We are at a place right now with social media and sharing behaviors, where small publishers are being threatened by the new distribution channel.

After opening comments by event MC Max Kalehoff, the keynote address was delivered by Arianna Huffington, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief at the Huffington Post.  She believes that social media is changing everything, from the way we consume media, to how we buy products, and even how we choose political candidates.

The first day of speakers concluded with a pair of sessions that discussed current statistics and trends for location based-services.  I had, of course, checked into the conference via Foursquare several hours beforehand. The Shopping Shift? — How Hyper-Local Communities Can Influence the Purchase Funnel Melissa Parrish, an analyst in the interactive marketing department for Forrester Research, [...]

After lunch, I checked out a panel that asked “Is it Time to Hire a Social Media Manager”.  (My answer, of course, is yes.  It’s time to hire me!) The panel was made up of a number of social media managers, and at least one so-called “social media rockstar”: Becky Hudephol, Director of Consulting Services at NM Incite (moderator) Marcy Cohen, Sr Manager at Sony Electronics Josh Karpf, Senior [...]

For the first track session, I joined the Marketing Track for a panel that claimed that “If You Don’t Know Search, You Don’t Know Jack!”  As the moderator noted, Jack couldn’t make it, but the following speakers were on the panel: Dax Hamman, VP of Display Media at iCrossing (moderator) Ben Plomion, Manager of Communication and Public Affairs at GE Capital Gerry Bavaro, VP and Managing Director [...]

The online advertising banner is about to turn sixteen years old.  After sixteen years, our ability to redefine space (at least in terms of pixels) may have matured, and we have to change our thinking to how creatives can change how they move ideas into an online space. Moving from the Banner to Interactive Jeff Benjamin, Chief Creative Officer of CP+B demonstrated examples of new trends in communicating [...]

I’m spending today and tomorrow at the OMMA (Online Media, Marketing, and Advertising) Conference in New York.  It’s an official event of Advertising Week 2010, put together by MediaPost.  In addition to a general session with speakers ranging from Arianna Huffington to marketing managers of leading technology companies, there are break-out tracks for Online Publishing, Media Planning, Marketing, [...]