While the various rooftop parties all received rave reviews, marketers? take on the actual agenda of CTIA I.T. & Entertainment 2009: Mobile Business ranged from enthusiastic to "Eh."

While some executives used the time for business meetings, many other industry players roamed the show floor and attended the keynote addresses, panels and educational sessions. Despite the recession taking its toll on attendance compared to past years, many attendees found the conference to be as valuable as always, while others left a bit disappointed.

Here is what various CTIA attendees had to say about their impressions:

Lee Durham, president/CEO of LSN Inc., Atlanta
To be brutally honest, we [marketers] were all just talking to ourselves. Very few brands and advertisers were there [at the Tuesday preconference sessions dedicated to mobile marketing and advertising]. Everyone up there was within the industry.

It was disappointing that you didn?t see more of the brands and the agencies. Everybody was talking about their business and the growth they?ve seen, and we have all seen growth, which is great.

However, the economy needs to get better, and more and more brands need to stop using the word ?test? and put some real ad dollars behind mobile and see what it can do. When traditional business starts to get better, people will put more money into mobile campaigns.

Jeff Hasen, chief marketing officer of HipCricket, Kirkland, WA
This was a successful show for HipCricket. We never have exhibited, so the fact that the floor was so small didn?t affect us.

We were on a high-profile panel, talked about our new mobile-coupon solution to press, analysts and sales prospects, and had the conversations we needed to in San Diego.

On to the DMA conference and Mobile Marketing Forum, where we will be talking about mobile analytics and presenting to brands and agencies.

Erin ?Mack? McKelvey, vice president of marketing at Millennial Media, Baltimore
Mobile advertising and mobile marketing has definitely become a much more prominent topic of conversation at CTIA this fall. It has been prevalent in the preconference, opening-day sessions, and in the networking events as well.

Mobile advertising is a provocative topic. There?s a sentiment here that the full mobile ecosystem can benefit from enabling a richer consumer experience on behalf of advertisers and publishers.

Chris Ruff, president/CEO of UIEvolution, Seattle
CTIA attendance seems down?it seems quite small compared to past years. Wednesday is usually the biggest day, but it has been a pretty slow show this year in general.

Nothing really big is being announced either. Verizon and Google made an announcement, which was interesting, but kind of expected.

There?s not that buzz going on, although I love that it?s in San Diego.

I think the show is struggling with figuring out what it is, its focus and how it differentiates itself against the spring show, CES and some of the converged shows. The MMA runs great events that are very focused on mobile marketing and advertising.

As far as the number of booths, there aren?t as many as in past years, which is a sign of the times. Marketing budgets are not what they used to be. All of us have cut our marketing budgets to survive.

Nevertheless, we?ll continue to support CTIA.

Raam Thakrar, CEO of Touchnote, London
It was a great and very productive show. What we really liked was that a lot of the right people that we wanted to talk to were around. It felt like a place where we could get stuff done.

Often these bigger events are about "show and tell," but this CTIA seemed to be about getting business done and making deals happen. The biz-dev people really had been told to make deals happen.

The show's focus seemed to be about generating business more than anything else.

I was also impressed by the level of seniority of people manning the different booths.

Yes, it was quieter and smaller than previous shows. I think that this is a sign of the economic times in the U.S.A. and the fact that two of the big newer players?Google and Apple?have a different philosophy when it comes to these events.

It was very interesting that the app stores from two of the major manufacturers were here?Nokia was represented by Nokia Ovi, and Motorola was represented by Motodev.

Alex Hall, New York-based chief operating officer of TigerSpike
The general feedback from people I was chatting to at the stands was that traffic was very low. The optimists amongst them figured this was better in some ways as you could spend more time with anyone wanting to learn about your company.

Clearly in macro terms, the trend is worrying though. Although it may be largely to do with the fact that 2009 has been an economic annus horribilus, as the Queen once said, this might well change the way advertisers look at the conference in the future. Focus might well shift completely to just doing one a year in a bigger and better way.

As a CTIA novice, the parties lived up to expectation and were good for meeting people. Ironically of course, it was also easier to catch up with people from New York outside of New York. Inexplicable!

As a first-time speaker at CTIA, I found it hard to gauge exactly who was attending my panel, although they did all seem awake and attentive.

I got the impression there were more developers around than normal, and fewer marketers, but then I don?t think CTIA is a natural destination for brand marketers unless they have a very specific mobile agenda.