The Pivot conference is revving up again, scheduled to hit the Big Apple on the 17^th – 19^th of October, 2010. If you have anything to do with the marketing sweet spot of 18 – 34 year old generation ‘T’ (Techies), then you should definitely consider stopping by.

Why?  5 reasons for you:

Reason 1- First off, Pivot is the premiere brouhaha where ad agencies and brand marketers gather to discuss the styles, attitudes, preferences and technologies of said age bracket. Let’s face it, the trends in this marketing demographic change faster than Facebook’s privacy settings. So if you want any form of a heads up about what was, what is and what will be, for the hipsters of hi-tech, PIVOT’s a good place to start.

Reason 2- Need we mention that the fastest growing industry on the web is social media, and still, SM giants like Facebook and Twitter have yet to monetize themselves to the point of profitability (poor guys). Pretty much all of them are primarily looking toward advertising models to turn that around and reach projected revenue marks in the tens of billions. It’s probably a good idea then to hear from the proverbial horse’s mouth (i.e. The ad and marketing industry) exactly what kind of models we can expect to see being used to hit these mammoth numbers.

Reason 3-Then there’s social gaming. One of the hottest sub-sectors of of social media today. If there is one thing that has effectively lobotomized the greatest minds of business school theorists, it’s the meteoric rise of social gaming. No one could have predicted just how popular it would become, but people like Evan Cohen, GM of Foursquare and scheduled speaker at Pivot, are probably your best bet for the inside scoop on where social gaming is going. Which brings us to reason #4.

Reason 4- Some of the most qualified names in the industry are going to give their take on the above issues and more, including (but not limited to):

• Brian Solis, Founder, FutureWorks
• Samir Arora, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Glam Media
• Evan Cohen, General Manager, Foursquare
• Sam Decker, Chief Marketing Officer, Bazaarvoice
• Esther Dyson, Founder, EDVenture Holdings
• Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing Search (Microsoft)
• Scott K. Wilder, GM Communities, Intuit
• Michelle Bonat, CEO, RumbaFish
• Wendy Lea, CEO, Get Satisfaction

How many reasons is that so far, 4? What was that last one? Oh yeah:

Reason 5- Blonde Readers will receive a 20% discount when you register with this promo code:

T2BAP201

Why? Because we’re awesome and we take care of our own. Stick with us kid, and life will be good.

So in conclusion, if you want to be on the dishing out end of being able to say to your friends “That’s so five minutes ago” instead of on the receiving end – and if you’re between semi to very cool … Then make sure you’re at PIVOT.

Social gaming has become huge in the last year, reason being that playing games is naturally a social activity. Social gaming basically combines the best of the gaming portals with the social network platform. What’s so great about this idea, is that the social tools offered, enable casual gamers to play in a much more fun, interesting and competitive environment. It not only allows friends to share their scores with one another, it creates a fun way for people to interact, create and receive feedback.

While more and more gaming sites are hopping on this trend, XPO Games is one trend hopper who’s doing it right.

XPOGames describe themselves as a fully-featured social network for both casual gamers and game developers. Gamers can join the fun; play original casual games and use the featured socializing tools to meet new people and share their experiences, while developers can submit and expose their originally created games and monetize them. XPO Games launched in 2007 by Daniel Yaron and Hagay Nave when they realized the void and solitude one can experience on other casual gaming websites. “The games were there, but the community and social tools weren’t!” says Daniel Yaron. They decided to go beyond the portal functionality by including features such as the ability to like games, create profiles, friend other users, send them messages, post on walls, utilize the live scoring system and news feed, and win trophies. In addition to all this, the XPO Games platform allows developers to ask users for feedback on which games to create.

Gaming just makes more sense when you play against your buddies. Daniel and Hagay have realized this and have taken it to the next level.

XPO Games is still in private Beta and we’ve got  invites for all Blonde 2.0 readers! Get yours here.