'Internet Superstars' Take Stage at Best ad:tech Session Ever

ad:tech very much needed the so-called Internet Superstars, four "internet famous" types who were the center of the closing keynote at this year's San Francisco conference. The name, a bit cheesy for a panel (buy, hey, it's the name of the Revision3 show), was apt for the ad:tech crowd, a very different crowd than the SXSW crowd to whom, internet stardom is the norm.

The panel, more of a Tonight Show-style presentation juiced with a dose of post-hipsteresque, Web 2.0 irony than your typical ad conference panel, was tremendously entertaining and captured the audience's attention perhaps better that any other panel at the three day event. OK, so it was heavy on entertainment and "internet famous"-fueled energy but the panel, by demonstration, offered up some important learnings without resorting to a PowerPoint snooze-fest.

Taking the stage with hosts Martin Sargeant and Jay Speiden of Revision 3 were Wine Library TV host Gark Vaynerchuk, Tiki Bar TV Creator and Star Jeff Macpherson, Digg Founder and Chief Architect Kevin Rose and AskANinja C-Creator Kent Nichols.

Had you attended the session, you would have learned wine experts need not be pompous stuffy types, that wine tasting and drinking can be appreciated by "regular people" and that "fakey fake" is an acceptable descriptor. Oh, and it can be funny. You would have learned money can be made by dressing like a Ninja and answering questions. You would have learned creating a video podcast entitled Tiki Bar TV can get you onstage with Steve Jobs during a keynote. OK, not in real life but your show.

And, had you attended the session, you wold have learned (OK, I found out through another source) that boy-faced Kevin Rose is a not-so-boyish 31 years old.

Catch all the photographic drama here.