I had the good fortune of attending the CeBIT Web Forward internet marketing conference as a delegate representing KayWeb Holdings Pty Limited (incorporating KayWeb Creations, KayWeb Marketing and KayWeb Systems).

The event, held at Darling Harbour's Exhibition Centre on May 13 and 14, attracted speakers representing various businesses and areas of expertise. Among the talent on show were representatives from Google, Sensis, Fairfax Digital, News Limited, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Citrix Systems.

As with all such events, there was plenty of good to come out of it, and some bad.

The good is definitely associated with the feeling me and my KayWeb colleague and fellow-delegate Mark Simon had that we felt better educated after the experience. The bad is chiefly associated with certain businesses using their 20 minutes on stage to launch into a diatribe about their offerings, or as one delegate called it... speeches resembling an "infomercial".

Having attended the same conference last year, the biggest improvement was the inclusion of Google. A search marketing conference without Google is no search marketing conference, and unfortunately that was the case in 2008. Google was represented by both its Australia & New Zealand General Manager Karim Temsamani and Tony Keusgen of its Technology Markets division.

Temsamani talked about the fact that even their multi-billion dollar company was affected by the global economic crisis. But he offered positives overall for the web industry, stating "recessions are good for innovation". He also offered positives for the smaller players, stating "it is easier to get ahead when your competition is slowing down".

Temsamani also applauded Kevin Rudd's National Broadband Network (NBN) policy as the "greatest enabler of change that Australian businesses could wish for".

Temsamani talked about the future of web and felt the notion of "openness" as a way forward.

This sentiment was supported by Keusgen, who said an "open" web and "user first" were the most important notions leading Google to success.

The reason Keusgen weighed in with that was because of a question I put to Fairfax Digital's Chief Operating Officer, Nic Cola.

I blogged recently about News Limited Chairman Rupert Murdoch's crazy idea of charging for online news. So as Cola was representing Murdoch's competition, I asked:

"Will Fairfax rule out a similar move in the future?"

I was surprised Cola passed up a golden opportunity to distance themselves from the 'closed' approach being proposed by Murdoch. He said Fairfax Digital will not rule that out by saying they were "always looking at ways to monetise our website". Keusgen, sitting on the same panel as Cola, said Google's successful policy was "putting the user first", clearly rejecting the ramblings of News Limited and Fairfax Digital.

The conference also had a strong focus on mobile internet. It solidly covered mobile applications for the iPhone, and also for Blackberry and Google's Android.

The conference also covered local search, with Sensis representatives and the True Local CEO speaking about their latest offerings in this space.

Overall, a good experience and I feel more illuminated as a result of attending.

Please see my video review of the CeBIT Web Forward internet marketing conference from the Exhibition Centre above.

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