There’s a new kid on the block and the edglings are a twitter over whether there’s room for another player in the presence application market. Pownce, the latest brain child from Digg founder, Kevin Rose, is off to a whirlwind start, with many asking whether or not it is already the “new” Twitter and Jaiku Killer.

While Twitter and Jaiku are the current leaders, we’re really still too early to predict winners and losers in a market that is far too young and uncultivated. After all, the masses have yet to embrace the new world of micro blogging (aka nano blogging), or general blogging for that matter. And, we can’t leave out Tumblr, which is a really more of a mini blog then a presence application, but either way, it falls into this category. So, there’s much work to do when it comes to educating people on the value, potential, and capabilities of the current players as well as how it benefits them and how they communicate within their social networks.

Pownce is a new service that like Twitter and Jaiku, allows you to communicate status with friends and also stay connected with those you choose to follow. In fact, it shares more in common with Jaiku and Tumblr than it does with Twitter. For example, like Jaiku and Tumblr, each message in Pownce is open for comments, which can spark threads related to specific topics. The slick Pownce user interface and the ability to select templates for each profile is very reminiscent of Tumblr. The main think I enjoy about Jaiku and Pownce is the ability to have conversations within the community. While Twitter seems to be more of a status broadcast, with direct messaging capability, Jaiku and Pownce bring the conversation to all friends or specific groups, opening up the post to threaded conversations.

Each application, also, already offers a Facebook plugin, so that people within the FB network can read your latest posts, while giving users the ability to broadcast from within the network.

But that’s where the similarities end and Pownce starts to step into its own spotlight. Lead programmer for Pownce, Leah Culver, also integrated peer-to-peer file sharing functionality, providing the ability to send files to friends much in the same way YouSendIt and Dropload bypass the need for FTP transfers. This is a very important feature and will prove more valuable over time for personal and professional use. Pownce also fuses evite-ish functionality into the mix, giving Powncers the ability to invite friends to events and track their responses in one place.

Its most interesting feature is the ability to create various groups of friends to customize how and where you share information. Powncers can broadcast messages to their entire list of friends or to specific groups, creating a more dynamic foundation for personalized communication. And, you can start to see the business, service and marketing aspects of this capability as well.

Pownce is primarily a Web app, but also offers a downloadable version for Mac or PC, using Adobe’s new Air (formerly Apollo), which extends Web services to the desktop.

With these integrated features, and a little imagination, one can see the potential for a holistic community that cater to the fundamental needs of people, conversations, sharing media and content, and extending social networks into the real world with event support.

Culver also mentioned that she designed the application with scalability in mind. It’s currently controlling growth by giving users a select amount of invites, which are tied to back end performance capabilities. Although there are still hiccups.

An interesting note about Pownce is that it is free, but also offers a $20 per year subscription option which removes ads and allows sharing of files up to 100MB.

But is Pownce a threat to Jaiku or Twitter? Is it a wolf in sheep’s clothing prepping to devour the competition? The answer is no.

While it is cool and unique, the market is too big for anyone to foolishly assume that one app will rule all. There are just too many possibilities for each of them to succeed as personal and business communications tools.

First off, Twitter and Jaiku are also mobile applications. You can send and receive updates easily from your mobile phone, the desktop, and through the Web.

Twitter, founded by Evan Williams of Odeo and Blogger fame, is simple and it’s beautiful that way. All it asks is, “What are you doing?” Its community is well established, loyal, and incredibly active. People thrive on reading and sharing information through the Web, mobile text, IM, etc. and do so at feverish paces. Messages (tweets) range from greetings, updates, interesting tidbits, as well as links, world and industry news, promotions and corporate communications. It’s not just a personal tool. Many businesses are participating in Twitter to provide updates to customers as well as answer their questions and hear their feedback.

Twitter’s main fault however, is its scalability. It servers are continuously stumbling causing frustration and angst among many users. The team only seems to be in a perpetual state of catch up as the community quickly continues to grow.

Twitter’s API also gives the community the ability to create applications in and around Twitter that extend its functionality, adoption, and its cool factor. Some examples include, Twittervision, TwitDir, TwitterGram, among many, many others. A full directory of applications is href="http://www.twittown.com/twitter-forge">here.

