So as it turns out, Federated Media has managed to not sell any bug money campaigns for me. They have provided some better-than-average remnant inventory for me though, so I'll certainly take the extra couple hundred dollars a month if that continues.
What FM has done for me though is keep me in the loop on some pretty exciting stuff. The latest thing is that, as one of their authors, I can go to their "conversational marketing" summit for free in September in San Francisco (as in the conference is free). This is a big deal because Digg's CEO will be there, and probably some of the senior people from Facebook and MySpace, among others. Not to mention various FM authors (hoping for the Ask a Ninja guy ;)).
So do I go? I think it might be a pretty good networking opportunity, even if I'm not sure how interesting the content will be. Well, that's not true. Perhaps it'll get me thinking about how to better monetize my sites in a way that's not so damn per impression or per click. I guess the only real negative is having to take a couple of days off, and the expense of staying in San Francisco.