November also brings many familiar annual events – the crowning of a new baseball champion, the thrills and spills of midseason football, and an annual pilgrimage to New York City. So, congratulations are in order for the St. Louis Cardinals, mourning is apropos for my once mighty Florida Gators, and anticipation mounts for next week’s interactive, advertising, and technology conference – ad:tech!

For the third year, ad:tech will be held at the Javits Convention Center, so plan your lunch meetings accordingly. Last year, one of my clients gave me a midtown address for a lunch meeting when she actually meant the Chelsea location. It’s also the first time in recent history that ad:tech is not taking place before or during the New York City Marathon, so we won’t be fighting with runners wearing those metallic-heat-reflection-sheet-thingies for hotel elevators.

In addition to thousands of digital marketers descending on the city, ad:tech also offers a heaping helping of great keynote speakers. This year’s keynote is Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute and former chairman of CNN. He is the official biographer and author of “Steve Jobs,” and he will be speaking during Wednesday’s delegate lunch. Other notable keynoters include Christian Oestlien of Google, David Fischer of Facebook, Wendy Clark from Coca-Cola, Marc DeBevoise of CBS Interactive, Mitch Spolan of LivingSocial, and Clara Shih of Hearsay Social and the author of “The Facebook Era.”

ad:tech also populates a plethora of parties to pontificate with people on potential partnerships. (Yes, I minored in alliteration at UF.)  There are a couple events that I’ve been invited to on Tuesday: Evan from Experience Advertising and Hagai from Digital Moses will be rockin’ out in Brooklyn during the ad:tech NYC Rock and Roll Party. Also, XY7 Elite and Mailer Meetup will be holding their Affiliate After Party at Traffic Bar in Midtown East.

Most of the events are taking place on Wednesday.  I’ll definitely be hitting a couple myself, starting off at ultra-chic La Pomme for the event thrown by my friends at AdKnowledge and OpenX. If you’re into music, there is CPA Way’s XPOSURE 2011, featuring Mike Posner, Slick Rick and Naughty By Nature.  This event is co-sponsored by FriendFinder Networks, Adscend Media, Digital Bulldogs, Payvment, OfferVault, Adotas, RushCard, Performance Marketing Insider, CornerBlue, Yippy and Fresh CPA.

I’ll end my night at Clickbooth’s Affiliate Awakening, which has been a great event the last couple shows. This mega-party is sponsored by Clickbooth CPC, Calculated Creativity, Authorise, Optizmo, Brain Host, Molding Box, BeNaughty.com and Click&Flirt.

When you’re in New York City, there might be a thing or two going on outside of the conference as well.  But don’t take my word for it – I’m just a relaxed, slow-moving South Florida transplant.  Allow me introduce this year’s guest author, Jennifer Farrell from AdGent Digital – take it away, Jennie!

JENNIE: Thanks, Warren! Welcome everyone, once again, to the Big Apple! I wish you all successful networking as you celebrate our wonderful industry and the up-and-comers showcased at this year’s ad:tech. If you can manage to slip away from the convention for a few hours, I highly recommend the following for stellar ambiance, great cuisine and people watching:

• The Standard Biergarten: Located right under The Standard Hotel, this is a great group meet up spot to begin a night before heading out in the Meatpacking District or West Village. Throw a few back before heading to Pubmatic’s Nerd:Tech party just upstairs. You may wait in line for about20 minutes, but once in it’s a fun place to have a lot of beers very quickly. Yes, the evening weather may be brisk, but Biergarten is fully equipped with heat lamps to keep everyone toasty.

• Abe & Arthurs: Great New American cuisine — the place to see and be seen. Beautiful crowd so ladies, please dress up, and gentlemen, get ready to pull out your credit cards! The wine list is great as is the food…a great spot for a pre-party client dinner.

• 230 Fifth: A great, heated rooftop bar in lower Midtown with a spectacular view of the city. Good music, good crowd, expensive drinks.

Yes, the Christmas tourists have already arrived. Ahh, tis the season for people walking a mile an hour with their heads permanently up and using their shopping bags as weapons! Leave plenty of time to maneuver around the city as cabs are a rarity in midtown this time of year. Safe travels to you all and I hope to run into you at the Javits Center!

