FOOA Archive

The Future of Online Advertising conference has now completed. This will serve as my wrap-up post.

My thoughts:

I think Carson Systems puts on a great conference overall. Both at FoWa and here there is a certain "family" feel to it. Rather than shuffling around from room to room might help but the whole team just does a great job in making everyone feel important.

One thing I miss from both of the CS conferences is the "future" discussion. Both conferences felt more like a "this is where we are today" rather than "this is where we are but this is where we are going" – when you call a conference "Future of …" you better give me some future. In fact the first speaker begins by saying, "This won't be about the future…" <– gasp.

Ryan is getting a name as "the wifi guy" – I could understand at FoWa with 500 laptops at one time trying to hit the net, but here in NYC, there were maybe 30 laptops and still major issues over the two days. Here is my suggestion for the next Carson Systems conference: Any deal you sign for Wifi should have one stipulation for payment: Accessibility. Not working = no payment. Maybe then the Wifi will work. I hate to bitch about it but if it won't work, just don't offer it so there is no moaning. How any Wifi provider can't handle 30 connections is downright wrong and should be hung.

Speakers:

Overall I thought the speakers were average at best. PayPerPost and ProBlogger were the best and really were above average. I was disappointed that Google had no answers regarding the CPA fraud and refunding processes and Ryan rushed those questions along. Ryan's online marketing overview was also well done even though it was a last minute replacement. However, most of the presentations lacked any signs of enthusiasm.

The man from VideoClix has an awesome looking product but his absolute lack of enthusiasm seemed to put the people in my row to sleep. Remember what I said on the Vint Cerf post, it's not just about what you say but HOW YOU SAY IT.

Location:

Location was great, worked very well. Ample bathroomage as well. There was a bit of an echo but no idea if that could even be removed in an old bank. The food was lovely and the staff was cordial as well.

Individual speaker notes:

• Greg Stuart/Ron Belanger
• Brent Hill / Kim Malone / Bill Wise
• Chas Edwards
• Ted Murphy
• Darren Rowse
• Joel Greenberg
• Jay Adelson
• Ryan Carson

I have audio of most of the presentations and could put them online if anyone requests them. I haven't posted them already because there is a lot of work to do with them before offering them.

Final thoughts:

I am looking forward to attending FoWa in my 2nd favorite city of London (wink wink press pass please wink wink). I enjoyed meeting everyone at FOOA. Hats off to the Bath'rs on a job well done!

Editor's note: If you know of a conference you would like us to cover, send me a note.

Here are my notes from the presentation by Ryan Carson of Carson Systems at the Future of Online Advertising conference.

Ryan was a fill-in for one of the presenters who cancelled at the last minute. Ryan decided to provide some insight into the marketing plans that Carson Systems used for the Future of Online Advertising conference. While I disagreed with Ryan's decision to show his ledgers for DropSend earlier this year, I think this made for a great discussion.

I don't have many notes from his discussion but here is the chart that he used for the basis for his discussion (click it for the larger version).

Basically Ryan ran two types of deals:

• Barter
• Paid ads

Barter included sites like TechCrunch where he offered a commission for signups. He also bought some ads. In the image, green are the barters.

I thought he did a great job of explaining how he decided on which types of ads to run. I think Ryan is awesome and hope one day I get a chance to sit down with him (and the team) to really learn more.

He then opened the discussion up to the audience. Several people provided tips for the future (get it ha ha) including myself:

• Offering "10% off" can make it appear like the conference isn't popular and might actually keep people away
• In addition, most of the attendees are coming from employers who won't care much about saving $80. Perhaps offer a book bundle instead.
• The ad they ran in the magazine had no wording about it being a conference and might have appeared as just a normal advert.

Do you have any suggestions for Ryan? Were you thinking of attending and decided not to? Would you attend in the future? Drop your thoughts in the comments!

Here are my notes from the presentations by Jay Adelson, Digg CEO at the Future of Online Advertising conference. I will post my complete commentary plus audio files this weekend (there is a LOT of audio editing to do) so please grab the RSS Feed.

Basically Jay's presentation was about Revision3 and how they are going about getting advertising. This was my first time hearing him speak live and I was concerned about how it would go after his great (sarcasm) Forbes interview earlier this year. I thought he did an OK job overall. 

