bxb Online, the agency started to help people produce virtual events and digital extensions, will now be part of Culture22 and the bxb Online brand will cease to exist. This follows a recent capital partnership with Synetro Group, a private investment and strategic advisory firm.

“Customer Attainment from Event Engagement,” a new study by the CMO Council and the Exhibit & Event Marketers Association (E2MA), acknowledges the importance CMOs attribute to events, with 45 percent calling them the top demand-generating tool their organizations employ. “However,” the report says, “despite the importance of events in the marketing mix, justifying allocations, along with the rising costs of participating, have become taxing on the budget and give the continued investment into events a cloudy outlook. What is clear is that marketers are looking for value-added components to their event investments that deliver insights, measurements, analytics and deeper engagements with their most valued prospects and customers.” Coincidentally, Certain Inc., a provider of enterprise event management solutions, just announced enhancements…

There is a great whitepaper from the folks at Zerista that starts off “Getting money from event sponsors used to be easy.” For most, that was never really the case in the digital world surrounding the event…unless it was tied to something tangible at the event.

Streaming events is becoming mainstream as more large, high-profile events take place – such as the Royal Wedding, which had over 400 million streaming viewers. For many, the type of streaming service is still a question, however. We’re frequently asked if low-cost or free video streaming services such as Ustream can work for events. Let’s look at the Ustream model. Ustream, and a number of competitive services from YouTube Live, Livestream, Vimeo, Justin tv, etc., have solutions ranging from free (ad supported) streaming to high-def, high-profile, massive broadcasts that require custom work and constant monitoring. Free solutions get you an unlimited number of concurrent and on-demand viewers, and they don’t limit the bandwidth at which you stream. In fact, you…

With different functional areas now generating lots of content — often opportunistic in nature and often having a finite shelf-life — it must be managed. Some say that content creation is exploding. You marry this with video in all its shapes and forms; video as content, video as a way of collaborating, video and its demands on the network, and you start getting the IT organization’s attention.