I just rolled in early this morning from Las Vegas where I was spreading the HubPages love at the 2009 BlogWorld Expo, which is basically a huge event (2,500+ attendees) that attracts some of the biggest names in blogging, podcasting, social media and other web stuff. Me and most of the web-geeks who decide to make the journey to Vegas for BlogWorld are basically going for 3 reasons: to meet people, to create business opportunities and to learn some new things along the way. I posted a blog last week before I took off to Vegas and out of the list of people that I wanted to meet I would say that I pretty much got ’em all covered over the past couple of days — well, except for finding someone who knew where all of the hot slots were. I definitely didn’t end up meeting someone who knew that (and I lost $80 in about 5 minutes that can prove it).

So, who exactly were all of these awesomely amazing and super-cool people that I met during the BlogWorld madness and why am I so happy that I met each of them? Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to give you all a little run-down of the who left a memorable impression on me, how we hit it off so well and why I will definitely be staying in contact with each and every one of them. This probably won’t be a 100% complete list as I met so many great peeps while in Vegas, but this will give you a pretty good idea of who I ran into and why I’m happy that I did. Oh, and some of these people might have nothing to do with HubPages (no real business opportunity/partnership in the near future), but they still stuck in my mind as someone who was doing some really cool stuff.

How I’ll do this is by listing their full name, a link to their Twitter account and then a brief description of how I met them, why they were so memorable (or talkable) and what they’re up to on the web. If for some reason I left you off, feel free to yell at me in the comments and I’ll add you in if you’re legit. 🙂

>> I met Lacy Kemp (@realtweeter) and John Karalis (@redsarmy) on my first of many Monorail trips from the Hilton to the Convention Center (the official tweet). Lacy runs the blog and other social media for all of Real Networks products and not to mention that she became one of my favorite BlogWorld ’09 dance partners. John is a sports blogger who manages a Boston Celtics blog, RedsArmy.com. He’s just as tall as I am and although we tried to connect for an old has-beens game of horse, it never ended up happening.

>> When I was first hitting the hotel, Eric Berto (@GeekGiant), was standing out in front and that’s when I first realized that I was not the tallest geek at BlogWorld. In fact, he not only had me beat by a few inches, but he was much better looking than me, too (and he wasn’t shy about sharing that little tidbit of information). Me and Eric ended up running into each other several times during the event and I’m still sad that I missed him winning the FatBurger eating contest.

>> One of the most energetic and down-to-Earth guys that I met at BlogWorld was Chris Patterson (@ChrisBPatterson), who is the CEO of interchanges — an Internet/social media strategies business based in Florida. We talked for a while about the crazy world of social media and how we could help each other out. One of the coolest things about Chris is that he somehow got to stay in an amazing loft while in Las Vegas during BlogWorld. You can see a video of the loft below or over here on YouTube.

>> I met the wonderful (and tall) Shauna Causey (@ShaunaCausey) while taking the elevator down to grab some lunch during the first day of BlogWorld Expo. I fired up a quick conversation with her and when I told her how I was starving and was getting ready to grab something to eat, she told me that she was getting ready to go on a tour of Zappos and that there might be a couple of spots open. Well, I told her that I guess I’m going to go hungry a little bit longer because I wasn’t going to miss out on the chance to check out Zappos. The rest is pretty much history after that — we all went on the tour, has a TON of fun and I ended up hangin’ with Shauna and he friends a lot over the rest of the weekend. Shauna was reppin’ Voluntweetup, which is helping non-profits utilize social media to pull off big things.

>> If you’re looking to connect with someone who not only talks about making a difference in this world with social media, but actually goes out and does it then look no farther than Sloane Berrent (@sloane). I first met Sloane when I randomly crashed the Zappos tour because she’s the one who organized it. From the very first time that I met Sloane she was super cool, smart, sweet and a little fiesty, which isn’t a real easy combo to find these days. I had a great time learning more about and hanging out with Sloane the rest of the weekend and if you want to find out more about what she’s up to you can check out The Causemopolitan or her personal web directory, SloaneBerrent.com. Also, check out the video of her below or over here on YouTube when you get a chance — it’s all about her crazy ‘Cause it’s my birthday’ tour where she raised thousands of dollars for Malaria-fighting mosquito nets. Oh, and p.s. Sloane loved my bromance for one of our mutual friends and she loved to tell others all about it. How embarrassing (yet, true).

Well, that’s a good first list of peeps that I loved meeting and hangin’ with at BlogWorld 2009 and I could go on for a lot longer, but this post has already gotten way out of hand so I’m going to stop. If you’re wondering how I remember all of this info about these people that I met (especially after talking to literally several hundred at my booth), I might just have to give you all some tips on how I do it in a later blog post. Thanks again to all of the amazing people that stopped and talked to me and I’m looking forward to keeping up with with all of you now that I’m back in San Francisco. Oh, and if you’re ever out my way, be sure hit me up — I’d love to buy you lunch (for real).