WARREN: Thank you, Jennie!  You know, I always hear that my yearly ad:tech New York article primarily focuses on Manhattan, but there’s much more to the city that never sleeps!  Well, prepared to be schooled by ADOTAS Senior Editor Gavin Dunaway….

GAVIN: This is going to be my last ad:tech as a member of the Adotas team, so I wanted to impart you conference attendees with some insight into my neck of the woods. Whenever you guys come to shows at Javits or in Times Square, you venture as far out as Chelsea or the East Village, but you’re missing out on the far cooler scene across the East River.

If you’ve peered at a map of the five boroughs, you’ve probably noticed that Brooklyn is freakin’ huge, so I’m just going to give you a primer on the Williamsburg area this time around. Once pretty dangerous (it’s where Serpico was shot!), many consider Williamsburg hipster central (depending on when you travel over, you may see a lot of recent graduates in outrageous outfits desperately seeking attention) but massive condo development has actually sent many of the artists further east (such as my “up and coming” neighborhood of Bushwick). Despite its growing yuppie population, Billyburg still has lots of charm and countless activities for visitors.

First on your list of things to do when getting off at the Bedford L stop (yes, it’s best to ride the subway to Williamsburg — I know, so common) should be a quick walk to East River Park at Kent and N. 8th. The view of the Manhattan skyline is fantastic, and if you’re staying the weekend, there is a food market on Saturday and a flea market on Sunday. Right down the street is the Brooklyn Brewery — on Friday nights and Saturday and Sunday days, you can take a tour and hang out in their hall, sampling craft brews and eating pizza (which you bring yourself — I suggest Vinnie’s on Bedford)

Shopping is great fun in Williamsburg: everywhere you turn you’ll see inexpensive vintage clothing shops full of killer threads as well as small designer shopfronts with cool clothes at half the price of the niche stores. You can’t go wrong with any cafe in the ‘burg, but I suggest Verb because their coffee is rich and you’re likely to see some local musicians of some renown — Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio used to work there and still frequents.

As for eats, those visiting on the weekend should brunch it at The Lodge (biscuits and gravy or the chorizo corncakes) or Ella (kielbasa skillet with eggs and potatoes), but roam around as bad brunch in Billyburg is an oxymoron. For dinner, Thai restaurant SEA may get all the hype (its dining room was featured in Zach Braff’s “Garden State”) but I much prefer Tacu Tacu next door, which blends Peruvian and Southeast Asian cuisines. Munch on the plantain chips and Aji Amarillo sauce, but leave room for my favorite dish, the Malaysian-Indian Mee Goring — noodles, meat (or tofu, which is very tasty), potatoes and tomatoes stir fried in a slightly spicy chili sauce. If you’re not feeling Asian, no worries: there’s Peruvian-style roasted chicken as well as numerous other South American specialties.

Also, Southern-style cuisine is quite big at the moment in the neighborhood, and the place that does it best is probably the Brooklyn Star — killer meatloaf in particular. And sure, you’ll find giant mugs of fine German beer at Radegast Hall & Biergarten, but you won’t believe the quality of the sausages and hamburgers cooking on the grill out back. For those that want the starving artist experience common to many Brooklynites, Oasis serves $3 falafel sandwiches that have become near legendary — well, maybe just to musicians who have spent the rest of their paychecks on music gear and booze.

But Gavin, you’re saying, aren’t you a musician? Where do I go to hear the Brooklyn scene? Well, many places. First, I’d check the website ohmyrockness.com to see who is playing, but adventurous types can hit up Spike Hill, Pete’s Candy Store, The Charleston, Trash Bar (free PBR and rail drinks from 8 to 9 if you pay to see the show), Public Assembly, Cameo, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Glasslands Gallery, Death by Audio, Union Pool and probably a few more I am forgetting…

Opening up for NbyN is another veteran rapper, the always amazing Slick Rick, as well as Jonathan Emile and Mike Posner. With around 3,000 people expected to show, you better RSVP now to get on the guest list — doors are at 9, with Slick Rick at 10:15 and NbyN at 11:45.