Source: TechCrunch

Jaiku on the other hand, is a more sophisticated conversation platform. It is a presence aggregator, or a presence hub if you will, that collects feeds from various social services you use, including Twitter, blogs, del.icio.us, YouTube, flickr, etc. Jaiku merges your various online personae through one social, integrated personal stream.

With Jaiku, readers can comment on individual posts to continue threaded conversations, which is better suited to those seeking more meaningful engagements.

Jaiku recently introduced channel, which gives users the ability to create and joins channels dedicated to specific conversations and topics. For example, Supernova 2007 created a conference channel so that attendees and participants could communicate thoughts, questions, updates, pictures, links, etc., through one common stream. This is a not only a killer feature controlling personal groups, but also an ideal tool for businesses and organizations looking to engage in dedicated conversations.

While there are similarities and differences among the current presence applications on the market, the truth is that they’re all built differently and serve different purposes. As the category is embrace by more people, the adoption will define which apps will succeed and in which segments they thrive. They’re supported by communities and communities are driven by people with like-minded interests and contacts. Truthfully, they can all co-exist. People will define how and where they participate, usually driven by where their peers decide to congregate.

This isn’t the last discussion we’ll have on the subject though. Expect to see new presence applications launch soon and in the future. I also expect a series of vertical applications launching to serve specific markets. For example, Greg Narain is introducing Lil’Grams, which allows parents to share anything about their baby with friends and family who sign up for the alerts. The possibilities are almost unlimited and can serve dedicated communities, much in the same way social networks cater to different demographics such as Dogster, Catster, Hamsterster. Vertical stream apps could also become important business, city/state, local, and hobby-oriented communication tools – almost like portable forums.

With Pownce on the scene many more to come, the question is often asked, where should you participate? Depending on who you are and what you do, the answer is go where the people that matter to you are participating. And if you’re a service or business professional trying to tap into these communities, participate in those that would welcome your participation.

For more on the subject:

Jeremiah tracks all Pownce reviews.

Robert Scoble interviews Jyri and Petteri of Jaiku.

Scobleizer on Twitter v Pownce.

My previous post on Twitter v Jaiku

UPDATE: TechCrunch reports that Pownce invites are on sale at ebay.

UPDATE 2: If you’d like an invite to Pownce, leave a comment or send an email.

Add to: Digg del.icio.us Yahoo BlinkList Spurl reddit Furl

The November Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup was held at the AOL campus in Mountain View this month with over 100 entrepreneurs, VCs, bloggers, programmers and executives in attendance.

Kudos to Vincent Lauria for growing into a monthly must-attend meetup.

This time around, we tried something a bit different – video instead of pictures! Alison McNeill was out there interviewing the presenters to help viewers get a better sense and perspective of each featured company.

Fanpop – Founder Dave Lu

Fanpop represents a new generation of portals, what they call “social portals” created for the people by the people. It’s a one-stop destination for fans of anything and everything and the place to find fellow devoted fans

Radio Handi – Founder Brian McConnell

Radio Handi is a suite of group communication and mobile broadcasting services, now accessible in over 30 countries worldwide.

ZapTix – Founder Christian Perry

ZapTix empowers performance groups, organizations, companies, conventions, and individuals to sell tickets and organize events online (and also stick it to Ticketmaster.)

YouSendIt – Florian Brody

YouSendIt lets businesses, professionals and consumers move big files, up to 100MB, quickly, easily, and securely.

Tags: Radiohandi, zaptix, yousendit, fanpop, sf newtech meetup vincent+lauria rado+handi pr2.0 siliconvalley2.0 2.0 web2.0 web+2.0 siliconvalley silicon+valley meetro

Photo Credit: Beau Liening

Grab a bottle of bubbles at your local Longs or RiteAid, get outside and commence blowing.

Try to make one very big bubble, gander, marvel at its size, call all of your friends to see it, and then, pop. Pop? That’s so 1.0.

Now, do it again…but, be careful…don’t let this one pop. Instead of filling it with air, try injecting a bit of hope and enthusiasm into each blow.

Nice work….I can see the beginnings of a new bubble too.

The difference is that this is Alpha Bubble 2.0. We’re not really in a full bubble yet, because the only tangible commerce, is knowledge capital and enthusiasm. Oh, and a bunch of dedicated people boot-strapping their way into geekdom. The numbers aren’t really there yet.

