Paige Thomas joins us as our new Account Executive for FM Events.

Paige comes to Federated Media with an advertising background in traditional print media. She most recently came from SPIN, where she was Pacific Northwest Manager. She has also worked for VIBE, Cosmopolitan, and CosmoGIRL! magazines. Paige is really looking forward to bringing her background in traditional brand marketing, to the exciting new world of conversational marketing. Paige is native to the Bay Area, and after leaving for 4 great years to attend University of Arizona, she knew immediately she would make San Francisco her home. Paige loves checking out live music, traveling, trying out new restaurants, and spending time with family and friends. Welcome to FM, Paige!

Zac Brown joins Federated Media as our Staff Accountant. Born in Oklahoma, Zac attended college in Portland, OR at Lewis And Clark College as a Literature Major. Most recently Zac worked as a Real Estate Treasury Accountant for Forest City Ratner Companies in Brooklyn, NY. Outside of work he likes to write and record songs and travel as much as possible. Welcome to the FM family, Zac!

Chas lent his expertise to Inside Facebook in a wide-ranging interview the delves into the Facebook application developer and marketing ecosystem. Check out the full interview here. Check out Chas's ongoing thought in the industry here.

"...look at what we’ve done on Graffiti with Paramount Studios (Movie Poster Contest), BMW (What Drives You campaign), Dell (Regeneration eco-friendly campaign), or Haagen Dazs (Graffi-bee Contest), and these kinds of campaigns really resonate with the brand marketer. It’s not just about clicking through to my website and buying a pint of ice cream, it’s about getting hundreds of thousands of people to know more about this bee situation - and if they know more about it they might care more about it, want to learn more about it, and want to learn more about Haagen Dazs’s role in it. When you do that you’re likely to have a more emotional experience with the Haagen Dazs brand - creating brand equity that will lead you to make different purchasing decisions when you go to the grocery store. This is really hard to do on the internet, which is just awash in banner ads."

They Today Show tapped Heather Armstoring of Dooce this morning for her take on the mommy-blog phenomenon. Check it out:

We mean it when we say that FM is "author driven." Here's a list of the latest superstars to get behind the wheel. Welcome all!

Big Think
GM Volt
Inhabitat
Mighty Girl
Mighty Goods
Mighty Junior
Search Engine Land
ViroPop

The CM Summit is right around the corner and the speaker list is shaping up nicely. Early bird pricing expires May 2, so get those tickets while they're hot. Thanks to our initial sponsors including Dell, Intel, Verizon, American Express OPEN, About.com and Campfire Media. See here for the official press release.

The confirmed speaker list now includes:
- John Battelle, Chairman & CEO, Federated Media
- Jeff Berman, President of Sales and Marketing, MySpace
- Henry M. Blodget, CEO, Silicon Alley Media
- Jonah Bloom, Editor, Advertising Age
- Beth Comstock, Chief Marketing Officer, General Electric
- Matt Freeman, CEO, Tribal DDB Worldwide
- Louis Giagrande, Senior Online Marketing Manager, Samsung Electronics America
- Darren Herman, Group Director of Digital Media, Media Kitchen
- Michael Hoefflinger, GM - Partner Marketing, Intel
- Mark Kantor, Co-founder, Graffiti
- Jason Kilar, CEO, Hulu
- Clark Kokich, CEO, Avenue A | Razorfish
- James M. Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Technology, comScore
- Andy Lark, VP–Global Marketing & Communications, Dell
- Andrew Markowitz, Director, Digital Marketing & Media, Kraft Foods Inc.
- Daina Middleton, SVP of Sunao, Moxie Interactive
- Wenda Harris Millard, President, Media, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia & IAB
- Eileen Naughton, Director of Media Platforms, Google
- Martin A. Nisenholtz, SVP – Digital Operations, The New York Times Company
- Michael Osborne, Vice President of Sales, Bazaarvoice
- Chrysi Philalithes, Launch Managing Director, Steak Media
- Jon Raj, Chief Digital Officer, OMD
- Randall Rothenberg, President & CEO, IAB
- Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus
- Joanna Shields, President, Bebo
- Rich Silverstein, Co-Chairman, Goodby Silverstein & Partners
- Debra Aho Williamson, Senior Analyst, eMarketer

FM hosted a get-together last night at South Park Cafe as part of the Web 2.0 Expo pub crawl. Conference attendees stopped in to mingle over drinks and appetizers. Some of our fabulous publishers were in attendance including the teams from Graffiti, MoCo Loco, Ubergizmo and NOTCOT. In the last picture below, you can see the marketing team gaudily proudly flying the FM colors.

Kate Juillerat comes to FM from New York City where she lived for the past four years after graduating from the University of Arizona with a degree in Journalism. Before joining the FM team Kate worked at CNet Networks as an Account Executive. Prior to her experience at CNet Networks Kate worked for People Magazine in Print Advertising Sales. She is excited to become part of the San Francisco based FM team to help grow the Southwest Territory as well as return to her Bay Area roots! In her spare time Kate loves to travel, play golf, read, attend concerts, and spend time with family and friends. Welcome to FM, Kate!

Yes, FM has received a substantial minority investment from Oak Investment Partners and is very happy to have Fred Harman joining the board. Rest assured, we're going to keep doing what we do best as we expand our services and create even more value for marketers and FM family members.

See here for the press release.

For coverage, see here, here, here, here, here and here.