Publishers or advertisers serving 50 million impressions or less can create and launch display (as well as basic video or mobile) campaigns that feature geotargeting (to the zipcode), keyword targeting, or targeting based on browser, operating system, connection type or IP address. In addition to multiple pricing models (CPM, CPC or flat fee), ADTECH Lite offers live monitoring and testing, banner templates and frequency capping.

It’s the fancy-prancy customized/advanced features that the freeloaders will have to pony up for, but they can do that item by item. However, these small frys will still get access to ADTECH’s inventory management system and limited reporting for free.

“ADTECH Lite has been designed as a free offering to support growth for businesses of any size,” said Dirk Freytag, president of ADTECH and head of AOL Advertising Product and Technologies. “In offering ADTECH Lite, we are proud to serve the needs of younger and smaller growing businesses and look forward to creating lasting partnerships along the way.”

The Florida Gators made it through the Sweet Sixteen into the Elite Eight, which made my spring look brighter, but lost to a cocky Butler team who eventually made it to the final game. We’ve even suffered through one of the worst allergy seasons in history – any money I won on basketball went into the pockets of the folks at McNeil for their wonderful ZYRTEC-D.

Well folks, don’t fret – for no matter how dreary and allergy-ridden your spring has been, there’s always that light at the end of the proverbial tunnel: ad:tech San Francisco!

ad:tech San Fran never fails to deliver, featuring over 10,000 attendees and over 200 exhibiting companies. But their list of dynamic speakers makes you want to get out of bed earlier and maybe reschedule a meeting or two. For example, you can nosh with Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of Alltop.com, who is speaking about “The Art of Enchantment” at the delegate lunch. Or maybe you’d like to thank John Bax, CFO of LivingSocial, for all those local deals delivered to your inbox.

Many of you might want to probably want to kick Manny Anekal in the shins – he’s in charge of brand advertising for Zynga. If you don’t know who Zynga is, they’re the folks that bring Mafia Wars, Farmville, and all those other annoying updates from your friends to your Facebook wall. Just kidding – please don’t kick Manny. While you at it, check out Antonio Lucio from Visa and B. Bonin Bough from PepsiCo – you might have heard of those companies, if you can’t place Zynga.

Last but not least, if you can get up after all the Tuesday night parties, drag your bloodshot self into the Wednesday morning presentation to hear a visionary keynote by Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of something called The Huffington Post. Personally, I’m going to ask her how to sell my company to AOL for over $300 million… they won’t budge at a quarter-billion.

Speaking of, there seems to be a plethora of parties at these performace-marketing proceedings. (Holy alliteration, Batman!) To kick things off, the Mailer Meetup takes place at Project One Gallery. You have to be an email company to attend this one, folks. Also on Monday night is the VIP MIX+MINGLE party by Moss Networks – I’ve attended quite a few of these!  This one is brought to you by Peer 39, MediaMath, and Empyre Media.

Tuesday is the big night, starting off with DirectTrack and Digital River’s Red Velvet Blue Ribbons party at the Clift Hotel.  Epic Direct, Traffic Marketplace, and Epic Social keeps things going at The Press Club – this one is an exclusive event so you need to be invited to this one. For those not so lucky, the big parties of the night start with Advertise.com’s 10 Year Anniversary Party at Ruby Skye.

You could also head over to Vessel at 85 Compton Place where Adknowledge is hosting its Festival After Dark — “mysterious entertainers” are promised. At 1015 Folsom, the Marketers Ball takes place with Too $hort and Digital Underground performing! I can’t believe I’m going to miss that one!

Another one I hate to miss is ClickBooth’s Affiliate Bash – these guys are well-known for throwing great… well… affiliate bashes. Finally, engage:BDR and Ads4Dough is throwing their shindig at The Ambassador, featuring DJ Crooked and DJ Spider.

I won’t be around taking pics of people holding FFC cards on Tuesday night, so make sure to have a drink for me. I’ll be on the redeye back to South Florida to catch a concert with Gator buddy Danielle Raybuck from RevEngine. However, I’ll be there today (Friday) through Tuesday afternoon, staying nice and cool with lows in the high 40s and highs in the high 50s.