Interesting intro for a monthly Web 2.0 meetup? If you list a handful of events held the night before and this evening, you might see what I’m talking about.

Wednesday = Dogster party and jangl party.
Thursday = Webguild Web 2.0 event, StyleHive party, SF Beta, Macys’ Fashion Show (yes, I know…not tech, but several attendees of SF Beta arrived late because they stopped by Macys.) I’m sure there were more, but let’s get into why I was in the city.

Alison McNeill of Silicon Valley 2.0 and Irina Slutsky (as the interviewee!)

Aside from videocasting a new installment of Rebooting Silicon Valley for PodTech.net, I have a genuine interesting helping any event that focuses on helping emerging companies leverage public forums to share, grow, network, mashup and learn.

The scene

On to October’s installment of SF Beta...

Brian Sullivan of Civic Evolution and Christian Perry, SF Beta Host

When I arrived, Christian Perry greeted everyone with their choice of badges, foundr, bloggr, and providr (I’m guessing on the last one, couldn’t quite see the other options).

Irina Slutsky, host of Geek Entertainment TV was the guest MC for the evening and let’s just say, she kept the crowd pumped-up and chatting.

SF Beta Guests

What sets SF Beta apart from the other events is that it is more of a social mixer rather than a business networking mixer. The other thing that’s unique here is its presentation format. Rather than traditional elevator pitches, companies must highlight their value proposition in Haiku Pitches – in 17 syllables, no more, no less. Although Haiku in English just isn’t in the same…

Artistic View of SF Beta

The lucky seven for the night included:

Meetro (Vinnie Lauria / VP)
CivicEvolution (Brian Sullivan / Founder)
Rooftop Comedy (Will Rogers / Co-Founder)
ShopCastTV (Eric Swan / Founder)
The Forbin Group (Cindy Phung / Worker Bee)
BuzzShout (James Yu / Co-Founder)
Diigo (Maggie Tsai / Co-Founder)

Stand by for the video cast…we have each of the presenters sharing their Haiku on camera.

It was a bit difficult to hear, but judging by the applause and the quantity of guests, I guess it didn’t matter much. I’m estimating that the event drew well over 100 people and many raved about its success. Although, there were some requests to have a system in which SF Beta can qualify its attendees, opting more for quality and caliber rather than quantity.

The lucky few were able to score a spot on one of the vinyl benches, while others bogarted the bar stools for the duration of the event.

Other than the people who were simply excited to be part of a Web 2.0 party, the common things I heard all night was that it was too hot, too crowded, impossible to move, and most importantly, too difficult to get a drink! Most of the people I was able to speak with stood outside the front entrance. At one point, there must have been 30+ participants all vying for fresh air and audible conversation.

There, I was able to engage in compelling conversations and learn more about what they were up to.

Khalid Shaikh, Yousendit
Sol Lipman, Sticky, Inc.
Lawrence Coburn, Rateitall and SexyWidget
Eric Ferraro, Jacobs & Ferraro (event co sponsor)
Dennis Yang, TechDirt
Ben Wan
Irina Slutsky, Geek Entertainment TV
Scott Beale of LaughingSquid
Paul Pattison, PictureCloud
Vinnie Lauria, Meetro and SF NewTech Meetup
Joanne Wan
Greg Narain, BlueWhale Labs and SocialRoots
Sarah Meyers, host of Party Crashers on D7tv.com aka StoryToday.tv
Rafe Needleman of CNET
Joel Sacks of CNET and BuzzShout
James Yu of BuzzShout
Brian Sullivan, CivicEvolution
Angie Chang, TheMintPages
Jessie Friedman, Zaptix
Dakota Sullivan, BlueLithium
Maggie Tsai, Diigo

Kevin Burton of TailRank and Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV

Scott Beale of Laughing Squid and Irina Slutsky

Kevin Burton holding his own with the mischievous and funny Sarah of D7TV

Khalid Shaikh and Vinnie Lauria of Meetro and SV NewTech Meetup

That’s it for now. The event grew by leaps and bounds over the September Beta Meetup and I’m anxious to see what November holds. Kudos to Christian Perry for pulling it together!

