The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

More from Ad:Tech

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So… rumor has it that our own Gary Stein has received a challenge from Forrester’s Charlene Li. Does it involve analysis maybe? Blogging maybe? Nope.

What I’m hearing is that Charlene’s thrown down the gauntlet to Gary, challenging him to a swim across the San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz (and back?). Gary’s big on cycling, and apparently Charlene is training for the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. As if the online advertising/marketing world isn’t exciting enough, we’re getting swimming races thrown into the mix. Gotta like that.

Ad:Tech Check-In 1

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Overwhelming. Yes, that’s the main word that comes to mind here at Ad:Tech. As a reported 6,500 people mill about the Marriott (God forbid you are staying at this hotel and not involved with the show in some capacity.), I’ve heard reports of one exhibitor serving beer on tap out of their booth. And the folks next to them upped the ante by offering minibar-sized bottles of vodka. All this before noon. (Hey, it’s after 5 somewhere!) I can only imagine what the scene will be like next year, when this event is scheduled to be held in the Moscone Center. Most likely, the extra space will lower the intensity a tad.

Ad:Tech Next Week

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We’ve transitioned from what I described as “intense house-hunting mode” to intense house-buying mode. In this SF Bay Area marketplace, we were amazed to find that our first offer on a house was accepted — after a bit of back and forth. (Hopefully this doesn’t mean that we were suckered into paying too much!)

So, I’ll spare you from my musings about inspections, woefully inadequate electrical systems (aka not ready for TiVo or WiFi), mortgage loans, and gardening in the Albany, CA microclimate. Things on this blog might be quieter even than usual.

Looking forward to meeting with and seeing folks at Ad:Tech next week. Apologies to anyone who has reached out that I haven’t been able to get back with. Things have been crazy with conferences and travel (not to mention house buying in my off-hours). Still, it looks like there’s plenty going on so I’m sure I’ll run into a lot of people. I plan to be there all 3 days.

In Santa Clara

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I’m trying to cover the whole state of California this week and am checking out the Kelsey Group’s “Drilling Down on Local” conference in Santa Clara. Returned from LA last night. The Super Shuttle driver took me down the Pacific Coast Highway on the way back to the airport, so got some great views of coastline, Malibu, the Santa Monica pier, etc.

So far so good on the Kelsey Group show. Have already seen quite a few familiar faces and also got to shake hands with someone I’ve met through blogging — Tony Gentile of buzzhit blog, who is apparently blogging the conference. Looks like it was worth the trip.

Next Couple of Days

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I’m headed to Los Angeles to talk e-mail marketing to a group of folks from AGI. Will be there this evening and tomorrow. Looking forward to discussing interactive marketing with folks with a lot of experience in direct. Change of scene will be good, too.

Musings on Inventory

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Don’t think I squeezed in a blog entry yesterday, due to the deadline for a column that ended up being called The Inventory Issue. Really enjoyed doing the reporting on it, as I got to talk with some interesting folks, including Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, Majestic Research’s Seth Goldstein and About.com’s Peter Horan. I blabbed on plenty in the piece itself so I’ll shut up here.