Got your head in the cloud? Networking can help make it all compute

Where to schmooze. Every Friday, the Innovation Economy blog features five things worth knowing about. The most recent list was a subjective rundown of the best ongoing networking events. In no particular order:

■Focused on Internet and mobile innovation, Web Innovators Group (webinnovatorsgroup.com) offers a chance to see demos from eight or 10 start-ups; this month’s event happens on Sept. 29. It’s always held at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, with lots of impromptu meetings before and after in the downstairs lobby bar. The registration page offers a long list of who’s planning to attend.

■What could be more fun than hanging out with a couple hundred chemists, genomic experts, venture capitalists, and business development execs from the local bio-pharma cluster?

Biotech Tuesday (biotechtuesday.com) is a schmooze-fest, pure and simple: no agenda or speakers, just a really interesting mix of life-sciences smarties from academia, start-ups, and power players like Vertex, Novartis, and Pfizer. The next two Biotech Tuesdays take place Oct. 13 and Nov. 17.

■Boston Post Mortem (bostonpostmortem.org) usually features a talk by a luminary involved in game development. (This past week it was Duncan Watt discussing “music as an element of game design.’’) It happens at the Skellig in Waltham, and the well-lubricated crowd includes game designers and programmers who work in the trenches as well as a handful of more senior game industry executives and investors.

■Cloud computing is an especially hot topic, and Silver Lining (silverlininggroup.squarespace.com) runs one of the newer gatherings. Their Oct. 23 event will focus on healthcare-related applications of cloud computing.

■If you’re interested in the impact of Twitter, Facebook, and Ning on marketing and communications, Social Media Breakfast Boston (socialmediabreakfast.com/category/smb-boston) is a must-attend event. Speakers can include chief executives like Diane Hessan of Communispace, consultants like Justin Levy of New Marketing Labs, or executives responsible for social media at big companies like EMC.

To make sure you get word of upcoming meetings, sign up for the group’s e-mail list and follow organizer Bob Collins (he’s @RobertCollins) on Twitter.

Innovation Economy readers have listed some of their top networking events on the blog, at boston.com/innovation. You’re invited to add more.

Pop Quiz. Can you name this company? Here are your hints:

■It was founded in 1997 and focuses on e-mail marketing for big companies, including JetBlue, Dell, the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins, and TJX Cos.

■It just moved into a new headquarters in Burlington that’s 50 percent bigger than its old digs.

■It began the year with 254 employees in Massachusetts, with plans to end 2009 with about 300.

■It was acquired last year by a publicly held Pennsylvania company for $157 million.

■It held its sixth annual client conference this month in Boston, with more than 200 attendees.

Give up? The company is e-dialog.

I spoke with chief executive John Rizzi this month; his company is in a business that’s growing steadily - fortunately for him, and perhaps unfortunately for some of us.

Forrester Research forecasts that spending on e-mail marketing is growing in the low double-digits annually, and could hit $2 billion by 2014. By then, the research firm predicts, each of us will be receiving about 9,000 e-mail marketing messages a year.

“E-mail marketing used to be part of a ‘slush fund’ budget,’’ Rizzi says, “where marketers spent a little bit of money on it, but it didn’t get much attention at higher levels of the business. But over the last few years, more senior people started to look at the channel as very important to the business - it’s often the most frequent out-bound ‘touch’ they have with customers.’’

As a result, Rizzi says, “a lot of companies have been moving marketing money out of other media and into e-mail.’’

He’s careful to explain that e-dialog supports opt-in e-mail campaigns only (not spam), where a consumer chooses to get regular updates from a company or hear about special deals.

I asked about “inbox overload.’’ He said e-dialog provides the technology to make marketing e-mails “relevant, delightful, and meaningful. You can’t send everybody the same thing, with their name at the top the only piece that’s customized. If you get the American Airlines last-minute airfare e-mail, for example, you’ll notice they highlight deals departing from the city where you live.’’

The company held its client conference last week in the Seaport District. Though clients attended the conference for free (paying just travel and lodging), Rizzi says it was the largest gathering in e-dialog’s history.

Growth, unfortunately, has been a rare phenomenon this year.