Spring.net's Paul Terry Walhus caught up with Derek Rey of ad.ly on the day before SXSW Interactive 2011 started. Derek Rey is the Co-Founder and Vice President of Sales for Ad.ly, the celebrity endorsement platform for social media. As a member of Ad.ly’s founding team, Derek has created more than 24,000 meaningful advertising experiences for 150+ Fortune 500 brands. He has been a featured guest on Fox News discussing “Twitter advertising” and is an active member of Los Angeles’ ThinkLA advertising industry group. Derek began his career in Hong Kong where studied under one of Asia’s most respected entrepreneurs, Mila How. He returned to San Francisco to join Technorati, the leading blogosphere search engine and one of the first social media companies to embrace the “online conversation.” You can find Derek on Twitter: @d_rey