Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?

In many ways, the Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference on May 12th was two different conferences. It was a conference for publishers and a conference for advertisers. It was a conference for people concerned about the decline of the economy and a conference for people that are hopeful for the prospects of digital advertising going forward. Yet perhaps the two different conferences can best be thought of as being made up of people asking why and those dreaming of something new and asking why not.

Jim Taylor of the Harrison Group was the first keynote speaker. His company has done a survey of the highly affluent in the United States. They account for 55% of the consumption in our country and 40% of the media consumption. They have been hit hard by the economic downturn with the average wealthy household losing 30% of their assets. Based on the survey, the Harrison Group is forecasting a 4% drop in consumption in this segment over the next 12 months, and a 5% drop in consumption overall. An end for the recession is not in sight according to Mr. Taylor.

Yet at the same time, this segment has become much more technologically savvy. 76% attribute their success to their knowledge of technology. 58% participate in some sort of content sharing online. 32% are now on social networks and 30% are sharing photos online. 79% believe it is more important to know how to search for information than to know the actual facts. 42% say that the quality of a company’s website affects whether or not they will visit the companies physical store. It provides an interesting new perspective on user generated content. Some of that content is being created by some of the wealthiest people in America, and while they are struggling, they are also much happier as they focus on family instead of consumption.

The disconnect between the two conferences struck me as I listened to the panel ‘The Media Moguls Address The Digital Content and Advertising Economy’. Perhaps the organization of the panel led to this disconnect. Who are the media moguls these days? Is it the newspapers as represented by Brian Quinn, Vice President and General Manager of Digital Ad Sales for The Wall Street Journal? Is it websites that aggregate professional journalism with user generated content as represented by Betsy Morgan, CEO of The Huffington Post? Or is it the users generating the content, whether they be the super-wealthy that The Harrison Group studied or simple bloggers like myself sitting in the audience? Is the concept of a media mogul even relevant anymore?

The panel spent time talking about whether or not the panelists viewed click-throughs as being very important and the question of ‘who owns the reader’. Is it the publisher or the advertiser? Some people suggested that perhaps the reader owns the reader. I don’t recall if someone on the panel suggested this or if came via Twitter.

After this panel Bob Sacks, CEO of Precision Media Group and a representative of those who dream things that never were and say why not, spoke. He spoke about what is going on with epaper, the importance of Twitter and challenged the audience to rethink how technology would change the media market. The blogger next to me commented about how many of the slides seemed old, reflecting things that have been talked about repeatedly over the past four years. However, I could not help but wonder for how many people these ideas were new. They seemed to provide a sharp contrast to the previous panel.

The contrast continued as panelists presented different views on importance of the size of web ads, thoughts about “homepage takeover” ads, which for some reason made me think of home invasions.

In many ways, trying to find valuable bits of information was similar to trying to find useful information in a stream of messages on Twitter, yet unfortunately, at this conference there weren’t as many people using Twitter as have been at other conferences. This lack of interactivity was also reflected in a paucity of interesting questions during the conference.

Nonetheless, there were some very interesting tidbits. For example, the Cost per Thousand Impressions, CPM, for portals ranges from $8.44 for Yahoo to $13.58 for AOL. Yet for social networking the prices are an order of magnitude less, $.60 for Facebook and $1.36 for MySpace. It made me curious to find out what the CPM is for various newspaper sites, and want to go back and check what I had calculated the effective CPM for the ad sharing networks popular amongst social bloggers.

Evan Adlman, VP of Strategic Development for Pontiflex gave a pitch for ‘Transparent Cost Per Lead (CPL) Advertising’, something his company specializes. His talk provided an interesting example of how advertising should work. At least in my case, he provided useful information that I intend to follow up on when the need comes. He mentioned that his company had done CPL advertising for the Obama campaign, and I’m curious about whether his company could be useful in advertising for smaller campaigns.

Essentially, Cost Per Lead advertising is a form of Cost Per Action advertising, where the specific action is filling out a form that becomes a lead for the advertiser. For politicians building an email list, this is worthwhile advertising.

Yet in another panel, researchers noted that only 32% of users click on advertisements and that 6% of the Internet population accounts for 80% of all clicks. With this, those interested in targeting can view this as a glass half full or a glass half empty perspective. On the one hand, the vast majority of potential clients are not reached with Cost Per Click, or for that matter Cost Per Action or Cost Per Lead advertising. On the other hand, those that are reached are perhaps more likely to be the most active, and perhaps thought leaders or influencers.

The person who seemed best to get this aspect was Joe Doran, CEO of Media6Degrees. He mentioned ‘homophilly’ in his talk, or the tendency of birds of a feather to flock together. When I made snide comments about a targeting panel later on, he responded on Twitter about homophilly and targeted audiences.

Perhaps this reflects another important aspect of what is going on with advertising. I don’t have any strong feelings about or relationship to the brand Media6Degrees, other than my views about Mr. Doran. Mr. Doran seemed smart and responsive, so I’m more likely to have a positive view of the company he heads. The relationship to brands is mediated by relationships to people that have some relationship to a brand. People that put a real, human face on a brand are likely to be more and more important in advertising, and that is probably a good thing.

Which brings me to my final reflection of the conference. Sarah of DigiDay:Daily worked hard to bring different bloggers together. Several of us sat in the same corner, gathered around powerstrips so we could stay on line during the whole conference. It established a little bit of community amongst the bloggers, and building of community is an important part of what people can and should be doing around their brands online.

So, was it a good conference? In part, it was a very good conference. There are people that are working hard to figure out innovative new ways to use the Internet to more effectively get their message out. Yet there are others that haven’t gotten past the idea of using old techniques, like billboards, combined with a little new technology, like counting impressions or clicks. They seem to still be trying to find new ways to make buggy whips relevant to people driving horseless carriages.

(Cross posted on Digiday:DAILY.)