordCamp?”

No, this is not an event sponsored by Automattic or the WordPress Foundation. That being said, don't be surprised if Matt Mullenweg shows up – no guarantees, but we know Matt's a BBQ fan, and they've got some decent BBQ in Arizona!

Looking at the list of speakers and sponsors for PressNomics, it reads like a virtual who's who within the WordPress ecosystem.

Confirmed Speakers:

• Mikkel Svane | Founder and CEO, Zendesk
• Cory Miller | Founder, iThemes.com
• Alex King | Founder CrowdFavorite
• Fredrick Townes | Founder, W3Edge
• Mark Jaquith | Lead Developer, WordPress
• more being added…

Sponsorships have come in from some significant WordPress-centric businesses as well. Firehost, Zendesk and recently added New Relic, serving as the event's Title Sponsor.

The event is scheduled for November 8-10, 2012 and will take place at the Crowne Plaza San Marcos Golf Resort in downtown Chandler Arizona. The full schedule is still being flushed out, but as it stands now, Thursday and Friday will consist of 1-hour single track sessions running from 9-5pm.

With the conference being single-track this ensures that everyone will get to see and hear every session – no need to pick and choose your topic – GO TO THEM ALL!! I really like that.

Outside of the learning and keynote sessions, what would a tech conference, especially in Arizona be without some fun? So yes, there are networking, happy hour, and golf events scheduled during the event.

Attendance is going to small and relatively intimate. There is a capacity of 150 attendees so when tickets officially get released on June 1st I'd highly encourage anyone interested in attending to purchase their ticket ASAP.

Insider tip: early bird ticket price is $150 per seat, with pricing going up to $250 after those are gone. However, select attendees may purchase tickets sooner at a deeper discount by requesting an invite via the PressNomics homepage.

HicksNewMedia, the principal organization behind THE Tech Scoop, will be in attendance; we are in fact a media sponsor for this awesome event and will be liveblogging many of the sessions, uploading photos and videos and capturing interviews from both attendees and guest speakers.

For more information head to the PressNomics site here. You can also follow all activities surrounding this event on Twitter | Facebook | RSS

Click below to see the full, official press release:

The open source web publishing platform WordPress supports a very successful commercial economy estimated near $1B/yr. Commercial entities of all kinds serve the market of ~72 million WordPress powered sites and blogs with custom designed themes, plugins, web hosting, and service based consulting. PressNomics is a once a year gathering of international WordPress professionals to learn, foster collaboration, and build new strategies for commercial success in the growing WordPress economy.

Organized by Phoenix based WordPress Hosting company Page.ly, the PressNomics conference sessions are focused exclusively on the commercial economy fueled by startups and SMB's leveraging WordPress. Discussion topics will include:
bootstrapping to profitability, software licensing guidelines, SaaS, interface and application design, and
finance.

Speakers that include Mikkel Svane Founder & CEO of Zendesk, Mark Jaquith lead developer on the WordPress open source project, and Alex King founder of CrowdFavorite a WordPress development agency will share their insights on startups, venture capital, best practices and personal stories of business triumphs and teachable moments.

The 3 day event will be held at the famous Crowne Plaza San Marcos Golf Resort in historic downtown Chandler Arizona. 2 days of insightful programming will be followed by a leisurely day of Golf and Bowling for all attendees to relax and renew friendships.

PressNomics is made possible with generous support by San Francisco based New Relic providers of an advanced web application performance management service. Further promotional support is provided by Dallas based secure cloud hosting company FireHost, and Zendesk the company behind the customer service help desk software of the same name.

Tickets go on sale to the general audience on June 1st 2012 at the early bird price of $200 per seat. Attendance is limited at 150. Select attendees may purchase tickets sooner at a deeper discount by requesting an invite via the PressNomics homepage.

WordPress is a registered trademark of the WordPress foundation and is not affiliated with this event.
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