The closing keynote of the BlogWorld Expo this past weekend was set up like The Late Show. Guy Kawasaki came out and told some jokes in David Letterman fashion (complete with Late Show-like desk and chairs), then he introduced the audience to actor/comedian Kevin Pollak.
Pollak talked about his online chat show at KevinPollakChatShow.com. He also proceeded to do impersonations of Christopher Walken and William Shatner, and talked about making fun of Larry King. Pollak acknowledged that his site isn’t a very good one. It’s not incredibly well-designed. It is, however, successful. He noted that he has Jason Calacanis as a partner.
After Pollak, they brought out the guys from Chad Vader, the people responsible for this:
They talked about how they got started and how unbelievable their success was. Then they brought out Jenny the Bloggess, who blogs for serveral publications. She admitted that she was a bit nervous and had to have alcohol before she came out. At that point, Kawasaki pulled a bottle of wine from the desk and they all drank out of the bottle, and handed it to the audience. It was then passed around the room.
Some people weren’t particularly thrilled with this part of the show from the sound of it. Blogger David Risley, who was in attendance, wrote this about the keynote on his blog:
The closing keynote was a bit of a train wreck. Kevin Pollack is absolutely hilarious. The Chad Vader guys and the Bloggess were a stretch. The keynote was dirty. I heard words come out of Guy Kawasaki’s mouth that I would have never expected (dude, you’ve got a brand to uphold – don’t blow it!). All in all, this was gutter-level humor I would have expected from a late night comedy special from crappy comedians on HBO. This is Blogworld and it is worthy of respect. Let’s act like it. I’m not opposed to a little foul language. I use it myself sometimes on this blog to get the point across. But, there are limits.
I get the impression, however, that most people had a lot of fun with the keynote. It wasn’t just about fun though. There was also a point to be made.
The main takeaway was this: The web has allowed each of these people to be stars in their own way, and in ways that traditional media would never have allowed. Pollak said that he was approached by a major studio who wanted him to take his show to them, but they wouldn’t let him do 2-hour interviews, so he declined. He can do it however he wants online.
murdok reporter Abby Johnson contributed to this report from BlogWorld.
