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.

Building your very own robot? Want to turn your cell phone into a universal remote? This is the place for you. The Invention Lab powered by RadioShack is a place for do-It-yourselfers to get their hands dirty with like-minded hackers, tweakers and benders of technology. The site invites users to share their project ideas, completed projects and project horror stories. Go head, get that project you've had in your head out into the real world.

Of course we know FM rocks, but a little industry validation never hurts. The Webby Awards recognized 14 FM family members as honorees and nominees in a diverse range of award categories including blogs, social networks, websites and many more. Be sure to go and vote for your favorites here. Way to go team!

FM Honorees
Blog – Personal/Cultural: Boing Boing Gadgets, Destructoid, We Make Money Not Art
Personal Website: Confessions of a Pioneer Woman
Best Practices: Ask a Ninja
Best Visual Design: Ask a Ninja
Community: Fark
Electronics: Ubergizmo
Food and Beverage: Start Cooking
Games-Related: Destructoid
IT Hardware/Software: Ars Technica
Self Pomotion/Portfolio: Behance Network
Services: Ask a Ninja
Social Networking: Behance Network
Travel: TravBuddy and OpenRoad.tv

FM Nominees
Best Practices: Digg
Blog – Business: 5 Blogs Before Lunch
Blog – Personal: Laughing Squid
Magazine: Makezine

Great post over at ReadWriteWeb about Intel-sponsored PopURLS Blue Edition - Popular URLs to the Latest Web Enterprise IT Buzz. It's "one of the most interesting ad campaigns I've seen in awhile," says Marshall Kirkpatrick. Thanks Marshall!

If we tried to show you all of our favorites from the more than 6000 entries so far, we'd explode our servers. So, here's a slide show of the top 50 or so...

Matt Trotta comes to FM as an Account Executive in the New York office after spending 5 years at Turner Broadcasting, most recently working as a Digital Planner in the newly formed New Media Department. While at Turner, Matt also worked in Television and Digital Research, which helped fuel his passion for online media. Matt is a graduate of Syracuse University.Welcome to the FM family, Matt!

Check out BMW's new campaign on Facebook's Graffiti Wall application. Some seriously talented fans are getting seriously creative with the BMW 1-Series. Check out some of the entries. We're proud to be able to bring all of this coolness together.

BMW fans turn this:

Into these (nearly 6000 entries and counting). Here are some of our favorites so far:

And Facebook’s senior platform manager Dave Morin twittered that BMW’s Graffiti contest “could be one of the most brilliant social media campaigns I’ve seen in a long time.” Thanks, Dave!

Frances Truong joins FM as an engineer. She has over eight years of experience working in the online marketing space. Frances came to FM from Linkstar Interactive Inc., where she developed their media tracking platform. Frances graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in Computer Science, and likes to travel and explore foreign lands. Welcome to the FM family, Frances!

Larissa Giargiari joins FM in the conference group this week. She started her career in media working for American Lawyer Media and Court TV. After moving to the Bay Area, she joined The Industry Standard's founding team focusing on facilities operations and eventually conference planning. She has been helping to produce high-touch executive events for the past ten years. When not coordinating every little detail, she enjoys exploring Marin with her husband and two small kids. Welcome to the family, Larissa!