I'm flying out later today to speak at WebmasterWorld's PubCon Las Vegas 2006.I'm speaking at the "Feeds and Other Alternative Optimization Opportunities" session on Tuesday morning and at the "Press and Public Relations Campaigns" session on Thursday morning.

My business partner thinks I'm wasting my time because I've come back from two previous WebmasterWorld conferences in Las Vegas with only a handful of business cards that turned into even fewer qualified leads.

But, my primary reason for going to PubCon isn't lead generation.Webmasters are a much better target audience for a web analytics software vendor like ClickTracks than for a SEO and PR firm like ours.

And, no, my primary reason for going to WebmasterWorld isn't to have a few beers.(Nathaniel Broughton let me know a couple of days ago that I'm on the "3 points" list for the PubCon Drinking Game, a fun game he and a buddy came up with to help people network at PubCon this week. You can check it out at http://www.seothursday.com if you'd like.)

Actually, my primary reason for going to WebmasterWorld is to see what others are looking at in Las Vegas.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, let me explain.

According to an article in The Economist last week, "People, more than any other primate, depend on their fellow humans to figure out where to direct their attention."

The article was prompted by a report in the Journal of Human Evolution about new research that finds the whites of our eyes help people work out where everyone else is looking.(And, it appears that reports in journals help magazines figure out where to direct their attention, which helps me figure out what to write about, too.)

Being able to identify what someone else is looking at is thought be have been important to early humans.But being able to see "the whites of their eyes" is absolutely critical to anyone charting a course in our rapidly evolving industry.

So, what do I plan to direct my attention at WebmasterWorld?Which sessions will I be looking at – when I'm not speaking?

There is no physical way to attend all 43 sessions – because four are being held concurrently for most of the conference.Plus, I want to leave some time open on Wednesday or Thursday to get to the exhibit hall.So, I have to make choices.

Here is my preliminary list of the top 10 sessions – subject to changes once I see where every

one else is looking:

This process of seeing where others are looking has been very helpful to figuring out where our rapidly evolving industry is headed.

In 2004, while out speaking about news search, I saw others paying attention to sessions about blog search.So, we adapted our portfolio of services.

In 2005, while out speaking about news search and blog search, I saw others watching sessions about local search, shopping search, and vertical search.So, we adjusted our services to meet the needs of a changing environment.

In 2006, while out speaking about new search, blog search and vertical search, I saw others looking at sessions about audio search, social search and video search.So, what do you think we'll do next year?

I could duck the question by saying it's too hard to make accurate predictions in a market that changes as often as ours does.

But, you can make a fairly good educated guess after attending a conference like WebmasterWorld to see what the early adopters are adopting.

So, I feel that I can safely make the following prediction: Once I "see the whites of their eyes," I'll know exactly where the market is headed.

Okay, since many of the attendees will be playing the PubCon Drinking Game during the evenings, I may not see the whites of their eyes the following mornings.But, once I see their bloodshot eyes, I hope that I'll still have some vague sense of where we're all going.