Introduction ceremony - Thomas Dolby and his string orchestra perform "Bitter Sweet Symphony". Greeting from the official TED host Chris Anderson go out to London and palm Springs (Yay). Anderson assesses the state of the world: Why are there so many smart people in the world, yet every great idea gets shot down? The world needs a restart. Therefore, TED gathered the smartest people in the world to generate ideas and execute together. Are you in? Yes.

Sophie Kleber, experience lead at Brooklyn, NY-based Huge, will be Raw blogging from the Ted2010 conference in California from February 9-13, sharing her unfiltered thoughts and learnings as the conference progresses. You can follow her here.

Google has been fooling around with solar panels, so if I manufactured solar panels I'd be concerned, according to Gregory Keller, V.P. Product Management, lijit networks. But will they lead in real-time search? Don't lose the perspective that ideas come from a lot of perspectives, and sometimes the simple things win, he says. The excitement and drive in real-time search is a game changer. Maybe some of the same guys will become the game changer, and maybe they won't.

More celebrities died on Twitter last year than in real life, according to Uwe Hook, SVP, Media, Direct Partners, who moderated the OMMA Social panel titled "Debate: Is Real-Time Search for Real? Or Just Another Tweet in the Pan?" Not all of the panelist agree that real-time search exists. "There's no such thing as real time search," says Benjamin Carlson, co-creator and president, Fizziology. "You're either searching for, or synthesizing real-time information." Carlson suggests Twitter is a black hole that consumes time. It's not information that's generated through Twitter. It's just data.

Automakers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaigns only to throw them away once the message cycles through. The thought,these days, has turned toward building out power distribution channels in social media. Evidently, microsites are out, so 2009, according to the panel at OMMA Social. So where are we going? I've heard that brands don't necessarily know how to develop content. (Really?) Well, that's according to some on the panel. Dave Armon from Context Options suggests pulling out a Flip camera and shooting a video. Create a coupon and stick it on Facebook because if there's no value …

You should be here. I'm listening to a heated disucssion on whether the industry has too much data. Do we need more data in social media? Some think markers are a bit overwhelmed. Tech companies that collect the data need to take the time and show agencies and marketers how to use it, says Jeff Lanctot, Managing Director, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group at Microsoft. The industry tend to want to put new ad models in place to use the data, but it has to understand not all planners understand how to use the data. "Data …

And by a wide margin. According to an analysis just released by PR firm Levine Communications, 43% of all news links posted in blogs during the week ending January 15th were about the Haitian tragedy. "And the event did not even occur until the middle of the week," notes Levine, adding that for Thursday and Friday of the week, 82% of blog news links were devoted to the subject.