Ad:Tech NYC 2007 - Wednesday Morning Keynotes

Part one - The State of the Industry, presented by the IAB

Moderated by Randall Rothenberg president and CEO of the IAB the panel was Suzie Reider, head of advertising sales for YouTube.com; Michael Barrett, executive VP Chief Revenue Officer Fox Interactive Media; Arianna Huffington - Co founder and Editor in Chief Huffington Post; Matt Freeman CEO Tribal DDB Worldwide.

Great conversation though I entered in the middle so missed some of their introductory remarks and discussions.

In the Q&A a lot of discussion about pre-roll (and how bad it can be). Including from the CEO of Tribal DDB Worldwide. Fox brought up 24. "Pre-roll is a clumsy way to get the sponsorship money" - "Ultimately we are not serving our clients well if we are irritating consumers"

Question about cookies - "education to the masses" (hmmm very odd perspective I think but he is assuming the audience is with him). IAB has launched a campaign around the value of interactive advertising - spywares w/cookies etc. Industry is trying to inform people. (Michael on the panel is on the IAB board)

Question about minors online (seems de rigueur for these types of panels)

Part two - Innovate or Die! Thriving in the age of disruption

Moderator -Jon Fine Media Columnist BusinessWeek. Panelists -Jason Hirschhorn president Sling Media Entertainment group; Paul Woolmington Founding Partner Naked Communications; Brad Jakeman Former Executive VP Creative Strategy Macy's Inc (now a consultant).

Starts with a useful definition of disruption - consensus on breaking current models (that you didn't create from one panelist). "Everyone worships change, it is cool to be disruptive". Why does this stuff matter? (Microsoft is still bigger than Apple - though I would personally argue this is misleading in some ways)

A bunch of discussion, now moved onto the logical area of music. Brought up LiveNation - and now cut off this topic (tabled for the hallway afterwords)

Great comment "that speech was zero calories" on political talks (I think the guy from Sling Media)

Pinging back to the first keynote today about threat from opting out of advertising.

Morning overview and early post-lunch takeaways

The audience is much smaller now that the trade show is closed, but it is still a very large number of people. My perosnal estimate would be a bit over 1000 people who have stayed for the full conference program. It is a bit difficult to estimate as post-keynotes the talks are spread across at least four separate rooms (and multiple other conferences are being help in the small spaces throughout the Hilton meeting spaces.

All afternoon as one session let out a line formed to get into the next session, on the one hand a sign of slightly cramped spaces and challenging logistics, but also a sign that the topics have been resonating with the audience. On one panel this afternoon they asked how many people in the room were from agencies, in a room of probably 500 or so people, about 30-40 people raised their hands.

However after the keynotes this morning the sessions seem to have been diminishing in energy levels as the day has worn on. I don't know precisely why I have this perception, some combination I suspect of spaces which are indoors and windowless, with ample white noise in the background, slightly dimmed lights, and too many speakers talking in mostly a monotone voice. There is a marked difference between the speakers who talk while standing - and the panels which so far have mostly been with speakers seated, behind a table on which they can (and sometimes do) lean down, shoulders rounding.

I am going to skip the final panel this afternoon and instead head out to a dinner here in NYC. At the dinner will be many people who are attending Ad:Tech, but also people who are in town for some of the many other conferences happening this week here in NYC. Though so far at least little news has been made here today - certainly this week will go down as an important week in the digital advertising world.

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. His first server on the Internet was in 1991, he started his first company in 2000 after many years working as a technology consultant.