After reviewing my notes tonight, I noticed that I really didn't have too much to mention... which is about right seeing how I only attended 2 sessions the whole day. However, that is in direct correlation of what my schedule allowed.

My day kicked off with the "Bulk Submit 2.0" session which included a small panel existing of Amanda Camp of Google, Todd Friesen (Oilman) of Range Online Media, and Eric Papczun of Performics. The group covered the basics of the Google Sitemaps and Yahoo! Site Explore products, and of course the new Sitemaps.org project which is currently in place.

During the lunch time-slot, I attended a live demonstration / review / Q&A of Yahoo!'s new and upcoming Pay Per Click platform, which is codenamed "Project Panama". Panama will be a mandatory system update for all Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers, and will feature such additions as:

• A New User-Interface.
• A Time-Zone Setting.
• An Extremely Enhanced and Better Geo-Targeting Feature.
• A/B Testing Options.
• Budgeting on Both an Account Level and Campaign Level.
• Alerts and Customizable Alerts.
• A New Ranking Algorithm Based on an Ad's Performance.

Some other highlights concerning the Panama release:

• US upgrades to the new system have begun.
• Sign-Ups to move forward one's upgrade date will soon be available.
• Random invitations to upgrade will continue to be sent over the next few months.
• Data will not be backwards compatible. Accounts will begin a new set of stats.

After lunch, I, along with fellow All Webber's Michael Roebuck, Jessica Guadiana, and Kelly Wilson, made our rounds through the exhibit hall, which had opened up at around 10am today. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't completely impressed with this year's exhibit hall. It had seemed smaller than past years, and really didn't feature many new vendors, or at least any that I really wanted to meet and chat with.

Jessica Guadiana, Kelly Wilson, and Myself

That's it as far as search goes. I did happen to go out to a great Chinese Dinner at the Pacific Bistro located up and around North Lakeshore Drive. Apparently, the building which houses this restaurant and a few other specialty stores and offices is the old Playboy Building in Chicago. Here's a photo of a sign I came across.

That's it for now... stay tuned for more updates as the SES conference continues.