AD:TECH SF 2006 Redux

From: Cliff Kurtzman <moderator_at_o-a.com>
Date: Mon 01 May 2006 13:31:13 -0500

Some quick thoughts on the show...

It was huge... the move into Moscone Center proved a great success,
with more than 9000 estimated to have visited all the exhibits.

So many businesses in our space, and sorting it all out remains very
confusing. Many of these companies have sound business models and
good revenue bases. Yet for the most part they remain extremely
weakly branded, poorly differentiated, and there are slim barriers to
entry, so there are always plenty of new entries into the fray.

One the content side, I think Susan Bratton and Warren Pickett took a
lot of chances this time with some innovative and unusual session
topics, and for the most part, those gambles seem to have paid off.
Some sessions (e.g., those on search marketing) were so very crowded
that people were denied entry, which was unfortunate. Other sessions
(like one on international and multicultural marketing) were nearly
empty, even though some of the content was quite good.

I think that some topics are important to the industry and should be
presented even if attendance is slim at those sessions. But the
organizers need to improve in terms of having bigger meeting spaces
for the more popular sessions, so that everyone that wants to attend
them is able to do so. I recognize that it surely isn't easy when
planning a conference to know how many will attend and where their
interests will lie ahead of time.

The only session I heard explicitly negative feedback on was the one
on social networking, in which representatives from Hi5, Live
Journal, and MySpace presented. The session was jam packed, so it was
clearly a high interest topic. Yet several people commented to me
afterwards it had seemed more fluff than actionable substance, and
they felt they had not really learned anything new from what was
presented.

I did my session on industry M&A in the main conference room, right
after Keith Ferrazzi's keynote, so there was plenty of room, and it
was reasonably well attended. I had a twenty minute long line of
folks (primarily business owners, VC, and M&A folks) with follow-up
questions and business cards afterwards, and Red Herring did an
article that covered the session as well:

ad:tech Rides the Bull
The drivers of the tech economy revel at an online ad conference.
http://www.redherring.com/article.aspx?a=16681

Some more good coverage of the conference can be found in:

DM News: Ad:tech Crowds Highlight Interactive Industry's Resurgence
http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=36650

and

AD:TECH Blog
http://www.adtechblog.com/

I know a lot of our list members were at the show. If you where
there, what did you think? What worked well, and what didn't?


--Cliff

Clifford R. Kurtzman
CEO | Moderator
ADASTRO Incorporated | The Online Advertising Discussion List
http://www.adastro.com | http://www.o-a.com
(281) 480-6300




Received on Mon May 01 2006 - 13:31:13 CDT