I spent the past week in San Francisco attending the ad|tech SF07 conference. Billed as “The Event for Interactive Marketers”, ad|tech is among the largest and most influential online advertising shows anywhere. ad|tech is serious business. The show presents a heavier atmosphere than Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld’s Pubcon, Affiliate Summit, or other search marketing focused shows do.

As professionally structured as the ad|tech conferences are, being at any tech conferences is a lesson in adapting to the ebb and flow of events unfolding in chaos.

When you are at these types of shows, you have to learn as much as possible in a very short period of time. That involves asking a lot of questions, networking with anyone who is either interested or is interesting, and handing out boxes of business cards. While learning should also involve going to specific lecture and panel sessions, time is a terribly limited commodity and for my sponsors’ money, the most interesting tidbits are found far away from the PowerPoint presentations.

This year, I learned a lot about another side of the online marketing world, the display and graphic ad industry. I was fortunate to meet a couple of down to Earth ad-brokers who where staying in the same hotel I was. Leron Cohen of Quired Media and Eyal Barad of MediaShakers acted as guides, graciously introducing me to managers and executives at Right Media during their cocktail party on Tuesday night.

Right Media is driving a lot of web visitor traffic through its display and graphic advertising exchange. Many of the banners, display ads, pop-unders, and rich media ads seen across the web come from RM. Following on Google’s announced acquisition of DoubleClick, the display ad market was a hot topic of conversation at ad|tech SF07.

The web is changing rapidly and, as such so is the web marketing industry. Search is seen as one of the bedrock foundations of online marketing but at ad|tech SF07, search was not the front-and-center topic it had been in previous years and still is at the vast majority of trade s

hows I attend.

With the rise in popularity and use of social networking applications and video, display and video advertising is now considered the leading edge in online marketing. There are some serious synergies between display ad-buying and search marketing I would like to explore in the coming months. I think it would be wise for webmasters and search marketers to begin to familiarize themselves with the world of display advertising. Though we as SEOs and SEMs might not be the ones buying and selling this form of web advertising, it is going to be an increasingly important factor in online marketing.

In the near future, search marketers will be working accounts that involve display advertising. We will either be providing the service or working directly with service providers. There is also likely to be considerable consolidation in the industry in the coming years.

“Perhaps the biggest thing I have learned since being here is there is a lot for me (and likely many other search marketers) to learn about another side of the online marketing sector. There is a renewed interest in display ads in the greater marketing space. Despite the obvious differences there are serious synergies between search and display advertising. As the online marketing industry matures, those synergies are likely going to cause greater conglomeration in the industry, much like the one undertaken (for good or for ill) by THNK inc. two years ago.” Letter to a Friend from ad|tech San Francisco in Sitepronews.com.

As it turned out, the Right Media party was the right place to be as I nosed in on my first inkling of a rumour that became a scoop. Early this morning, Yahoo! announced it was acquiring the remaining 80% of Right Media for $680mm. Yahoo! bought a 20% stake in October. After chasing the rumour back to one of the execs I had met the night before, I reported the rumour as an unsubstantiated fact at SiteProNews at 5:15(pt) Thursday morning. (sleep is a rare luxury during a massive 72-hour event)

I have a feeling fate (in the form of Eyal and Leron) brought me to that party for more than a shot at a scoop. I think I was there because that is where a lot of the action is going to be moving in the online marketing world in the near future.