I was unable to attend this week’s LinkShare Symposium 2005 and the company’s 2nd annual Golden Link Awards held in New York City. It would have been great to travel to the Big Apple to mix and mingle with all the LinkShare executives, their top affiliates and merchants. Okay, maybe I really wanted to go for the shopping, but alas, family and work commitments here in San Francisco prevented me from attending.

However, I’ve had several conversations with people that did make it to the event. For most, the highlight was LinkShare’s Golden Link Awards. Everyone praised the event as “well-done” and “extravagant.” LinkShare’s top dogs Steve Messer and Heidi Messer were extremely gracious hosts, who by all accounts barely got to partake in the delicious food and plentiful cocktails as they were both so busy extending warm greetings and chatting it up with their invited guests.

Wednesday night’s festivities were hosted by comedienne Kathy Griffin. She had the crowd rolling with her trademark shtick of taking pointed jabs at Hollywood A-listers. This time her biting barbs were directed mostly at Oprah and Tom Cruise. There’s so much comedic gold there.

No stranger to corporate gigs, Kathy didn’t seem particularly tuned into exactly what LinkShare does as a company. At the end of her routine she gave some general comments about how much she loved “that stuff” that LinkShare does and how it makes her world better. Kathy, it’s okay that you really don’t know anything about online marketing. The entire room still thought you were very funny.

Other celebrities in attendance included WB11 New York news anchor Julie Chang and chef/author/reality star/cookware designer Rocco DiSpirito. It sounded like Rocco was the talk of the evening – at least for the ladies. I heard that nearly every woman at the event commented about wanting to meet the chef or better yet hook up for some private “cooking” lessons. Forgetaboutit girls. That guy is all about Mama and her meatballs.

I admit that I didn’t take a big shine to Rocco after following his antics on The Restaurant. However, he may have redeemed himself at this event. When he stepped on stage to present an award with LinkShare executive Liane Dietrich, she took out one of his cookbooks and asked for an autograph. He then returned the compliment by whipping out the Spring Issue of Revenue magazine where Liane was profiled and asked for her to sign it. Aww, Rocco, how sweet. Nothing gets you back in my good graces faster than a well-executed plug for my magazine.

All 300 plus guests at the swanky Cipriani were dressed to the nines for the affair, which doled out awards in such categories as Innovative Affiliate of the Year, Best New Affiliate of the Year and Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate.

Many of the people I spoke with commented about how Overstock did not win any of the two awards it was up for. Overstock fared better last year. Here’s a complete list of the winners in each category for 2005:

Innovative Affiliate of the Year:
Winner: wow-coupons.com

Innovative Merchant of the Year
Winner: LaneBryant.com

Best New Affiliate of the Year
Winner: Knoxgolf.com

Best New Merchant
Winner: Apple iTunes

Merchant’s Choice Award
Winner: fatwallet.com

Affiliates Choice Award
Winner: PersonalizationMall.com

International Merchant of the Year
Winners: Tie between American Express and Avon

Best Performance-Based Search Strategy
Winner: 1-800-PetMeds

Best Online Merchandising Campaign
Winner: Dell Home Systems

Best Integrated Online-Offline Marketing
Winner: CouponCabin.com

Best Overall Online Distribution Strategy
Winner: Chase

Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate
Winner: Mike Hyland of EcomCity.com

Prior to the awards ceremony on Wednesday, LinkShare hosted a one-day event/seminar specifically for merchants. One merchant said too much of the agenda focused on lead generation and not enough was geared toward retail. Oh yeah, and there was a not-so-subtle emphasis on analytics. Don’t forget LinkShare just released its SynergyAnalytics product a few months back. There was also a lot of hand wringing about the CPA networks and what exactly many of them do including XY7.com.

If you attended Thursday’s symposium and want to fill me in on the details, you can email me at lisap@revenuetoday.com

Now for another shameless Revenue Magazine plug. If you’re in the Atlanta area next week, check out Affiliate Marketing: Finding the Perfect Match. It’s a three-hour evening seminar presented by the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association. Revenue is one of the main sponsors. The panel of experts will be talking about a variety of affiliate issues including methods that increase affiliate revenue and keep issues like cookie death and adware from ruining a good relationship.