The biggest problem with these iDate conferences as organized by Marc Lesnick is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to meet everyone you’d like to meet. There are no rosters, no contact information, no way to know who is there. And with 300+ attendees, how can you possibly look at enough nametags in between presentations? I know that Lesnick would maintain that he just want to keep a secure database, but unless I can get access to the big players in the industry, what’s the point of spending $1000+ to be there?

Did you land the jump or wipe out after the picture was taken?

We missed you Dave

The vendor room was a sad, sad place. There were a few people there (enlaso) whose presence made absolutely no sense, and of course nobody was talking to them. It was the right size when it was packed full of people between sessions.

I ran into Sam Yagan, didn’t recognize him at first. He was incredibly cagy and really, a sourpuss. Shouldn’t someone who just landed financing be happy? Something’s wrong there.

Speaking of cagy sourpusses, if the transparensee guys interrupt my conversations to pitch their AMAZING SEARCH TECHNOLOGY with their cruddy real estate demo, I’ll give them the wedgie they so richly deserve.

In fact, everyone who was okcupid sized and up was quiet and low key. Except Markus, who did his geek-powered, fact-based superiority thing which pissed everyone off to no end and which I, as a geek, deeply enjoyed watching.

In the final beer session, it was a great delight to hear the Europeans say “I don’t know what’s up with all this background check paranoia bullshit. Throughout the EU that stuff is illegal, and nobody really cares anyway.” The Honesty Online people were visibly deflated by that.

The most valuable aspect of the conference for me was networking. There was a squadron of Canadian companies up there, and they were all nice. The classmates.com people were there, also incredibly nice. Eric Strauss has the highest richness-to-laidbackness ratio of the industry. Respect, yo.

The least valuable aspect was the talks. The SEO chat was a rehash of Google’s webmaster guidelines. The pretty but visibly uncomfortable Google woman tried to explain how to connect emotionally with my customers. Yeah. Thanks. Susan Merrit put me to sleep with her monotone and oceans of powerpoint.

Best of the talks was Brooks’s keynote, the private equity talk (something I never understood until that show), and the Tickle talk which is admirably factual. The morning session on relationship advice was a great way to clear the hangover.

The conference itself was in a lame location, with no wifi, at a conference hotel that wasn’t big enough to hold all the attendees, with a cocktail party at the tail end of an intensely busy day. I could have done with about 75% fewer verbal contributions from the Mark, the host of the show.

Good to see you Markus.

I don’t want to comment much, but I can tell you there will be more change in the next 6 months then in the entire history of this industry. Expect one bombshell after the next to drop this year.