I'm writing this article live from the conference hall. We have three presentations behind us. They were mainly about trends in stock-exchange, opportunities from venture capitals and other aspects of start-up companies. The Internet advertising industry in Poland managed to beat radio ads in budgets. The Internet access penetration in Poland is one of the worst in the whole Europe (very sad indeed), but industry definitely is doing well. Imagine how it would be if the environment would be advanced. I really hope that national telecom, as well as the government, will take care of this issue.

The best take-away till now - Polish emigrants seem to be the best target group for everyone. Their financial status rises dramatically and they use Internet (shopping, traveling, etc) on daily basis. Andrzej Garapich (Polish Internet Survey) published a survey: 21% of people (before leaving the country) said they felt secure with their money, but when they left - the secureness raised to 71%! Even though leaving the country brought some kind of job level degradation for them.

The conference itself will end tomorrow. We will have more than 20 speeches which will touch such aspects of the industry like:

• stock-exchange
• user behavior
• portals and content - trends
• e-commerce
• search marketing
• e-advertising - creatives, interaction

Aside from the great insights, there will be also very nice networking party today. If you have never had a chance to try to party in Poland, I really encourage you to do so ;). First opportunity - SEM 2008 conference (site in Polish) - May 27th and 28th, Warsaw :).