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In the past few years, the online advertising world has become resplendent with a whole raft of new three-letter acronyms ATD, DSP, SSP, DMP -- the list goes on. Welcome to the world of advertising technology.
These TLDs are often dropped into conversations at conference and over cocktails with little understanding of what they really mean or with a particularly biased point of view.
It is therefore useful to attend an event that focuses on this market and at the same time gets behind and beyond the acronyms.
The annual IAB Marketplace Conference is such an event -- put on by the prestigious Internet Advertising Bureau. Scheduled for Thursday, June 21st, 2012, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Times Square, New York, it is the ideal opportunity to catch up on the critical issues and innovations in the online advertising and advertising technology marketplace. This is an opportunity for those new to the field as well seasoned professionals to hear from practitioners and though leaders.
This conference has been tracking the development of advertising technology or adtech from its early beginnings in ad networks to the arrival of ad exchanges and now, the emergence of exchange based ad trading and a multiplicity of technologies and providers coalescing around exchange-based ad trading. Exchange-based trading and auction-based business models -- whether it be for advertising, stocks, commodities etc. -- create whole new ways of thinking about buying and selling assets.
This is happening in the online advertising marketplace and is starting to bleed over into traditional advertising media markets as opportunities emerge for the integration of traditional and digital media in ad campaigns.
The past year has seen the rapid growth of platform-based or API-based media buying and as an increasingly significant part of that Real Time Bidding (RTB) of on-demand media buying has been growing at a lightening pace.
This combined with the emergence of mobile as a significant advertising asset and social media also as a key advertising asset particularly for brand marketers means that 2012 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for advertising technology.
More than this the convergence of new advertising asset classes and the rise of platform based and on demand media buying is showing the way to radically different value creation systems and business models for market participants.
At the same time there are storm clouds brewing particularly around issues such as online privacy and data protection legislation, do not track, integrated on demand media buying, the continued inability to gain traction with brand marketers, and the emerging prospect of one or two or three dominant exchanges.
There is also increasing concern over the role investors have played in creating a highly fragmented industry ecosystem awash with investment money. Have we fallen too much in love with acronyms and algorithms and neglected the human side of online advertising?
The emerging data marketplace allowing aggregation of data anchored on some unique even though anonymous identifier is making possible much better on demand precision media buying whereby advertiser trading desks and agency trading desks, and trade execution platforms such as demand side platforms and ad networks can better target and cherry pick ad impressions according to campaigns needs and the stage they are at in the campaign funnel.
The IAB Marketplace conference consists of panels, case study presentations, a live report and discussion led by respected industry thought leaders such as:
There will also be discussions on emerging programmatic buying media types such as mobile and video, and a discussion around the current state of digital attribution presented by the consultancy Forrester's Ari Ousr.
The day-long event concludes with a Town Hall debate pulling together discussions throughout the day to debate industry challenges and exchange new ideas. The Town Hall Debate will then be followed by a networking reception sponsored by MediaMath.
Registration for IAB Marketplace starts at 8 am and the conference concludes at 6.45pm.
For more info on the IAB in general go to: http://www.iab.net/
And for the conference itself check out: http://www.iab.net/events_training/2012/advertisingtechnology/overview
The IAB Marketplace Conference
June 21st, 2012
The Crowne Plaza Times Square
New York
2012 may go down as the pivotal year for social media. Witness the following -- Facebook's IPO, the acquisition of Virtue by Oracle for 300 million and Salesforce.com buying BuddyMedia for nearly $800 million. And we aren't yet half way through the year.
While all this activity has been focused around Facebook, it is by no means the only social media game in town. In fact Twitter remains the preiminent real time in the moment social media platform designed for real time short messaging and designed for mobile from day one.
Therefore with all this activity happening around social media it is an ideal time to catch up on all that is happening and the diverse uses of social media.
American internet entrepreneur Jeff Pulver has staged sveeral events and conference and his latest, the 140 Characters Conference takes place June 19th and 20th, 2012, at the 92nd St Y in upper Manhattan. Although no longer exclusively about Twitter, the conference still puts its emphasis on the real time social web.
The conference in short bite-size chunks of 10 to 20-minute presentations and panels of social media stories covers not only stories of using social media in marketing and business but also in education, social causes and many other situations.
The lineup of speakers leading the conversation this year includes various social media celebrities and thought leaders but also everyday people for whom social media has been a solution to problems or a lifeline.
So for keeping it real time check out the 140 Characters conference at the 92nd St Y. To attend or get more info go to: http://140conf.com/
140 Characters Conference
June 19th - 20th, 2012
92nd St Y
NYC
As in past Junes, a milestone conference and expo takes place in New York at the midtown Hilton Hotel for intersection of technology and the financial industry -- The SIFMA Tech Leaders Forum and Expo.
