• by Masha Geller , June 18, 2003

Something happened at Ad:Tech yesterday that I've never seen happen before. An 8 a.m. Google breakfast forum was so popular with attendees, show organizers were turning people away. The presentation led up to Google unveiling a new self-service option for Google AdSense today, a program that enables website publishers to sign up online to serve Google AdWords ads on the content pages of their sites.

The second day of the conference officially started with a standing-room only keynote where Bob DeSena, Director of Relationship Marketing at Masterfoods USA (makers of M&Ms and Pedigree, among many others) talked about the success of the M&Ms global color vote campaign the company ran a few months back.

From there on, sessions and panels were slightly less crowded due to the fact that the exhibit hall finally opened and most people took the opportunity to walk the aisles and collect some tchatchkes, but hats off to Solomon Smith Barney analyst Lanny Baker, who moderated the Search Innovation panel. He called the companies represented on the panel - Overture, Google, Looksmart, Yahoo and MSN the "Mount Rushmore of Search," and guided them through a very engaging discussion of the ins and outs of search marketing.

At the end of the day there were plenty of schmooze opportunities. Starting with the exhibit hall cocktail reception, where the first question everyone excitedly asked each other was, "can you believe this show?" and continuing with about a dozen different after parties thrown by Google, which took a number of VIPs on a boat ride around the Bay, and cocktail soirées staged by Yahoo!, DoubleClick, Business.com, Tribal Fusion and about a dozen others. The highlight for those who could get past the bouncer was the super-noisy Synergy 6 bash, complete with dancers on stilts with feathers on their heads and some sort of flaming things extending from their arms.

The only thing is, at the end of the night, no one could really tell me what it is the Synergy 6 people actually do...