Federated Media Conversational Marketing Summit 2008 Day 1

If for some reason you’re not familiar with Federated or the conference, you’ll want to start here.

Some nice moments:

Battelle breaking off in the middle of his own introductory speech to say “I’m announcing a new phone,” momentarily disorienting at least 50 people in the audience who were, on some device or other, simultaneously following Steve Jobs’ 3G iPhone speech going on at the same time on the west coast.

Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau, starting his speech with “I’m here to scare you,” and shortly after, standing in front of yellow writing on blue background: “Activists Hate Digital Media And Marketing.” (After a polarizing, us-vs-them speech, Rothernberg was the only speaker to leave the stage without taking questions.)

Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, pronouncing: “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room,” an astute observation that he topped a few minutes later with “Most websites look like Tokyo at night,” a potentially offputting metaphor for a number of reasons, although I thought the point was well made.

Of all the speakers, Louis Giagrande, Senior Online Marketing Manager, Samsung Electronics America, really stood out in a good way: articulate, frank, and insightful.

During the networking sessions, had some great conversations with Rob Walk of NovaRising, Michael Burke of appssavvy, and Daniel Mintz of MoveOn, as well as many Federated staffers and authors.

More detail after tomorrow’s session…right now I have to get to sleep, as it starts at 8:30am.

Note to self: Get a real camera.