Although the name has changed subtly over the years, the three-day event, running from June 19th - 21st, 2012, has become a mainstay for financial technology executives on Wall Street and Main Street.
The conference has led the way in thought leadership, critical analysis of current issues, and showing the way with new technologies and financial technology and operations innovations.
This year will be no exception.
Looking at opportunities across the wide spectrum of the financial services, trading, and wealth and asset management industries to reply new and emerging technologies better meet client needs while at the same time boosting the profitability and reducing the cost base of the many different types of financial institutions.
Change and new opportunities will be very much a theme of the leadership conference but also mixed in with critical issues for the financial industry today including meeting new compliance and regulatory requirements and improving all forms of risk management, a need highlighted by recent events at one of the world's leading banks.
One other trend is taking center stage this year at the Tech Leaders Conference that is social media. The use of social networking and social media has increasingly become a facet of the financial industry both for internal use -- to drive efficiencies in information sharing and use and to drive innovation and collaborative work -- but also as an increasingly critical part of financial institution branding and marketing, in-partner collaboration, co-creation of value and products, and the development of new business models revolving around highly interconnected industry or product ecosystems underpinned by a social technology infrastructure.
Speakers at this year's Tech Leaders Forum include:
Among the key topics and critical issues being discussed are:
As in pervious years, the conference is complemented by a large exhibition featuring several hundred mainly technology innovators many of whom are bringing new innovations and critical new capabilities to the financial industry to help industry participants see their way through the current turmoil impacting the industry and to help them innovate towards success, greater customer satisfaction, repaired reputations, and greater profitability.
For more info and registration go to: http://www.sifma.org/events/techforumandexpo2012/
The SIFMA Tech Leaders Forum and Tech Expo
June 19th - June 21st, 2012
the Hilton Hotel New York
1335 Avenue of the Americas

New York , NY 10019
From June 11th to June 14th, 2012, the Cloud Computing Expo returns to NYC and the Javits Center for the 10th year. As one of the major events on the cloud computing calendar, this four-day cloud computing extravaganza provides attendees with an opportunity to hear cases studies, nest practices, and the latest thinking and analysis of the cloud computing market from thought leaders and leading industry analysts.
This year's conference includes presentations on:
However, this year's conference and expo is more than just about cloud computing. For the first time the Big Data Expo will also sit alongside the Cloud Computing Expo.
Since the groundbreaking report on big data last year by management consultants McKinsey, big data has become one of the most hotly debated topic in the IT and business world. The ability to distill actionable and decision-making insights from the vast quantities of data now being generated on the Web, by smart devices, and internally with organizations has put big data high up on the CIO and increasingly the CEO's agenda.
However, there is controversy and misunderstanding surrounding big data.
Some advocate that there is much work into preparing and cleaning data while others suggest that great value can be extracted by doing very little to massage the raw data that is to treat it as exhaust or data waste. But when mined by sophisticated algorithms it can produce new innovative insights only possible by leaving the data in its raw unprocessed form.
Whatever the merits of these points of view, this is one of the most important topics today even beyond business because these issues affect government, health, social innovation and much more. There is little argument that one of the great issues for big data is finding and nurturing big data talent, a problem likely to become more acute as its popularity with major organizations and institutions increases.
By adding the Big Data Expo to the agenda for the Cloud Computing Expo this year will put Big Data front and center for many CIOs and kickstart the discussion around Big Data in the cloud.
It is also fitting that the Big Data Expo is being launched in New York City -- perhaps one of the Big Data hubs of the world with the media industry here already using big data in some areas in a significant way for algorithmic buying of online advertising.
Also in New York, there are major big data enterprises that serve Wall Street; and much of the innovation in social media is also happening in New York. So there is an increasing number of Big Data startups clustering in New York City's Silicon Alleys.
The inaugural Big Data Expo includes presentations on:
Both Expos are complemented by a trade exhibition where leading cloud computing and big data vendors will showcase theirs wares and be available to demonstrate their products and services, and talk with prospective customers visiting both Expos.
There were also be a number of other events taking place over the course of the four days of the expo including the Cloud Bootcamp from June 11th to 14th. And there is the CloudCamp NYC on the evening of June 12th, and the BigDataCamp on the evening of June 13th.
For further information go to: http://cloudcomputingexpo.com/
The Cloud Computing Expo and Big Data Expo
June 11th - June 14th, 2012
the Javits Convention Center
New York City