I’m Alex Kirschner and I wanted to respond to your post about RSA Conference. In registering the 300+ media that attend RSA Conference over the years, we have put a standard process in place that encompasses bloggers, traditional media journalists and industry analysts. Anyone receiving a press pass must be able to demonstrate that they are being read by an audience invested in information security. Because we are making a significant dollar investment in each press person who attends, we are committed to reviewing each request with equal scrutiny to ensure those receiving a pass meet our strict journalistic standards.

Therefore, bloggers that are registered as press must meet the same criteria as traditional media. If an IDG publication is responsible for several stories a day while attending RSA Conference, we expect our bloggers to have the capacity and editorial focus to do the same or similar. As a blogger, the direct link you provide the press registration team will in fact be reviewed for its information security content and frequency of posting. We also use additional information, such as Technorati ratings, number of hits/page views and comment history to verify the credibility of the blog.

In reviewing your blog, we did not see enough posts regarding information security, a high enough number of comments, track backs or page views that would have qualified you for a press pass.

Please let me know if you have any further questions regarding our registration process.

Thanks,
Alex