More than 4,000 bloggers have converged on Las Vegas this weekend for the second annual Blog World Expo. Blog World features roughly 200 speakers speaking about all areas of blogging from Milblogs (military), godblogs, sports blogs, political blogging and blogs about virtually every topic you might imagine.
This afternoon, I will moderate the Financial Blogging panel with four terrific speakers:
- Paul Kedrosky, senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, strategist for quant fund Ten Asset Management and a frequent financial speaker on CNBC
- Felix Salmon, author of the Market Movers blog on Conde Nast Portfolio.com.
- Jim Ledbetter, Editor of the just-launched The Big Money, a Slate property; and
- Howard Lindzon, hedge fund manager and founder of Wallstrip.com
We'll cover a diverse set of issues. Obviously, we'll spend some time hearing their thoughts on the events of last week and the actions the Fed has taken to try to stop the bleeding. These four speakers are never shy to share their opinion and I'm sure we'll hear their thoughts on things like the ban on short-selling and what the market might look like in the coming months. We'll also focus on how bloggers were early to the subprime story, blogonomics and the business side of blogging and the impact of the blogosphere on the rumors that often drive trading.
This week's market events made clear the value that many of these alternative media voices add to providing understanding of critical market events. While traditional Wall Street analysts continue to play an important advisory role, their role has been diminished in recent years due in great part to the Spitzer settlement and its impact on the economics of sell-side research. Today, you're just as likely to find critical analysis coming from a hedge fund manager, an industry analyst or other opinion leaders, many of whom use blogs to communicate their ideas.
Are you at Blog World? Stop by to say hi after my session, send me an email or drop me a tweet @graubart and I'd love to say hello.