ad:tech San Francisco 2008 - First Impressions

ad:tech San Francisco has started, the booth babes are here in more than full force and the buzzwords are flying fast and furious. As I twittered at one point in the show earlier today, it seems a requirement that at least three buzzwords be used in any sentence, especially in answer to a question by a member of the press. Apparently this year's ad:tech in San Francisco has record attendance and clearly from the twitter traffic there are more twitter users here than were active at ad:tech NYC. Today has seen a few announcements (more on those in later posts) and a variety of panelists, keynotes and lots of rather overly similar exhibitors.

But scattered amongst the affiliate networks, pay-per-click networks, SEO/SEM firms, and many others there are a few interesting companies and organizations here - and there is also most definitely a lot of networking occurring (indeed I overheard two women talking to each other about how great the networking was as they were apparently debating about heading back to their offices earlier this afternoon, I think decided to stay).

A few broad observations, in later posts I'll go into greater depth.

1. The ad:tech crowd is not a purely Silicon Valley crowd. Far, far from it. A few of us here in jeans, but far more people in suits (and yes even ties). In general the men and women are in business professional dress unless they are booth babes, of which there are many (more than I expected). From the use of Twitter and some people who I know who are here, there is definitely a few of us here who are deeply technical, but for the most part though held in San Francisco, this is a not a Silicon Valley/Web 2.0 crowd.
2. The level of booths ranges dramatically. From a few booths which are truly among the most impressive I've seen in a very long time, to many others that even as I got very close to them left me deeply puzzled (not to mention at least two firms or organizations that had a booth but didn't show up at all. Among the most impressive, a booth done over as diner, complete with Jones' sodas, pies, and coffee and "booth babes" in 1950's dinner garb. In contrast, there were booths with only signage.
3. Many of the bloggers and press (and audience) are more connected than the speakers. I have been tracking variations of the term "ad:tech" via Twitter tracking, the commentary of the active twitters is pointing out how basic many of the presentations have been. Others have been pointing out that there should be other perspectives on many of the presentations. I'm also finding a wide range of opinions about the crowd and event - some loving it, others finding it boring or basic.
4. There are too many _______. Too many ad networks, too many SEO firms, too many mobile platforms, too many too similar of nearly everything exhibiting here at the show. I've heard this from attendees directly, I've seen this sentiment via many people's twitters (especially about "ad networks". [Full disclosure here, I am, myself, building a new ad network - though what we are doing and our focus is rather different, or at least I'd like to think that]

Now back to walking the trade show floor, avoiding booth babes and eager salespeople pitching affiliate networks and popunders.

Shannon Clark is a founding partner at Nearness Function, a new ad network for the publishers of dynamic content which will launch in a few months. He is the organizer of MeshForum - an annual conference on the study of networks and the one day MeshWalk series of walking conferences. He has been blogging for many years at Searching for the Moon where he covers technology, economics, food, and the life of an entrepreneur.