For a third consecutive year Webit Congress 2011 turned Sofia into the Digital Capital of Europe

November 1, 2011, Sofia, Bulgaria

For a third consecutive year Webit Congress turned Sofia for two days into the digital capital of Europe, gathering top professionals from the industry in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2011, the Congress was 5 times larger and consisted of 8 events, which attracted on October 26-27 more than 5000 professionals from over 45 countries in the Inter Expo Center-Sofia.

This year, the most visited and popular place of the forum was again the Main Marketing Stage, completely sold out a week before the event. The program began with an official opening in front of 1300 specialists from the industry in the region and continued with educational lectures and panel discussions with leaders from Facebook, Google, Microsoft Advertising, eBay, PayPal, Yandex, Yahoo! and others. Interesting facts were revealed on how to develop online business on global and local level, how to create and manage brands in social media, how effectively to sell online, how to measure the results of digital campaigns, how to do effective mobile marketing and many others.

The Expo part of the event brought together around 30 leading companies - providers of services and solutions in the area of online marketing and advertising, creative, mobile solutions and web hosting. Among the exhibitors there were companies like Sociable!, Adtech, Gemius, Httpool, CarnationGroup, Superhosting BG, ICN and many others. Everyone had the opportunity to take a look at the attractive stands and meet new partners and customers among the 5 100 visitors.

In the evening of October 26 the FirstWebit Awardsfor Digital Effectiveness in Central and Eastern Europe were held. They recognized the most successful online campaigns in 12 categories among participants from 22 countries. The only Bulgarian-winning campaign is the Sociable! one for the creation of the campaign -"Webit Most Influential People". The prestigious awards were handed over by Webit Ambassadors and presented by the Chairman of the honorary Board of Webit Ambassadors Allain Heuriux, as well as by Paul Berney and Plamen Rusev, Webit Ambassadors of Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia. Besides them, awards were given out by Edward Opara - Pentagram, and Rick Kelley - Facebook. The ceremony turned into a real gig with the appearance of Lior Raz (Shpigler the Shark), whose video advice to Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google and other global technology giants became one of the most shared videos on the social networks.

Another new event under Webit Congress was the GamesVille, which became the biggest forum for interactive online entertainment in Central and Eastern Europe. Developers, advertisers, distributors and investors came together to discuss the new opportunities and the future of the online gaming industry. Among the lectors were specialists from Travian, GameGenetics, XS software, Fish Labs Entertainment and others.

This year for the first time in Webit the event Creative Lounge was held, which is dedicated to digital creative. It brought together about 200 designers and advertisers from the region. Among the speakers were icons from the advertising and creative industry like Jason Little, Creative Director of Landor Associates France, Edward Opara, Partner in Pentagram, Tom Adams, Chief Digital Officer at FutureBrand Worldwide, Marvin Liao from Yahoo and others. The discussed topics were around the use of different advertizing formats, the process of identity creation, the use of applications, the necessary prerequisites for a working environment to provoke creativity and others.

During the second day of the congress for the first time in Webit there was the StartUp Village - an event dedicated to entrepreneurship in the digital industry. It gathered about 200 startups’ representatives and investors from Central and Eastern Europe. Among the main topics were the necessary prerequisites for a successful startup, how to find funding and the opportunities for transfer know-how from the Silicon Valley to the CEE region. One of the most interesting presentations was the one of Ilja Laurs, whose company GetJar was selected by the World Economic Forum as a 2011 Technology Pioneer in September 2010. Among the speakers were top professionals from Yandex, M-Tel, host.bg, Enterprise Estonia Sillicon Valley and others.

During the same day the Masterclasses also took place on the topic of "Communities: When Personal and Corporate Values ​​Merge". The presenter was Gillian Muessig, President and Co-founder of SEOmoz - the most famous global provider of SEO services, around which one of the most active professional communities in the network is formed. Muessig shared some good case practices and advanced techniques for building communities around the brand and how to use those communities as a basis for sustainable company development.

For the first time this year Webit Congress presented DevCamp Workshops ,which for two days attracted the attention of top developers and Web developers in Central and Eastern Europe and representatives of the world's leading OS and platform owners, including PayPal and M -Tel. During the event the participants shared their broad experience and contacts, as well as their vision for the development of both platforms and applications for them.

There was great interest also in the free part of the program, called Open Theatres. They gathered over 350 people per lecture, and for two days in total over 4000 people passed through them. The topics were around the cloud technology, the development of mobile marketing in Bulgaria, the ways to measure the effectiveness of online ads, etc. Among the speakers there were top experts from Yandex, Net Info, Investor, All Channels Communication Group and many others.

 

High-resolution images from the event can be found at the following link: http://www.webit.bg

For more information:

Simeon Polimenov, Event Manager, Webit Congress, phone:+ 359 886 606 222, email: simeon@e-acad.eu

Dimitar Sabev, Account Executive, All Channels|PR, phone: + 359 2 434 03 67, mobile: +359 878 610 600, email: dsabev@all-channels.com


Webit Congress Diamond Sponsor: Silver Sponsor & DevCamp Partner: Main Marketing Stage Gold Sponsor, StartUp Gold Partner, DevCamp Partner & Webit Awards Partner: Main Marketing Stage Gold Sponsor, StartUp Village Gold Sponsor: Digital Marketing and Innovation Stage Gold Sponsor: Diamond sponsor GamesVille: Official Hosting Sponsor: Gold sponsor of StartUp Village, Gold sponsor of Creative Lounge: Gold sponsor Creative Lounge: Diamond Media Partners: Platinum Media Partners: TV Production partner: Silver sponsor: Under the patronage of mayor of Sofia: Organization partner: Event technology partner: Official interpreter partner: PR partner: Strategic partner: With the support of: Catering partner: Organized by: Social media and interactive media partner: