Todd Keefe always did a great job managing the press room, etc at the VON events and now that the VON events are gone, we thought it made sense to have Todd join TMC in promoting ITEXPO, the World's Communications Event. Officially, it is Keefe's company, For Immediate Release who will handle the PR and we are happy to have him onboard and we look forward to hosting you all at ITEXPO September 16-18, 2008 in Los Angeles.

I am back from NXTComm, the Voice Peering Forum and my trip to Vancouver. It is good to be home and I have so much to share. A few things you should know about are the fact that TMCnet was on-hand at NXTComm doing video interviews with a number of the movers and shakers.

Here is one of these interviews with Erik Linask and Sam Lisle from Fujitsu. This interview page has a menu of all the interviews so I hope you enjoy them all.

On another note, my team and I will be gearing up to put the final touches on ITEXPO which takes place September 16-18, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This show will consist of an audience that is approximately as follows:

• 20-30% Service Provider
• 20-30% SMB/Enterprise
• 20-30% Reseller
• 10+% Industry

The total attendance will be be between 7,000-8,000

At the same time, the Communications Developer Conference will take place and will consist of the who's who in the communications developer world. In fact this is the world's only communications developer event.

I just learned in fact that some attendees especially enjoy the timing of these events because the following weekend, a short drive away is the Manhattan Beach Open Volleyball Tournament. Whether you are a volleyball fan or not, I am looking forward to personally greeting you at the show.

Be sure to submit your call for papers entries for the Communications Developer show which will be collocated with ITEXPO later this year in the Los Angeles, California Convention Center.

The specific dates of the event will be September 16-18, 2008.

You know I have always been a huge fan of open APIs and the concept that communications will become embedded in other parts of our lives and software.

This trend is on the rise and we are happy that Communications Developer is the world's forum for software development in the communications space.

See Also

• Tom Keating's Blog
• Press Release

I am very happy to be the first to tell you TMCnet is in the midst of one of its largest graphical overhauls. We are very proud of our new look which emphasizes softer blue colors and shades.

There are millions of pages on TMCnet and half or more of these pages have been updated so far. We expect to be finished with the update in the next 48 hours or so.

We would love your feedback.

This week, we have a total of nine TMC team members traveling to industry events. Dave Rodriguez, Erik Linask and I are headed to VoiceCon while Greg Galitzine will be at VON. I am looking forward to an information packed week and our editorial team is ready to cover all breaking news as it happens.

Over the past decade, TMCnet has become the accepted resource for news, product research and analysis in communications and technology markets - including telecom, VoIP, and contact centers. Moreover, the site has become the defacto location online where companies build loyal communities of interest on a variety of topics. Since 2004, TMCnet has built close to one hundred and fifty communities of various sizes (current communities, channels/microcommunities) for our partners.

These communities have proven time and again to be one of the most successful products TMC has ever launched in conjunction with our advertisers and sponsors. With an astronomical renewal rate of 70% year-over-year, TMCnet communities drive tremendous traffic to our partner's Web sites and help them achieve higher levels of search prominence.In fact, we receive numerous testimonials from companies whose TMCnet communities actually attract more visitors than their own Web sites.

As TMCnet has grown, dozens of new writers have joined our team. These editors, strategically placed in the U.S. and around the globe, cover breaking news as it happens. We have also hired true thought leaders whose insight and opinions are valued by TMCnet's millions of monthly readers. It is this vast supply of news, analysis, opinion, and product reviews that drive TMCnet's 2-3 million unique visitors to the site each month.

Recently we have been getting requests to build communities to help companies reach their target audience in vertical markets such as medical, education, government and financial. These areas are covered extensively by TMCnet writers every day. It is only natural that similar content on topics like "communications in hospitality markets", for example, get placed and promoted in a single community where decision makers can bookmark and come back to again and again in order to stay up to date.

We are happy to announce that TMCnet's Vertical Community program is being launched today. TMCnet will work with our partners to help you achieve thought leadership, branding and search engine optimization in the vertical markets most important to your success.

The communities are available on a first-come, first-served basis and are exclusive by advertiser.

We welcome your questions so please drop a line to Dave Rodriguez today for more information.

In an effort to allow TMCnet readers easy access to the breadth of TMCnet services such as the personalized MyTMCnet and TMCnet Mobile, TMCnet has launched a new TMCnet Services page which will allow you to instantly access the specific services you need access to.

As always, it is our pleasure to provide our growing communications and technology global online community with news, opinion and analysis that helps you you stay up to date and make better purchasing and partnering decisions.

Thanks once again to our loyal TMCnet readers. Because of you, TMCnet has broken more online records. In January of 2008 TMCnet experienced 38,368,961 page views (meaning total number of web pages viewed on TMCnet in January alone.

The total number of unique visitors on our site in January was 2,446,403 which is not an all time record but it is higher than recent months. Average Visit Length per person on TMCnet in January was 28 minutes and 59 seconds this past month.

These numbers are according to Webtrends.

According to Quantcast, TMCnet has increased its US traffic per month to 927,322. What is great about Quantcast is that you can compare the traffic of various sites. As you may recall, last month our Quantcast total of US visitors was 870,019. We have increased 6.6% month over month.

Thanks to our readers and advertisers, TMCnet has experienced non-GAAP record online revenue growth of over 80% in January and as a sign of thanks to our readers we have added nine new writers to our team already this year.

That is more than one person per week.

I do not know all of our new writers personally but the ones I know are of the highest quality and are truly respected thought leaders. My team assures me the same about the others. I am sure you will recognize many of these esteemed thought leaders.

They consist of Charlotte Wolter, Gary Kim, Jon Arnold, Peter Radzieski, Scott Wharton, David Yedwab, Taran Singh, Rick Graves, and Dr. Alan Solheim.

At the end of last year, Jagan Jagannathan and Phil Hill also began writing for TMCnet.

Our ongoing commitment is to our readers... We appreciate that you make TMCnet your destination for finding the latest and most authoritative news, analysis and opinion in the world of communications and technology.

As we grow we will retain our commitment to quality as we increase our total content offering.

I must also thank the TMCnet team who is working harder than ever and our growing list of advertisers who believe in our vision and have helped us get to where we are today.

I would also like to point out that today I just received my PR Vibes fom the well-respected PR company Calysto Communications regarding TMC's recent ITEXPO in Miami, FL.

In the newsletter there was a quote worth sharing:

TMC seems to be really ramping it up. While other industry publishers seem to be dropping print pages and slowing down, the TMC organization is doing the opposite. They keep adding more and more familiar names to their roster and growing all their products – from print to event, but especially online.

Thanks to Calysto for noticing our incredible growth rate and mentioning it. We appreciate the nice comments and will continue to do our absolute best to build communities and content of the highest quality into the future.

I just couldn't help but sharing this article about how companies who increase their marketing spend in a recession come out of it doing better than when they went into it. I am not advocating that there is a recession mind you but even in a slow down, the companies who remain consistent in their messaging do better than others who wait for phones to ring by themselves.

What are your thoughts?

TMC's newest contributor is Jon Arnold. Jon is is one of the most methodical and knowledgeable people I know in the IP communications space and I have always admired him a great deal. TMC has worked with Jon for many years and now we are proud to say Jon has become a regular columnist.

Here is his first column titled What is a Service Provider?.

You can find Jon's columns here and Greg Galitzine has more on where you will see Jon at ITEXPO next week.