NSFW: Give me ad-free conversations, or give me death (please RT)

Yesterday I spent the day at TechCrunch's 'Real Time Crunch-up'. This despite having no idea what a 'Crunch-up' actually is.

The important thing is that Erick had asked me to help moderate his panel about marketing within 'real-time streams', which is a subject close to my heart. So close in fact, that had he asked me to help moderate a panel about child rape and its place in the public school system I couldn't have been keener to weigh in.

I'll get back to my own contribution in a moment, but first, as a courtesy to my paymasters, I should probably relate a few of my 'key learnings' from the event.

1) There is such a thing as a 'key learning', a phrase which I heard at least three times during the day, and which I gather is what an 'opinion' becomes when spoken by an idiot.

2) Gabe Rivera from TechMeme loves bookmarks. How else to explain his glee when he discovered that each of the four million free copies of Marc Benioff's 'Salesforce.com Playbook' scattered about the conference contained a little strip of cardboard sponsored by Amazon. "Cool. I can use these for my other books," he exclaimed, removing each bookmark and pocketing it before carefully placing the books back on the table.

3) Even with a back-cover quote from Neil Young, you apparently can't give away Marc Benioff's 'Salesforce.com Playbook'. At the start of the day, there were towering piles of the thing on every surface ¿ one free for every attendee. By the end of the day: towering piles of the thing on every surface, ready to be returned to the publisher. Perhaps Benioff should have taken a leaf out of his own playbook: Play #42 reads "Don't Dis Your Product With A Discount", with Benioff explaining that "I wouldn't even give my own grandmother a discount." Yet apparently he wouldn't think twice about giving the whole book away to a room full of the only people who are likely to actually buy the thing. (My book didn't win its Congressional Medal Of Honor by being given away free).

4) At TechCrunch conferences, even the food is patriotic. After the American flag next to the judges table debacle at TechCrunch50, I was worried that Arrington might shy away from overt displays of Americanness at future events. Not so ¿ inside the meal box provided to each attendee was a disposable handwipe, packaged inside a little stars and stripes pouch. To reaffirm my love of this country, I stuck one of the pouches to the front of the podium on the stage.

5) Dogs frighten room service waiters, but love Gabe Rivera from Techmeme.

And so to my panel ¿ and to be honest, I was a little anxious at the thought of it given that my fellow participants were Erick and five marketing experts ¿ Sean Rad of Ad.ly, Ryan Amos of DailyBooth, Jesse Engle of CoTweet, Philip Nelson of NewTek and Robin Bechtel who acts as 'digital agent' to Britney Spears amongst others.

Erick was on my side, of course, but even he and I have a checkered history, due in large part to the fact that I keep finding excuses to bring up his Last.fm story. Keen to smooth things over beforehand, I went via CBS's San Francisco HQ on my way to the conference and picked up a Last.fm tshirt for him. You know, as a peace offering. He didn't wear it, but I know he appreciated the gesture. ("You fucker," he said, which I gather is New York for "thank you.")

Even with Erick placated, I was still terrified by the marketers. I'm an editorial person and so these are not My People ¿ in fact I'm obliged to close my ears whenever the subject of monetizing my words is raised. What I do is Good and Pure; what they do is Bad and Dirty.

Worse still, these weren't even the usual kind of marketers ¿ people who sell banners and display ads and the like ¿ but rather a new breed who made their living by trying to slip commercial messages into our every day interactions. Take Bechtel ¿ her most recent professional triumph was convincing a gaggle of Perez' Hilton's celebrity friends ¿ Lady Gaga, Katy Perry et al ¿ to promote a new Warner recording artist by Tweeting the words "Who is Sliimy?" to their armies of followers. Sure enough, within a few hours, the question made it to the top of the trending topics list, presumably resulting in a whole load of record sales for Sliimy. To Bechtel this is a great result, whereas to my mind the idea of one Warner artist whoring and shilling for another that they hadn't even heard of is just about the most hideous abuse of fandom since Jordy Chandler.