So come prepared for the not-so-early-spring-like weather, catch some of the great speakers, and get some speed networking done at one or more of the many events and parties! Maybe catch a baseball game – the world champion San Francisco Giants have a home series against the Cardinals, and AT&T Park is a first-class stadium that has to be experienced.

Safe travels, and I hope to see you in San Fran!

In what’s being hailed as the first verification technology reseller agreement at such a large scale, this partnership will allow advertisers and agencies to integrate adXpose’s verification, optimization and brand security services into campaigns directly from ADTECH’s IQ Platform.

“With ad verification becoming a requirement on a majority of campaigns, it makes tremendous sense to offer these solutions at the ad-server level, and embedding AdXpose within the ADTECH platform is a major step towards executing that strategy,“ said Mpire president and CRO Kirby Winfield.

Mpire also recently integrated its adXpose SaaS solution into ZEDO’s ad network and the CONTEXTWEB Exchange.

Or… Is it because the parties freakin’ rule?

ClickBooth’s parties have become such the thing of digital marketing legend that when a rumor floated claiming the affiliate network wouldn’t play host to fun and games this year, ad:tech almost canceled the conference. (No, not really.) Fortunately, the boy and girls at CB proved that was bunk — “Affiliate Apocalypse 2: Return of the Immortals” will be held tonight (Wednesday, Nov. 3) from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. at Marquee (289 10th Ave. between 26th and 27th Sts.)

Thao Tran, head of social media for ClickBooth, chatted with me about why parties are an important part of the ad:tech experience and why I can never remember how I got home after a ClickBooth event.

ADOTAS: ClickBooth is known for its fantastic ad:tech parties — why does the company pride itself on its parties?

TRAN: Because we work hard and we play hard. Have you seen our campus? Besides, our parties are a great way to get to know everyone outside of their suits and ties. It’s more of getting to know the industry players on a more personal level.

What’s on the menu for this party? How are you upping the game from past parties?

Hehe, that’s a pretty good question. How about having a full PREMIUM open bar? We’ve gotten a lot of RSVPs already. If people don’t get there early, they’re looking at standing in a line that has been known to extend around the block.

Where is it better to party — New York or San Francisco?

New York, definitely! But we reserve the right to re-evaluate that decision before ad:tech San Fran.

Who parties harder — affiliate marketers or search marketers? Can ad network people even hold their liquor?

We know of some search marketers who can throw it down all night and some affiliate marketers who would make the “Jersey Shore” kids look like wusses. Let’s just say that some of our reps have competed against them and have lost. Anyone up for a challenge?

Do we have to fight for our right to party? Who do we have to fight?

No, but you will need to fight your way through day two of ad:tech.

Why does my head always hurt so much the day after one of your parties?

Because that’s when you know you partied like a rockstar! That kind of life ain’t for everyone.

There was this really hot brunette I was chatting up at the last San Fran party, but I totally forgot her name. Could you help a brother out?

That was actually Clicky in a wig. But he’s gotten a haircut since then, so hopefully there won’t be any more confusion. Awkward!

For the second year in a row, ad:tech takes place at the Javits Convention Center, a cab ride from all the hotels we’ve gotten used to over the years, such as the Hilton New York. So for those of you used to rolling out of bed and into the shower thinking you’ll be on the convention floor in 20 minutes, think again if you aren’t on the west side of the City.

ad:tech has a slew of keynote speakers, with the opening presentation by Lauren Zalaznick, President of NBC Universal. Zalaznick, President of Women and Lifestyle Entertainment Networks for NBC Universal, oversees Bravo Media, Oxygen Media, and iVillage. I’m also going to try to catch a conference presentation by Dennis Crowley, cofounder of FourSquare. Yes, I’m going to “check in” as he speaks at “GEO:LOCO @ ad-tech: Engaging the Geo-Local Consumer.”

As far as the industry parties are concerned, those of you who arrive on Tuesday night should hit up Adotas’ shebang at Cipriani at 55 Wall St. (between William St. and Hanover St.), sponsored by those lovely folks at Kitara Media and Digital Media Events. I hear Editor Gavin Dunaway will be working the coat check for tips, serving appetizers and sharing insights on interactive advertising.

