Content is nitty gritty here at Jupiter Media's Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose. A popular new session track is Business & Finance, popular with all those SEM firms hopeful that Google's IPO will pave the way for more public funds lubricating the sector.

As everyone knows, search engine marketing is hot-hot-hot these days. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, search marketing made up 35 percent of the overall Internet ad market in 2003, and likely even more in 2004. Accordingly, SES is a big conference in the sector.

As a conference, it doesn't have the sex appeal of AdTech, but attendance is impressive. Jupiter's director of marketing Michael DeMitt told me that paid attendance at this conference is roughly 1,100, with 4,000 total attendees (including free exhibit-hall-only passes), which is up 40 percent from the San Jose SES show last year ("That kind of growth is almost unheard of in the conference business.") SES presently has nine shows worldwide, including the three US shows (NY, Chicago and San Jose) and two new shows this year, in Stockholm, Sweden and Tokyo, Japan. More than 80 firms are exhibiting here in San Jose, up from 50 last year.

Tonight's meeting of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) will feature the presentation of a market-sizing research project SEMPO commissioned, as well as lots of Q&A on about SEMPO's track record in communicating with its members and its president's previously undisclosed salary. Promises to be fun.