Talking about ads

Two New Media conferences are coming to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Tomorrow afternoon the Media Center kicks off a conclave in Palo Alto entitled “Emerging Technology, Business and Policy for Senior Executives.” Next Thursday, Berkeley will be the cite of an Interactive Media Conference.

Both events will focus on business, but the Palo Alto event seems heavier on the journalism while the Berkeley affair is more about advertising. The registration fees put both beyond my (non-existent) budget, but not perhaps beyond yours. In any event the speaker’s lists and conference topics are a who’s who and what’s what, and scanning them is free. Bloggers Dan Gillmor and Susan Mernit are featured at the Palo event and may have nuggets to share.

Switching gears, Online Media Daily had an item last week about search term prices. To wit, the cost-per-click of wireless has falled while refinancing keywords are bullish. (Reading the original may require free registration.) A chart showing price-per-click for a series of industry categories seems worth reading whether you’re on the sell or the buy side of search.

Finally, Media Post encapsulates a Merrill Lynch report predicting that overall Internet advertising spending will continue to rise while the share of dollars going to search falls. Other formats (not specified) will grab an increasing share of the spending.

Tom Abate MiniMediaGuy “Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media.”