The big parties seem to be on Wednesday night. I’m going to guess this is because of the Wednesday/Thursday timing of the show, and the assumption that most people visiting from out of town will be staying Wednesday night. Personally, I’m going to hit the email-marketer-only Mailer Meetup event – although I don’t know if I’ll be reenacting my performance from the Affiliate Summit event. After that, I’m going to check out the Adknowledge party – those guys know how to get down. On Thursday night, nurse your hangover at MediaMind’s 2010 Rich Media Awards (you might have attended the celebration in the past when it was known as the Eyeblaster Awards).

This is the part of my column where I usually turn things over to a New York local who talks about clubs and restaurants and bars and spas and other diversions for the non-locals, but I happen to run across a great email from a non-local – Casey Cummings of South Florida. Casey wrote a lovely piece on where today’s smoker can find nicotine-infused refuge in the Big Apple. Now I’m not a smoker myself, but I was too lazy to find someone else to write this part of the column this time around, so Casey wins. Take it away, Case….

“Living in South Florida, I am a little spoiled. I don’t smoke every day, but if I have a cocktail, I gotta have my nicotine. And being in Florida, I can pretty much smoke anywhere I want since most all restaurants have an outside and every club allows smoking. Heading out to the shows that don’t have a liberal smoking policy like Vegas or aren’t warm weather venues like Miami are a real bummer for me.

“So, I have decided to put together a little smoker’s guide for us. I researched bars and lounges (and strip clubs of course) in NYC that are smoker friendly. Some, I have been to, and others, I called, inspected photos, read reviews, to the point where I think they may be worth a shot. Let me know if I forgot any. Otherwise, I will see you at least at one of these next week:

Smoker-Friendly Bars and Lounges

Circa Tabac – only cigarette bar in the city
32 Watts Street – btwn 6^th Ave and Thompson (two blocks from Canal)

Ajna Bar – formerly Buddha Bar (has a smoking room; restaurant as well
25 Little W 12^th St – between 9th Ave and Washington St.

230 5^th Ave Rooftop Bar (restaurant as well)
230 5^Th Ave

Karma – hookah lounge that allows cigarette smoking
51 1st Ave between 3^rd and 4^th Sts.

The Carnegie Club
156 W 56^th St between 6^th Ave. and 7^th Ave.

B Bar and Grill – heated patio (is a restaurant as well)
40 E 4^th St between Lafayette and Bowery (two blocks from Broadway)

Hustler Club – has a rooftop cigar lounge
641 W 51^st St – corner of 12^th Ave (West Side Highway).

Sutton Place – has a heated rooftop bar (restaurant as well)
234 E 54^th St.

Upstairs at the Kimberly Hotel (rooftop with heated floors; restaurant as well)
145 E 50^th St between Lexington Ave and 3^rd Ave.

Kazuza – hookah bar that allows smoking (restaurant as well)
107 Ave A (corner of Ave A and 7th St) – profile says it is the Israeli Jersey Shore.

Crystal Room – Dream Hotel rooftop set up for cold weather
210 W 55^th St near Broadway.

Well, *cough*, thank you Casey – as Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin rolls over in her grave…errr… bed. Last thing everyone – we’re looking at highs in the mid-50s and lows in the high-30s, so come prepared. Congratulations to my San Franciscan friends, safe travels to all and have a productive ad:tech!

ADTECH ‘s video solution is VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) compliant and has been designed to easily adapt to changes in market standards and guidelines. VAST is a standardized template for the online digital video advertising business.

Freytag commented that this development “demonstrates the transformation of our technology from an ad server to an advanced business intelligence tool.”

In order to increase efficiencies and streamline workflow, the analytics solution will give multiple parties access to the ad serving data, including financial departments. The customizable dashboard allows clients to examine beyond the campaign level to yearly analysis and evaluate multiple campaigns side-by-side.

Freytag and Lou Severine, vice president of sales, chatted me up some more about the unleashed analytics and how they improve workflow: