I'm headed to NY this morning to speak at an IAB event dedicated to social media and user generated content. It's first of two events this month put on by large marketing bodies where the entire event is focused on social media (the second is OMMA Social in a few weeks). It's certainly a sign of the times that the topic has enough attention from top marketers to warrant two full day events in New York within weeks of one another. So with all this focus on social media from "mainstream" marketers, it seems like the perfect time to write about something I've been thinking about since being on an ill-fated panel at SXSW earlier this year ... how to speak at an event where the feedback channel is instant, unfiltered and sometimes brutal.

MEF is proud to announce the debut of MEFCON – The Official Event of MEF Americas. Set in Marina del Rey, CA, MEFCON breaks the mold of industry conferences through interactive sessions and one-on-one interviews with visionaries in the mobile entertainment industry.

If last year's SXSW was Twitter's coming out party, this year it achieved utility status. A utility is something that is always on, and essential. To lose it would be to thrust yourself into the dark ages. Water, electricity, gas ... and Twitter. Sound like an exaggeration? Not for anyone who has spent the last few days watching the incessant live twittering at SXSW. Because not every reader is as tricked out in extreme geekdom as those at SXSW, here's a brief description of Twitter:

The South By Southwest conferences and festivals in Austin, Texas, have already kicked off and will go on through most of this week. On Sunday the conference buzz was about a keynote interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in which the interviewer, BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy, was heckled for rambling non-questions. For those of you that are going, DMW is happy to once again bring you the hottest list of buzz bands and parties, courtesy of music publicist Fiona Bloom:

Los Angeles, CA — Digital Media Wire, Inc., a leading publisher and events company in the digital media industry, and media distribution developer PassAlong Networks™ have published the second edition of the “Project Millennials” sourcebook, a guidebook that provides practical information, case studies and strategic advice for consumer marketers focused on the Millennial generation.

Los Angeles, CA - Digital Media Wire is pleased to announce agenda and speakers for the upcoming Future of Television (www.televisionconference.com/west) to be held at the Hollywood Roosevelt in Los Angeles, CA on Monday, March 24 and Tuesday, March 25, 2008.

The 2008 Millennials Canada Conference, co-produced by Digital Media Wire and Canadian Music Week, is taking place today as an integral part of the Canadian Music Week. The youth focused one-day event brings together leading international entertainment, media and technology executives and consumer marketers to focus on how to connect with the much sought after Millennial Generation (those born between 1982 and 2000), which will outnumber both Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers by 2010 to become the most significant consumer sector for the media and entertainment industries. Here are some early take-aways from the conference:

While the WGA strike is now a memory, the immediate future of the television industry remains anything but clear. Uncertainty about the viability of online platforms as strong business models, questions about content on mobile platforms, and the increasing penetration of entertainment alternatives like video games and social media are only some of the issues. At the 2008 Future of Television Conference in Los Angeles on March 24-25, an extraordinary group of speakers will gather to evaluate the state of the industry, and discuss what lies ahead.

Los Angeles, CA, February 12, 2008 -- Digital Media Wire, the leading digital entertainment publisher and events company, and Rogers MusicStore CANADIAN MUSIC WEEK, Canada's leading annual entertainment event dedicated to the expression and growth of Canada's music, media and entertainment industries, today announced an impressive line-up of speakers for Millennials Toronto, a youth-focused media and marketing conference at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto on Wednesday, March 5, 2008.

New York, NY (February 11, 2008) -- Digital Media Wire is pleased to announce the agenda and speakers for the upcoming Digital Music Forum East to be held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, NY on Tuesday, February 26 and Wednesday, February 27, 2008.

Last Thursday, I spent the day at my first event of 2008 called the Social Networking Conference (SNC) in Miami to present a session called "Secrets of Creating Talkability." The event kicks of a string of speaking appearances I will be making over the next few months as I start to get ready for my book launch in March.

Ticketmaster has purchased secondary market ticket seller TicketsNow.com (WSJ cites price of $265 million) in an effort to capture (and share with partner venues, artists, etc.) more revenue from ticket reselling. This move will help Ticketmaster compete more directly with StubHub, which eBay purchased in January 2007. Each of the two combinations are compelling – the market leader for ticket sales moving more aggressively into ticket reselling (Ticketmaster also operates Ticketexchange, a smaller service in terms of market share, to resell tickets), going against the online market leader for reselling almost anything.

At every conference or tradeshow, you get a badge. I have a box full of them on my desk, an increasing number of them with the title of "Speaker" affixed beneath my name. I recently had a conversation with some colleagues about the importance of being a speaker at an event. Often, the most important benefit is not just the visibility of speaking, but the license that speaker tag gives you to have a conversation with other speakers. If you think about it, the badges at a conference are like a caste system. Your badge identifies which group you belong in and can often dictate how people embrace or shy away from a conversation with you.

While there are many areas of media that are going through changes, 2008 will be a particularly interesting year for the television industry. With YouTube already a household name, even the most notoriously defensive media giants have come to realize that online video is more than just an afterthought, in fact, it might just be the key to the new media castle.

All of us at DMW want to wish all of you, our readers, Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year! We will not publish the daily newsletter from December 21, 2007 until January 2, 2008, but will post periodic news updates here on our site in the meantime. We have a lot in store for the new year, starting with our exclusive Digital Media Insider reception at CES on January 8 (for all full list of our events, click here), so rest assured that we will not let the holiday food slow us down! This is exciting times for our industry and we look forward to keeping you connected and updated with the latest in Digital Media and Entertainment in 2008.

We are very happy to announce a partnership with Canadian Music Week (CMW), Canada’s leading annual entertainment event dedicated to the expression and growth of the country’s music, media and entertainment industries, to host the next edition of our youth-focused media conference The Millennials in Toronto on March 5, 2008, as an integrated part of the CMW (Pictured from left to right Ned Sherman, CEO and Publisher, DMW, Neill Dixon, President, CMW, Gary Taylor, CMW, Joakim Baage, VP, Content, DMW.)