Ad:Tech NY, The Javits Center, New York
November 4, 2009

It's official. I hate the Javits Center.  I know, I know, hate is a strong word.  If you hate something, you wish it dead.  If there is a lighter word that means temporary coma, let me know.  It's practically in the river, that Javits.  Public transportation won't even go near it.  It's just not ped-friendly, which was made clear to me when I was almost hit by not just one but four cars when I clomped through the cross walk on 35^th and 10^th with the right of way.  I was human frogger, and that's no exaggeration.  This, my friends, was my introduction to Ad:Tech New York, the burbling quagmire that is the intersection of advertising and technology.

I truly experienced the perfect slice of commuting hell on the way to the land of ad networks. When I transferred from the L to the A,C,E at 8^th Avenue, I was met with the four horsemen of the subway apocalypse.  Horseman #1 was the "this pole is for my entire body" guy.  He could have been a blessing in disguise -- limiting the real estate for budding H1N1 germs to gestate.  #2 was granny prostitute: an overly made-up old hooker with skin-sallowing magenta lipstick, pummeling the hell out of the wad of gum in her mouth, making sure the entire subway car heard and saw her mastication progress. #3 was "morbidly obese leering construction worker" with horseman #4 to my immediate right; flailing coked-up businessman - who was strangely snapping pictures of his own hand repetitively with his iPhone.

I arrived safe and sound in time to catch the "Location Awareness: Mobile's Effect on Location-Based Advertising, Search, and Social" panel.  Gracing us with their expertise were Josh Walker, CEO, CityVoter.com; Alistair Goodman, CEO, Placecast; Dan Gilmartin, VP of Marketing, uLocate; Dustin Jacobsen, Technical Director, Barkley; and Naveen Selvadurai, Foursquare.  They were moderated by the obviously tired, but still dry-humored Brian Levin, CEO and Co-Founder, Useful Networks (his competitor from Useless Networks was nowhere to be found). 

Levin kicked off the panel by declaring a drinking game - where panelists had to drink their Coronas every time they said either "Google" or "iPhone."  Yes, many "if I follow the rules, I'd have to finish this!" quips were heard.

Things I took away from the panel? They're aware that they're on repeat.  "Groundhog Day" was a favored analogy, with the challenge to actually walk the talk hindered by what every digital marketer is up against: regulations and privacy concerns.  "You opted into that..." was Naveen Selvadurai's retort to fears of nefarious activities (a la Craigslist killer and other fun fears like stalking and the "you're not who you said you were" favorites) spawned by location awareness/profile-driven hookup sites.  Is "you opted into that" the new "you wouldn't dress that way if you didn't want it"?  Dan Gilmartin thinks that being more transparent (buzzword alert!) with location awareness intention will open more doors.   He gave an example of how he downloaded a checkers app that asked for permission to access his location.  Obviously the question is, why would a checkers app need to know his location?  Educating your consumer will get you everywhere.

Also, in theory, enabling the "text our panel your questions" feature and displaying these texts live on screen is great.  In practice, this means the audience is reading the next questions while the panel is answering the first.  Man, we are such an ADD society, aren't we?

After the panel,I headed to the expo hall with Dario Meli of Invoke Media for a $7 bottle of Bud Light (yes, you read that right.  This is causing my Midwestern brethren to pass out) and conversation. Dario admits that he and the Hootsuite team still get geeked-up when a totally random person tweets with the "sent from Hootsuite" status.  Purely out of curiosity he hit the "Get a free logo in 45 minutes" booth to see what they'd churn out.  The results are pending.  Did anyone else do that?  If you did, send your results to Kelly@mediapost.com (include any guidance you gave the 45 -minutes team) and I'll post them here.  A logo montage, if you will.

After that quick dip into the Ad:Tech NY petri dish, we headed out to the comScore party at The Park.  And when I say "headed out," I mean we "had absolutely no luck catching a cab and had to walk from the desolate Javits Center at 35^th and THE RIVER to 18^th and 10^th."  Yes, it was as awesome as it sounds.  More on the comScore shindig and the EPIC Advertising party at Marquee later!

Keep sending your event invitations to kelly@mediapost.com!

Photos from the comScore party are on Flickr (more to come!)