1. EVENT INDUSTRY BAROMETER UP

Business conditions are continuing to improve for the meetings and events industry, according to The MPI Foundation’s April 2010 Business Barometer study, which surveys a select group of senior level meeting professionals every two months from the foundation’s 24,500 members. The majority of respondents (57 percent) indicate current business conditions are better than a year ago, and 64 percent project better upcoming business conditions compared with a year ago. February 2010 marked the first indication of an overall improvement in business conditions in 18 months, and the trend is continuing to grow. According to the study, the domestic corporate sector experienced the majority of new meetings and events activity by 41 percent.Within the past three surveys in February 2010, December 2009 and October 2009, the domestic corporate sector demonstrated the greatest increase in activity by 36 percent, 29 percent and 20 percent, respectively, indicating a clear upward trend over the past six months. Shorter lead times have become the most often mentioned trend affecting meetings and events at 11 percent compared with less than 2 percent in October. Following close behind, uncertainty regarding the future of the economy remains the second most commonly expressed trend influencing the industry (7 percent, down from 10 percent in February). The third-greatest trend respondents mentioned is the increase in the number of bookings in the industry (4 percent, down from 7 percent in February).

2. 126,641

The audited number of industry professionals at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) — a 12 percent increase over last year.

3. WHO “LIKES” YOUR SHOW SITE?

Social networking site Facebook recently released a new feature that lets users click a “like” button for topics, videos, companies, products and articles of interest online. Users can use the button to share content with others as well as choose to permanently display the items on their profile pages. Facebook then publishes the info through its new Open Graph social-sharing services, sharing it with sites that Facebook selects or that users have authorized to access their profiles. Although it’s already met some criticism over privacy concerns, the move could ultimately help boost search engine optimization (SEO) for organizations and shows that add the “like” button to blogs and other content on their Web sites. Adding the feature will let site visitors see which of their friends liked your content or commented on it. However, it’s not yet clear how Facebook will promote the passively recommended content within users’ news feeds.