Adtech 2008!!

So it's that time of year again. What time you ask? Well, it's time for the Digital Media Advertisers to showcase their stuff at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, otherwise known as Adtech '08!

Allen and I were lucky enough to make it out there this year. As first time attendees we really thought the trip was well worth the time, cost, and effort. Those of you who were there can attest to the massive turnout of the online advertising community; Google, Yahoo, Clickbooth, Commission Junction, and almost every other player in the field all made it out to try and grab a few new clients and give away lot's and lot's of new pens.

However, even though we've been funded, we are still super tight with our budget. Having said that we learned a couple of things for next year and had a few experiences that made us laugh.

Here is the breakdown:

Flights: Sure first class is great, but so is Southwest's 39 dollar flight that leaves at 8am from
LAX. Time to wake up so you'll make the flight, 5am.
-Tip for next time: Fly out of Burbank and go to Oakland, it's worth
an extra 10 dollars.

I'm not a morning person:

Allen is:

Local Transportation: Limo's are awesome. So is the BART. Total Cost: 12 dollars. Yep that's round trip.
-Tip for next time: I'd do it over again. The BART is awesome!!






Lodging: You partied at the W and we spent the night at the Renoir. Total Cost: 87.00.
-Tip for next time: Stick with a chain hotel. We were afraid to go out at night.

The Event: In a word...Awesome! Get there early.
-Tip for next time: Bring comfortable shoes, I mean really comfortable shoes, we walked like 20 miles on the duration of our trip.





Food: There are lots of events after the conference hall closes. We stopped by
Advertising.com's shindig, free drinks, food, and more importantly great networking!
-Tip for next time: Don't go out with you friends to some restaurant. You are there to network and meet people. Go to great company sponsored event's and start some conversations

That's pretty much a summation of the trip. We highly recommend it to everyone who's thinking about attending. We made some great contacts and plan on going again next year.

2008 Montgomery & Co. Technology Conference

Montgomery & Co. is a Santa Monica based Investment Bank which holds an annual Technology conference where it invites established/emerging tech companies to present to an audience of potential investors and industry professionals.

We were honored to receive an invitation to attend this conference last week and were very impressed by the event. The conference was held at the Fairmont Hotel right by the beach on Wilshire and Ocean Blvd., across the street from the Montgomery & Co. offices. The two-day had 5 presentations running each half hour from 8am-6pm, with breaks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We made sure to attend the relevant presentations which included sites like Habbo.com, Meebo.com, IMVU, Gaia.com, MyYearabook.com, Hi5.com, and so on. It was great to listen in on how these companies got to where they are, and more importantly, what their plans are moving forward. All in all, it was a very humbling experience where we were able to make numerous strategic contacts with potential future investors, as well as with representatives from the United Talent Agency, William Morris Agency, and the Creative Artists Agency. We hope to leverage these relationships to help our users get one step closer to getting the recognition they deserve.