• by February 21, 2006

You've heard of Madison & Vine. Now there's a new crossroads in the business: We dub it OMMA and Vine. Yes, that's right, following on the success of OMMA Conference and Expos in San Francisco and New York, MediaPost Communications will host the OMMA Hollywood Conference and Expo March 27-28 at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City, across the street from Universal Studios Hollywood.

The theme of the conference, "Internet 2006: The 100 Percent Solution?," addresses the rash of technology innovations and content syndication deals that have taken place over the past year, coupled with consumer adoption of broadband, digital video recorders, and video-on-demand technologies. All of these forces are driving change within the media industry. The Internet is now more than a communications platform; it's also a channel for an increasing percentage of media budgets -- indeed, the distribution channel for all media.

A packed conference program will address the theme from the content, creative, marketer, and media perspectives, as online media, marketing, and advertising executives ponder the following questions: Has online entered the video age, or has video entered the online age? Are games and mobile content additive to media buys or competitive with them? How can we measure new new media when we can't yet measure old new media? How can distribution deals be re-crafted and contracts re-written in time to take advantage of massive shifts in the media landscape? How will marketers and agencies navigate search's ever-growing complexity? And is e-mail really the killer app, or will challenges with delivery and image kill the app?

Conference keynoters include Eric Hirshberg, president, chief creative officer at Deutsch LA; Albert Cheng, executive vice president, digital media, ABC Television Group; Nick Pahade, Publicis Groupe Media; and Shawn Gold, chief marketing officer, MySpace.com. Keynoters, panelists, and participants in sessions will consider whether the online medium is headed for a new dot-com meltdown, and whether it is too fragmented to be a mass medium.

Speakers will also consider the explosion in online content, à la carte downloads of prime-time TV shows, back-catalog video, and other investments in content creation. As media budgets come under more scrutiny than ever, marketers are increasingly turning to alternative channels for messaging -- including their own.

Apart from the conference program, the show floor includes exhibitors Accipter, Advertising.com, Klipmart, Real Cities Network, Reprise Media Revenue Science, Tribal Fusion, Webshots, and Yahoo.

But it's not all work. Premier OMMA Hollywood sponsor Revenue.net will host a party March 27 at 9 p.m. at Vanguard, a hip, warehouse-style club at 6021 Hollywood Blvd. Ask Jeeves has sponsored a WiFi lounge for conference attendees.

For more information on OMMA Hollywood, go to www.mediapost.com/omma.