In a surprising move, Cablevision said COO Tom Rutledge, one of the most respected cable industry executives, will resign from the post he's held since 2004 later this month.

Rovi Corp., which is seeking to build a more robust advanced advertising business, said Thomas Carson has been named president-CEO. He replaces Alfred Amoroso, who has been in the post since 2005. Carson joined Rovi in 2008 following the acquisition of Gemstar-TV Guide and was exeuctive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing.

Jonah Spegman, director of digital media marketing for Scripps Networks, predicted that DSPs would survive (in some cases, at least) by re-inventing themselves as agencies, moving from primarily technology specialists to full-service campaign management services.

David Rodnitzky, CEO of PPC Associates painted a rather grim picture for the future of DSPs, principally because the same services can be offered at a lower price -- or even for free? -- by the "800-pound gorilla" that is Google, which Rodnitzky believes "hates middlemen." However after some remonstrances by Frost Prioleau, CEO of Simpli.fi, Rodnitzky moderated his position to predict that there will be a big shake-out of independent DSPs, leaving just a handful of companies versus the dozens in operation today.

A tally by Covario shows that Search Insider Summit attendees drank less than half as much as Social Insider Summit attendees from the Tahoe conference, bros.  Bros, what's up?  You gonna let those posers run this campus?  Luckily we have FREE BLOODY MARY cocktails to help us get our cred back, bros!  CHUG CHUG CHUG!  SEARCH RULES!

"We will pay a very high price for a person who converts," according to James Green, CEO of Magnetic, highlighting the crucial importance of quality in display ad inventory as well as audience data. Tony Zito of MediaForge agrees: "We're not buying impressions, we're buying people."

A useful reminder that "you can't use impressions to know if you're reaching people" from Tony Zito, CEO of MediaForge, because, for example, display ads can be served in places where no one can see them yet still counted as impressions. A basic point but these issues are still pertinent to online advertising, because there is such a huge range in the quality of inventory, as the other panelists on "Performance Display, the New Search" confirm.

Quick note to clarify Kelley's comment: Google will incorporate +1's from brand pages on Google+ into search rankings. 

Google will eventually incorporate +1 into its search rankings, once it becomes prominent enough as a social signal, according to Lauren Kelley, social media lead for Google+.  The interesting implication is that Google isn't doing this automatically -- even though it's there own product. If this is true, it strikes me as admirably even-handed and "not evil."

Although a lot of the research is in its early stages, preliminary data suggests search marketing which incorporates social signals leads to increased click-through rates and, further down the funnel, more conversions than search alone, according to Mike Perlman, managing director of online media and search for Compete.