Ladies and Gentleman, the Internet advertising industry is back. That's my assessment from spending all day at @d:tech yesterday. I know CMR just reported that the Internet ad industry was suffering worse than the rest of the ad world, but I've never believed that CMR truly gets this industry. At least I've never partied with any of their execs at an @d:tech event. And last night, let me tell you, NY was partying like it was 1999.

Just the fact that the convention was packed is all I'm going on here. I never did make it to a single presentation all day, but I never did at @d:tech back in the day, either. @d:tech has always been about the networking, and yesterday it was back in force. So many old timers, too many to mention, but shouts out to Jay Stevens, VP of marketing at Avalon/MindArrow/Radical Mail, who gets credit for working for the most companies without ever changing his job, Allie Savarino, who changed her name (from Shaw) but still works for Unicast, Kathleen Bagley, who now runs her own agency Blast PR, but is still working for Accipiter (since 1997 or so, it having recently spun back out from the black hole that was Engage), Stu Ginsberg, still repping the IAB these many years later (I can remember reporting for Ad Age on when the IAB announced its domain name, at an @d:tech, if I'm not mistaken), Susan Bratton, Ms. @d:tech, if you will, looking fabu as a blond, Yahoo!'s Jerry Shereshewsky, who never recognizes me but looking as much like Don Rickles as ever, Evan Neufeld, sans bowtie, but still leading what's left of Jupiter's research team, Andy Sernovitz (formerly AIM chief), putting the pedal to the metal at GasPedal Ventures (with whom I'll be chowing down tonight in LIttle Italy at his CEO event, the guest list of which looks awesome), Ben Isaacson (also formerly AIM chief), who (I was told by a reckless former colleague) has left AIM for a life of ski bumming in Aspen (recently replaced at AIM by former Yankee Group VP Kevin Noonan), and The Jacobyte himself, who, while still hanging on at Iconocast, is the first to point out that he no longer follows Internet marketing (despite being a speaker at @d:tech nonetheless), getting drank under the table at Modem Media's happening party by perhaps the loveliest old timer, who must remain nameless on threat of severe physical violence, which at this point I wouldn't put past her.

Unfortunately, I missed the name of the Modem Media employee who decided that the table I was sitting at in particular required round after round of vodka shots. Not sure if I should thank her or curse her. The less said about the rest of the night, the better.

Now, back to the show! A day and a half left. I plan to make the most of it. Still haven't even made full rounds of all the vendors on the exhibit floor. I'll blog later about interesting companies I met.
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