Agency summit tone says online has moved from having to sell itself to selling for clients.

CAMBRIDGE, MD -- Our little Internet is growing up. There’s a different feeling at this iMedia Summit than at the last agency gathering. It might be the oppressive humidity, rather than altitude sickness, but I don’t think so.

More likely, it’s that same feeling I had while watching my son after he learned to walk, practiced his balance, then started to master the basics of running -- without stumbling.

It’s still one foot in front of the other, but it’s confident instead of tentative and definitely more exciting than the last big step.

As iMedia president Rick Parkhill put it in his opening remarks Monday, “Since 1996, I’ve been opening these things saying ‘it’s an exciting time to be in interactive’ -- though not always for the best reasons. But this time it really is.”

And for good reasons indeed. As Mitsubushi Motors’ Ian Beavis told the crowd, “The Web is mainstream media, it’s no longer alternative media.”

I’ve yet to hear anything resembling, “How do we earn our seat at the grownup table?” Instead, the agencies, publishers and tech vendors assembled on the Chesapeake Bay are spending time analyzing, imagining and discussing what works and why, and comparing experiences with what customers respond to.

The keywords in this gathering’s search for success are “integration,” “broadband,” “video” and “standardization.”

Both Monday keynotes took a look at what works and what’s coming next, but in a “how-to” form rather than the broad strokes of a medium that’s still trying to find its way. This feels like a working session, not a philosophy class.

That’s a good thing, because there are still some big issues on the workbench.

“The reason we say standardization over and over is because we don’t have it,” iMedia contributor and agency exec Jim Meskauskas said in a video taken on the AOL Networks bus from Manhattan to the Summit.

And later in the tape, one agency type was asked what an impression was. His blank stare spoke volumes and got a round of sympathetic laughs from the crowd.

Then a breakout session on video standards felt like trying to pack an entire Summit’s worth of content into 45 minutes. What will users tolerate? How do you sell video ads? Should they be in front, during or after content? Should there be different standards for video content than for ads? (You’ll be seeing a lot more in iMediaConnection on that during the coming months, as both the IAB and the AAAAs committees release their initial recommendations for comment.)

Future tense

Esther Dyson, the reigning queen of Internet futurism, was the first keynoter. If you don’t know her, you need to. She recently sold her EDventure Holdings to CNET, where she is now editor-at-large. She also invests in technology companies, focusing lately on Eastern Europe. As Upstream Group’s Doug Weaver said in Dyson’s intro, “Her beat is the future.”

Doug Weaver and Esther Dyson.

We’ll bring you her entire conversation with Weaver next week, but I wanted to give you some highlights.

Weaver mentioned the business world’s renewed excitement around the Internet, and asked her what mistakes the industry should avoid this time around.

“The most important thing to avoid is thinking other people won’t remember when you take advantage of them,” she said.

She believes the venture capitalists are getting ahead of themselves again, and need to step back. But that exuberance is not limited to the money side. When she asked a Ukranian company she was considering investing in whether they had customers, they said they did. So she asked what those customers wanted.

They said, “What they want is so boring -- that’s why we want your advice.”

Dyson doesn’t believe social networking will grow as a business unto itself. But when integrated into other Internet areas, it can be profitable, because of its ability to make introductions and to connect people with a certain amount of third-party trust built in. “If I’m in San Francisco and I know friends in Los Angeles, Orbitz should immediately begin showing me airfares to LA … with no hotel needed.”

She also spoke about the impact of the Internet on politics. Naturally, she cited the Dean for America Web site and its grassroots community. But she said the ultimate value will be on the local level, bringing people together on school bond issues, stop lights and so on. “It’s not just politics,” she says. “It’s civics. People thinking they have a stake and can make a difference.”

What’s next for search? She says it will have to become more focused. “If you really want something in particular, you probably don’t want a brand search. In order to do search well, you need to understand the context. Search mediated by social network, more local search. What people in the ad industry want when they search on Coca-Cola is different than what the general consumer wants. What does Britney Spears think about Coca-Cola?”

She also said the definition of search needs to be rethought. She cited Orbitz (she’s on its advisory board) and Expedia as examples. They’re really search sites for airfares.

However, she says that’s not entirely good. “The Internet, as wonderful as it is, is making things more fragmented. I should be forced to listen to someone who is foreign or I am not familiar with, and I might learn something. Search reinforces our existing prejudices.”

And she had plenty to say about online video. “Video is compelling -- if you want to watch it. Video is really annoying to people in a hurry.”

And finally, Dyson echoed what a lot of attendees have said and are feeling: broadband indeed changes everything, and is key to everything good in the Internet’s coming adolescence. But not, she says, because of streaming speeds and file sizes.

“The always-on part of it is much more important,” she says. “It’s going to change how we use email. It will be a set of links, rather than a chunk of stuff that comes to your desk. It lowers the transaction costs. Your mail can always be downloading, you don’t have to check it. You can follow links anywhere. When things really become seamless, that’s when life becomes easier.”

Easier for both customer and marketer, as Starcom IP’s Shelby Saville demonstrated in her conversation with Joseph Jaffe, iMedia editor-at-large. Saville showed video creative from 19 clients -- all of whom signed on for Internet video campaigns during the last year alone.

“It’s an easy sell now,” she said. That wouldn’t have happened in years before. However, she said, client’s “get it,” and number and results back it up.

More online horsepower

The second keynoter Monday was Mitsubishi’s Beavis, the brains behind the “See What Happens” campaign.

That brilliant exercise in integrated marketing was created in just three weeks from “go” to the Super Bowl. And it has paid off in ways that any marketer can point to when asked whether the Web can drive sales (pun intended).

See What Happens showed the first 30 seconds of a 50-second spot during the second quarter of this year’s Super Bowl. To see the rest, viewers had to go to SeeWhatHappens.com.

And they did.

During the first 24 hours, the minisite generated as much traffic as the Mitsubishi Motors site does in one month. Two-thirds of the visitors watched the film more than once. The ad had 72 percent recall after eight weeks, which is virtually unheard of.

But here’s the big number: SeeWhatHappens.com had a 27 percent conversion rate, more than four times more than Mitsubishi’s standard site.

And as you’ll discover when we bring you more of Beavis' comments next week, the Web spectacle completely shifted the reason buyers chose a Mitsubishi (yes, that’s a tease. And no, I’m not going to give you more. It’s worth waiting for).

So what’s this all mean? It seems to mean that interactive marketing is finally moving beyond having to defend itself against the bigger kids in traditional marketing, is indeed sitting at the grownup table, and is looking seriously at how to best serve both brands and consumers.

Looking forward is much more fun than looking over your shoulder -- and it’s much healthier.

Tomorrow: David Winberger talks politics, AOL’s Mike Kelly discusses what’s happening at AOL Media Networks, more creative, and Nielsen’s take on what users are doing at work.