Today, I reported from ad:tech in San Fran­cisco for ad:tech. Ten times a year all around the world, peo­ple asso­ci­ated with the online adver­tis­ing indus­try con­vene for ad:tech. Every year the con­fer­ence rolls into San Fran­cisco, I attend. This year, ad:tech hired me to report on the event for their blog.

Just a few years ago, ad:tech was a dinky con­fer­ence held in the base­ment of the Mar­riott. Every booth was that of an search engine mar­keter (SEM) or search engine opti­mizer (SEO). Today, things have changed dra­mat­i­cally and the online ad indus­try has become highly nuanced with many ven­dors tak­ing posi­tions to own unclaimed ter­ri­tory in the ad buy­ing and sell­ing process. Since its days in Marriott’s base­ment, ad:tech has grown up to San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

I’ve been in and out of the ad busi­ness for many years and I’ve noticed that adver­tis­ing is always a good barom­e­ter of the econ­omy.  It’s the first indus­try to get hit when things are look­ing bad, and it’s also the first to respond when the econ­omy is on the upswing. While I don’t know about the bal­ance sheets of all the indi­vid­ual com­pa­nies, the con­fer­ence was packed and the mood was positive.

Here’s my mid­day show report of the first day of the conference.

I’ve got lots more video cov­er­age includ­ing an end of the day show report, a one-on-one inter­view with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, plus some great insight from ven­dors and atten­dees on the show floor.

	Ad:tech SF 2009 — End of the Day Show Report
	Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia on the Future Brand Build­ing with Con­sumer Gen­er­ated Media
	Greg Ster­ling on Pete Blackshaw’s Inno­vate or Die Keynote Panel
	Adver­tis­ers Increas­ing Demand for Per­for­mance Based Advertising
	Human­ity Inter­ac­tive Builds Amaz­ingly Life­like Vir­tual Char­ac­ters Start­ing at $1000
	Plainblack.com is the Non-Programmers Site Devel­op­ment Environment
	Nokia Demos its Image Recog­ni­tion Technology
	Accord­ing to Advertise.com, Every­one in the Ad Busi­ness is at ad:tech
	Live­mer­cial: From Prod­uct, to Web Site, to Sale
	Keynotes, Par­ties, and New Busi­ness — ad:tech’s Holy Trinity
	Look­ing for Oppor­tu­ni­ties on the ad:tech Show Floor
	Can You Get Course Credit Roam­ing the Floor at ad:tech?
	Meet­ings, Meet­ings, Meet­ings at ad:tech
	Look­ing for Part­ners on ad:tech Show Floor
	Why Isn’t Online Adver­tis­ing Accountable?
	Peo­ple Who are Spend­ing More Online Have a Top Down Directive
	Inno­vate or Die…OK, Maybe It’s not Going to be that Bad
	Is YouTube our Lifeline?
	Coca-Cola Admits to the Good and Bad of Dig­i­tal Branding

And here’s some addi­tional cov­er­age from the first day at ad:tech SF 2009:

• How Reach in Dig­i­tal has Changed (From 2003 to 2009)
• Are Agen­cies Ready to Build Brands in the Dig­i­tal Age?
• In a Crappy Ad Econ­omy, Inno­va­tion is Key
  by Steve Hall
• Another video inter­view with Jimmy Wales by Angela Nativi­dad: Jimmy ‘Jim­midee’ Wales, Post Keynote
• Steve Hall’s pho­tos from the par­ties: Glam Inter­ac­tive Kicks Off ad:tech San Fran­cisco Social Festivities

For all the cov­er­age of the event, read the ad:tech blog.David Spark helps busi­nesses grow by devel­op­ing thought lead­er­ship through sto­ry­telling and cov­er­ing live events at Spark Media Solu­tions. He blogs at The Spark Minute and can be heard and seen reg­u­larly on ABC Radio, Cranky Geeks with John C. Dvo­rak, and KQED in San Fran­cisco. See his busi­ness pro­file, con­tact David, or leave a com­ment below.

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