Yes, I am skimping out on detailed coverage on the pre-conference day at Web 2.0…today was the day I spent talking to people in the hallways. Tomorrow, when I actually have my laptop with me, I’ll do more coverage.
—- Our own panel this morning on Advertising 2.0 was packed and overflowing, and I sleepwalked my part through it, mainly because of lack of coffee in me…otherwise the moderator Scott Meyer, CEO of About.com, did a very good job. The discussion, which also included Adam Gerber, VP Ad Products & Strategy, Brightcove; Jeff Lanctot, VP at Avenue A | Razorfish; and Michael Steib, GM, Strategic Ventures, NBC Universal, ended up focusing on video advertising to a large extent, and for good reason. The money’s chasing the inventory at this point.
—The main conference started with John Battelle interviewing Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Nothing earth shattering (he though Google Video was doing “very well” even before Google bought YouTube, which is a shocker, to say the least). One thing he did deny outright, though there is no way to ever verify since this is not on paper but only in intent: he denied that of the $1.65 billion deal money, any amount of money was earmarked for settling lawsuits. He said he expected YouTube to remain as an independent brand. Dan Farber has more details here.
—Barry Diller and Sulzberger were interviewed together, and the effect was comic. Sulzberger brought along a frame paper clipping of the rather unflattering story NYT did this morning about Diller’s compensation package…Diller took it gamely. In response to a question about Google, Diller said that media history suggests Google will not remain the dominant player. On one hand, Ask works with Google, but on the other hand, both are fierce competitors, and “You go into the other room and bash the hell out of each other.”
—Diller on what advice he would give to Internet startups: “Don’t sell to private equity – God forbid .” (TTD)
—Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom also spoke at dinner, and among other things, mentioned that the company, now part of eBay, has had conversations with many social-networking sites about offering services that would allow users to “share content with each other in a conversation,”  (CNET)
—What’s missing? News media companies…except for New York Times, which is part of the Battelle and Friends circle anyway (NYT invested in FMPub). Didn’t run into many other pure news media or newspaper companies…..but application startups in the space are dime a dozen, of course.
—The hallways are buzzing like crazy..startups, blah, blah, blase, blase.