Here are my notes:

• Stresses how important it is for us to create new standards.
• Internet video is a square peg:
  – three const. with differnt motives: aggregators, distributors and content owners
  – which group does a media buyer care about?
  – no standard players
  – industry raced to injection, pre-roll ad overlay
• Lots of debate about revenue
• Believes there are over 1000 startups trying to use the flash player for video content
• The death of pre-roll is coming and "post-roll is a joke"
• Basically shows product placements with actors in the videos/shows to sell
• Shows DiggNation and their PayPerPost-type ad for Verizon cellphone
• Future is consolidation, aggregation and standards.
  - custom, techniques increasingly leave agencies out of the creative loop
  - only a percentage of content can support custom creative
  - standards are required for integrated sponsorships, badging and overlay
  - aggregators and media reps needs to smell smaller, similar video properties in aggregate
• Takeaways
  – it's not a technology problem
  – media buyers increasingly understand impressions will be acquired through aggregators
  – for true roi, direct to content relationships will rule in 2008
  – standards around sponsorships are needed
• Donna from InsiderChatter asks a lot of questions but she did ask a good one that I was also thinking about in DiggNation vs. PayPerPost and his answer was ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT- basically he said that people know that the first part is an advert and that when Kevin discusses the Zune after the beginning advert he notes that he is now speaking "real" – I mean c'mon, would Kevin bash the Zune even if he hated it knowing that he just made nice cash from Bill? I doubt it. I don't think there is anything wrong with the type of ad that they are using, but it means that Kevin clearly is endorsing xyz product and anything further than that should be noted that it might be biased because of it.

Here is the video I captured. Some notes: I basically recorded his entire speech except the open discussion. I had to move the camera because the photographer stood in front of it (d'oh!) at about the 9 minute mark. The video is just under 20 minutes in length.

Here are my notes from the presentations by Joel Greenberg of Electric Sheep at the Future of Online Advertising conference. I will post my complete commentary plus audio files this weekend (there is a LOT of audio editing to do) so please grab the RSS Feed.

Joel's discussion centered around using virtual worlds for advertising. Mainly focused around Second Life. My notes:

• Begins by showing a demo of a CBS promo they did within Second Life.
• Virtual World medium is:
  – young (7 million registered users, 1 million monthly uniques)
  – viable
  – valuable
  – understandable
• Discusses the old time like compuserve and aol.
• Let's talk about sex – "all they are doing is having sex in second life"
• Notes different ways of advertising inside second life – federated media sells ads
• Mentions that Germany is the 2nd largest community in second life and the in-world advertising network out of germany is the biggest.
• Search within SL is growing – will we see SEO companies for this?
• Joel says that the events is one of the most important parts of virtual worlds
• Engagement is the thing that makes these virtual worlds a great opportunity for marketers
• Future trends:
  – lifelogging
  – better integration with the 2d web
  – larger audiences
  – more machismo
  – more advertising opps
  – opps for media planning
  – advertising standards
  – more consumer research

Here are my notes from the presentations by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger at the Future of Online Advertising conference. I will post my complete commentary plus audio files this weekend (there is a LOT of audio editing to do) so please grab the RSS Feed.

I thought Darren's presentation was one of the best of the two days. He had more energy (even though he has the flu) than most of the presenters. Plus he offered actual actionable items.

My notes:

• In his reader survey, thirty percent of bloggers make less than $10/month and 7% are making over $15000/month
• make money from your blog and because of your blog <– great point
• Tips for bloggers looking to pickup advertisers:
  – build a brilliant blog
  – be contactable
  – Get your about page in order
  – know your metrics
  – be selective
  – go with a niche approach
  – know how your ads convert
  – position, position, position
  – offer package ads
  – start with small advertisers
  – collaborate with other bloggers
• Pimps crazyegg as a great tool to see what is going on, showed some charts from CrazyEgg. I agree with Darren that you must use this tool, not just to show you what is working but to show potential advertisers what areas are hot so you can demand a premium for them!

This afternoon, PayPerPost Founder Ted Murphy provided an overview of his service to the Future of Online Advertising Audience. It was the same as his overview at AlwaysOn earlier this year. Since it was basically an informercial, I did not take any notes. But I do have the video (except the first minute) which you can view below.

Ted was the only speaker who had some life to him in his presentation. He opened it acting like Tony Robbins which was a nice break from the other standard presentations of the morning.

But, Ted did not take my advice about his presentation and yet again those HORRIBLE animations were there. WHY TED WHY. There is no reason for them, remove them now Ted.

Here is the video:

Here are my notes from the presentations by Chas Edwards of Federated Media at the Future of Online Advertising conference. I will post my complete commentary plus audio files tonight so please grab the RSS Feed.

• Chas believes there are only a small number of professional media sites that marketers should care about. (shows Cnet, Digg, Wired, PC Mag)
• Discusses how blogs are becoming more influential than traditional media sites
• Shows inbound links in Dooce vs. BabyCenter/iVillage and how Dooce is more influential in Google
• Shows the benefit for co-branded and "author-driven" creative performed 4x better than the indusry standard
• He basically pushed Digg and TechCrunch for the entire presentation.
• Best Practices
  – Locate your brand communities
  – follow the leaders, partner with them
  – add value to existing conversations