I am at ad:tech today to blog their conference. It is going on all week. The exhibition hall was open Monday and Tuesday, and I didn't make it to that. The conference started yesterday and runs through tomorrow. I can only take so much of these conferences, so I chose today as the day to come.

Today started off with a keynote, The State of the Industry presented by Randall Rothenburg President and CEO of Interacive Advertising Bureau. The panel included Suzie Reider, head of advertising sales for YouTube.com, Michale Barret, EVP and Chief Revenue Officer, Fox Interactive Media, Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and editor in chief of Huffington Post and Matt Freeman, CEO Tribal DDB Worldwide.

Randall started off with some great questions and admonitions. He noted the phenomenal growth of online content and talked about the importance of advertising in funding this environment. Then he warned about 'anti-consumer' groups seeking regulation of online conent, and particularly online advertising. He used this to encourage people to respect the user with as much transparency as possible, as well as to key a close eye on what is going on in Washington and in the state capitals.

... A couple hours later...

I've been busy taking notes... There has been a lot of good content at ad:tech. As such, I may not get a chance to combine it all as nicely and quickly as possible, so, I'll put up this post as is, and hope to have more to come.

Quick side notes... The traffic patterns here are horrible. It took forever to get out of one session and into the next. One of the panelists commented about how great it was to have to wait in line to get into their own panel.

I've found a good corner to sit in where there was an outlet. I've plugged in my power strip and there are now five people plugged in. There are a lot of laptops and a lot of people looking for connections. Related to this, the WiFi is up and down, perhaps as it gets overloaded.

(Technorati tag adtech)