Here’s a lovely video from a dinner All Things Digital held last night for the staff of both our annual D: All Things Digital conference and the AllThingsD.com Web site.

It’s a yearly event where Walt Mossberg and I gather our staff to talk about the upcoming year and plans going forward.

The site just added a new New York-based writer, Peter Kafka, as well as a director of operations (also for the conference), Christine Mohan, who is also in New York.

And D7 takes place in late May again, and we are already at work on another stellar lineup, as well as moving forward with a possible European version of the conference–EuroD–for fall of 2009.

But, before that, there’s ribs to eat.

Here’s the video:

What can we say about AOL’s ad miss, reported in the New York Times today by Miguel Helft, except to quote an email I got from a former AOL executive today: “Ad sales and no surprises were the reason these guys were supposedly brought in.”

Oops. Indeed, more analysis of this issue tomorrow, but it’s not a very good sign for AOL head Randy Falco, the television guy brought in to inject a dose of ad savvy to the service.

AOL has had by necessity to move its business from a subscription model to one supported by ad sales, hoping to take advantage of the 90 million visitors to its sites every month.

Not quite yet, it seems. AOL execs are calling a recent decline in growth of its ad revenue, which was 40% in the previous quarter and is 16% in the most recent (compared to overall online ads in the U.S. that are expected to increase close to 29% this year), temporary and due to vast changes being made in its offerings.

Well, renovation must hurt, because AOL also lost ad market share year over year.

Another big destination, Yahoo, is suffering from the same problem, with a falloff in ad growth and also market share (only Google, which is a horse of a different color from a portal perspective, is gaining). The culprits are small sites gaining ads, as well as savvier marketers looking for better results.

Top O’ the Blogging to You!

Walt and I are considering a European edition of our D: All Things Digital conference, which we are calling EuroD, as you might know from my various posts from our trip to the Emerald Isle recently to scope out sites.

While there, we met the Irish Times’ very sharp tech reporter, John Collins, to talk about the project. He did a nice story then and last week did a very nice post about BoomTown, too.

Here is one of the many videos I did from there with Walt, where we visit Dublin Castle and Walt turns into a tour guide:

MIT Geeks Continue to Invent Scary Geeky Stuff

And here is a great video by The Wall Street Journal’s Jennifer Saranow about some new stuff being created at MIT’s Media Lab’s Computing Culture Group.

Projects include an energy-consuming meter worn on the thigh that shocks you when you use too much (for those, its inventor notes, “with global-warming guilt”) and a jacket that also delivers a jolt to those who seek to mug its wearer. Ouch all around!

After visiting Dublin Castle and then perusing fancy hotels in the city of Dublin and then strolling the streets, Walt Mossberg and I head out to the Wicklow Mountains to see a bit of the lovely Irish countryside.

It’s the last stop on venue visits for us, to see a different kind of experience that is out of the city in a more rural setting. So we visited the construction site for a new Ritz-Carlton on the Powerscourt Estate, near the adorable village of Enniskerry, about 40 minutes south of Dublin.

Walt and I are here in Ireland, because our D conference might be going international.

After our success with our annual flagship version, which just took place for the fifth time in late May in Carlsbad, Calif. (D6 is scheduled be held in late May of 2008), we are deciding whether to expand by adding a new conference outside the U.S.

If we do it, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD. We like Dublin for a lot of reasons, including its fast-growing tech sector.

Here’s the next video:

So we sucked it up and headed to see the recently renovated and quite historic hotel, the Shelbourne, as well as the Four Seasons, where we are staying. (Our annual flagship D conference has been held for five years at the Four Seasons Aviara in Carlsbad, Calif., and will be again in late May of 2008.)

Both luxury hotels are obviously lovely, and present different experiences–one more urban and the other slightly out of the city center.

Walt and I are here in Ireland, because our D: All Things Digital conference might be going international.

After our success with our annual flagship D, which just took place for the fifth time in late May (D6 is scheduled be held in late May of 2008), we are deciding whether to expand by adding a new conference outside the U.S.

If we do it, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD. We like Dublin for a lot of reasons, including its fast-growing tech sector.

So, here is our second video of our efforts to decide where to hold EuroD, if we end up doing it.

And, as at Dublin Castle, the venues are much fancier than we are:

Our D: All Things Digital conference might be going international.

We have had a lot of success with our annual flagship D, which just took place for the fifth time in late May in Carlsbad, Calif. (D6 is scheduled to be held in late May of 2008.)

This past year was particularly memorable, especially because of the joint interview Walt and I did with longtime rivals and tech legends, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of Microsoft (pictured here, but you can see the highlights video of the interview here).

Thus, we are on what you might call a fact-finding mission, to see if we should make the leap and expand our successful conference brand by adding a new conference with a focus outside the United States.

So, here’s a longish video, with others to follow, of our quest (along with D staffers Lia Lorenzano and Jill Pendergast) to decide on where we would hold EuroD.

First up, a visit to the historic Dublin Castle (circa 1204), where we might hold part of the event and where we are woefully outclassed by the tony surroundings:

A focus on international digital issues is something we all need to do more of in the tech space, considering most of the growth and perhaps innovation will be coming from all over the world in the years ahead. We hope to bring together both U.S. and international tech figures onstage, and are aiming to have the same multinational audience.

We will not decide on whether to move ahead quite yet. But, if we do, we hope to hold the first one next fall and are strongly considering Dublin as the location of the event, which we are calling EuroD (although we also hope to bring D to other parts of the world if we can someday).

While the Irish Development Agency Ireland (IDA Ireland) has been a sponsor of D for the past two years, we’re more interested in the city for its charm, easy access and, most of all, because of its growing tech sector.

That includes both local companies, as well as a clutch of U.S. ones with major facilities here, such as Intel, Microsoft, HP, Apple, Google, Amazon.com and Palm. They’re attracted by a highly educated population and a government intensely interested in developing its digital industry.

In fact, its Taoiseach–the Irish title for the leader of government–Bertie Ahern has been particularly aggressive in pushing for things like broadband and other moves to improve the country’s prospects.

The booming economy is obvious to anyone, evidenced by a plethora of new businesses, stores and all the construction now taking place around the small but bustling city.