BarCamp is coming to Washington, DC on 8/11. It's an unconference (attendees pick the session topics, and organize it. Some heavily technical BarCamp sessions. I've read writeups on several in Silicon Valley; it'll be interesting to see what form the DC version takes.

More and more online customers are becoming savvy about coupons. Generally, typing in "Merchant name + coupon" in Google will bring up a variety of pages that will show if there are discounts available. Many times these coupons were targeted at specific partners of the merchant; things like deal sites or affinity groups, who will get credit if you use their coupon. I've noticed a trend lately of merchants renaming the coupon field, presumably to try and avoid triggering people to go off site right before they purchase. I've seen "reference code" pop up on a few sites. It's an interesting balancing act, as they're trying not to make you feel like you're missing out in the middle of the sales process, and leave the site. Anyone else seeing this?

Latest emarketing links at blog.shop.org.