December conference's keynote speakers reflect association's new directions.

The Specialized Information Publishers Association's annual mid-year marketing conference has focused almost solely on ecommerce the last couple of years. This year's meeting, to be held December 6-8 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, is called "Taming the E-Commerce Frontier: SEM, Conversion and Analytics to Drive Profits." It has an even stronger emphasis on e-commerce--on "corralling" (to pick up on the conference's western theme) subscribers online--with major presentations on website construction, traffic building, and sales conversion.

Conference co-chairs Guy Crossley and Phil Ash promise "a whole herd of fresh faces with money-making insights." Four of those fresh faces are just that--keynote speakers new to the newsletter and specialized-information industry:

* Kara Pernice Coyne, director of research, Nielsen Norman Group, will discuss "Transforming your site's usability--and profitability--with leading-edge eyetracking research from NN/g."

* Jared Spool, CEO, User Interface Engineering, will present "Proven site design strategies that make your customers happy."

* Dana Todd, executive vice president, SiteLab, and president of SEMPO, will show "How publishers can leverage search for increased revenue and market share."

* Kevin Wilk, director of channel strategy and development, Yahoo! Search Marketing, will describe "The search landscape--where we've been, where we're headed."

Familiar faces, too, and familiar formats

The conference will also feature the ever-popular roundtable discussions--15 of them--and breakout sessions, which will be led by veteran newsletter experts such as Craig Huey of CDMG, Jim Bell of IOMA, Tom Chaffee of ePublishing Inc. (a keynote speaker last year in Orlando), and Andrew Palmer of Agora Financial.

SIPA will also stage three pre-conference workshops: Marketing Directors Roundtable, Web Developers Roundtable, and Traffic-Building Workshop. Conference registration information appears in this issue in Who, What, When & Where.