Date: August 8, 1999

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The "Herring on Hollywood" conference was held
August 1-3, 1999 at the Century Plaza Hotel, LA
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Dear Readers, Clients, Partners, Friends:

First, a broad-brush overview of this invitation-only event and some of my personal perspectives:

* It was the second-annual of these gigs, which Herring originally conceived as a kind of "Silicon Valley meets Digital Coast" schtick...the convergence of the technology and entertainment industries

* It was almost twice as big last year's version (which was held at the more intimate Loew's Hotel in Santa Monica).....sold-out this time, they said--with almost 1000 attending.....actually, too big for the Gov. Reagan-era Century Plaza Hotel at times, some people having to be shunted off to closed-circuit TV overflow rooms for more than one session....in other words, the attendance kind of overwhelmed even the conference planners

* There were four excellent panel discussions, with some real industry-heavies participating, sharing good insights and getting into some, well...interesting disagreements, shall we say? ...few people left early....[call me a party-pooper, but the high point of the panels was not Chuck D, the hip-hop artist, blurting out f*ck and sh*t for effect...or cheap laughs...or something...]

* 20 CEOs from emerging companies, of varying size, presented their businesses over the two days, in two concurrent sessions [and I have the lowdown coming on as many as I could drink in]

* While 24 exhibiting companies (some the same) diligently plied their wares in the demo room--actually, 3 or 4 rooms to accommodate everyone

* I must have heard the word "broadband" at least 2,000 times....[followed closely by "Were you at the party last night?" and "Let's do lunch"]

* Blue skies and sun were in abundance, and smog non-existent...but the urban setting actually kinda sucked [esp if you weren't staying there and had to fight the freeways each morning, which I'm sure was the majority]....I definitely vote for moving it back to the beach [dude!]...there must be a venue big enough somewhere in the greater LA area--South Bay, Santa Monica, Malibu

* Another thing about this event: it started off kinda slow...don't know what it was, but I think it had something to do with the "cliquiness" of the two crowds...no doubt, Hollywood types and the SV techno-elite could have quite a clique standoff if they wanted to (my clique is tighter than your clique).... but things seemed to lighten up after a while and, by Tuesday afternoon, it was a bonafide, world-class schmoozin' frenzy....

* Press registrations were oversubscribed once more, with biggies like Time, Barron's, Institutional Investor, the SJ Merc News, Industry Standard, Ad Age, and Wired represented....not to speak of Variety and the Hollywood/LA press all over the place...[but hey, gang, my bet is nobody went nuts filling a complete steno pad like yours truly did--not to speak of totally overflowing my brain....so, go ahead, ask me anything!]

* First-day keynoter Ed Sanctis, COO of Snap.com (who moved over recently from new parent NBC), had some real interesting things to say, which I'll share later....while second-day keynoter Rohit Shukla of the LA Regional Technology Alliance gave a very inspired talk--hey, the growing tech infrastructure in LA is getting to be quite impressive....

* Attendance was really skewed to LA people vs. Silicon Valley [not unexpected, I guess]--maybe 70/30 artistes to geeks....and surprisingly low representation, I sensed early on, from the VC/banker side (vs. entrepreneurs and others), at least compared to the usual at Herring events....in fact, I'm shocked--I just counted from the pre-registered attendee list, and VCs & bankers only numbered about 5% of the total (and that's counting those who were panel members, heavies for sure...but not counting the corporate investor types, of which there were several folks...from Compaq, Intel, etc)

* One thing I'm learning, though--there's definitely a significant VC community in and around the "Digital Coast".... tons of big money....and some key representatives from it were in attendance, of whom I've now met at least six.... (so, no arguing the *quality* of the VCs and bankers in attendance--just that the quantity wasn't impressive)

* I met no one from Minnesota this time, as at my last big event in S.F. in May, "eRetailing '99" [actually, never have at a Herring event, come to think of it, except when Piper Jaffray cosponsored the great "Web Market West" event '97]....but did pick up some scoop relating to Minnesota....

* The big underlying theme of the conference was this sort of conflict, Content vs. Technology....basically, when will the former become the driving force of the Internet, as has been promised for so long? will producers and artists rule someday, and geeks move to the background?

Needless to say, it was a very worthwhile experience....and *always, always fun* when the Red Herring is behind it. These people do events like no one else--accolades once again to CEO Tony Perkins and John Mecklenburg, director of events, and their staff.

Stay tuned for more reports....

best regards,
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Graeme Thickins, Founder & Principal Consultant
GT&A Strategic Marketing Inc.
*Twin Cities *LA *San Francisco *Seattle
Voice Mail: 612/944-1672  Fax: 612/944-1673
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