The Sway in May is open to a limited number of guests – so if you’ve received an invitation through Meet Up, make sure you RSVP ASAP to ensure you get to come along to the first event in this series.

If you’ve ever attended a panel discussion, you’ll know that they can bit hit and miss. Often you learn some very interesting things during the early stages of the discussion, but events can drag on, and leave you feeling that you’d quite like to jump on the panel yourself and have your say.

Which is why we decided to make The Sway a bit different.

The evening will kick off with three short, 10 minute presentations, and then we’ll move to a panel discussion. But it’ll be a panel discussion designed to prevent panellists from waffling on for too long. They’ll be given just 2 minutes to put forward a point, and then it’s open to the floor. Up to 3 people in the audience can add their opinion and bring their own experiences and expertise to the night. Again, to keep things short and useful, opinions can’t take up more than a minute each.

This means that all the talks and the panel discussion should be over in an hour. You’ll have had a good introduction to the people who have something useful to say, and then it’s time to make a beeline for the editors, writers and publishers you’ve been dying to meet.

And, if you’re really keen, you can sign up to speak at the next Sway event…

One of the big topics up for debate at The Sway will be just how bloggers, publishers and web editors can make money from all that new media content we’re creating. If you’re a smaller, independent website, selling brand advertising onto your site can be almost impossible – especially if you’re hoping to make higher CPMs than Adsense can provide.

Getting noticed by ad agencies who are busy trying to get good CPMs for their clients isn’t easy, and simply making enough noise to get onto their plans can be tricky – especially if you’re offering something that’s a little more “niche”.

So what’s the answer? Well, at The Sway, we’ll be discussing some of the alternatives to brand advertising that can be very effective for new media blogs and websites. So if you’re interested in meeting some fellow new media types, and you want to look at some other ways to make money out of your website, come along to The Sway and get involved in the debate.