I’ll take us out with a little Haiku of my own:
SF Beta’s night
Seven presenters spoke out
PR two point oh

For more pictures, please jump to the flickr stream.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg This!

Tags: web+2.0, web2.0, sfbeta, getv, irina+slutsky, irinaslutsky, cnet, rafeneedleman, rafe+needleman, meetro, zaptix, techdirt, socialroots, bluewhalelabs, laughingsquid, tailrank, rateitall, picturecloud, diigo, benwan, ben+wan, buzzshout, cnet, sticky, yousendit, shopcasttv, greg+narain, gregnarain,

The Office 2.0 reception kicked off last night at SF MOMA. It was actually a grand affair, at least by Web 2.0’s more humbled event precedents.

It truly drew an all-star crowd and the dialogue in there was pretty enlightening.

Ismael Ghalimi

Chris Heuer and Tara Anderson

Steve Gilmor

Aside from discussing business models, technology, the state of Web 2.0, and the future of Office 2.0, it was also room-filled with familiar faces and friendly conversation among thought-leaders catching-up in-between product development cycles, company launches and events.

Some of the more notable conversations included:

Ismael Ghalimi, Intalio, Office 2.0, and ITRedux
Jeffrey McManus, Approver.com
Christopher Peri, Vyew
Daniela Barbosa, Factiva
Marc Orchant, Foldera
Chris Heuer, SocialMediaClub and BrainJams
John Furrier, PodTech
Stowe Boyd Message
Ivaylo Lenkov, SiteKreator
Sunny Madra, Posticky
Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher
Mike McDerment, Freshbooks
Mike Masnick, TechDirt
Joel Sacks and James Yu of BuzzShout
Jeremy Pepper
Nicole Simon, Bloxpert and Crueltobekind blog
Chris Dury, Scanr
Dan Farber, CNET
Bruno Haid, System One
Khalid Shaikh, YouSendIt.com
Oliver Starr, Foldera
Sridhar Vembu, ZOHO
David Young, Joyent
Tara Anderson, ValleySchwag
Jeff Nolan, Teqlo, Inc.
Florian Brody, YouSendit.com

John Furrier and Jeff Nolan

Daniela Barbosa and Sunny Madra

Khalid Shaikh and Tom Foremski

Jeff Nolan actually announced at the reception that he had officially joined Teqlo. Read more about it here. The tagline for Teqlo is, “Assemble, Publish, Invite.
You can now make the internet work for you…”

Jeff Nolan

Zoho announced its Virtual Office, which was covered over at TechCrunch.

All in all, the event lasted well into the evening and we were basically the last to leave – not by choice

A handful of us stumbled over to the W for drinks and continued conversation.

In summary, there was obvious excitement around the Office 2.0 movement….even more interesting though, was that almost everyone offered a different definition of Office 2.0 in each of my discussions. I found them all relevant and accurate, but in a later post, I’ll offer my two-cents to the Office 2.0 messaging landscape

For more pictures from the event, jump over to the flickr stream.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg This!

Tags: office2.0, ismaelghalimi, stoweboyd, zoho, jeffnolan, teqlo, yousendit, foldera, joyent, freshbooks, systemone, briansolis, siliconvalleywatcher, sitekreator, itredux, podtech

Written by Alison McNeill

I had the pleasure of attending the S.F. Bay Area Web 2.0 executive group meeting, at Plug and Play Tech Center in San Jose.

Shobeir Shobeiri, business relationship manager for Plug and Play, organized and hosted the event.

When I asked him about his inspiration for starting such a group he told me he wanted to, “create a group for executives to grow together.” Simple enough. He continued, “Our group is intended to grow a community of people in the Web 2.0 realm.”

Shobeir Shobeiri

This was the first meeting for the group, so it was basically a brainstorming session to discuss how future meetings should play out. Some wanted the group to be a way to network with bigger companies such as ebay or Google, while others wanted to do things on a smaller scale and possibly learn and talk about performing tasks in say, HR or payroll, etc.

There were several advocated on both sides, and in fact, there was no clear consensus at the end as to which direction the group was going to take, so I have a feeling it will be a good mixture of both.

A fantastic group of attendees included folks from:
advertising.com
Market Remedy
Telepal Web-ex
Hotfromsiliconvalley

Some of the people I had an opportunity to chat with:
- Bryan Quinn, Spymedia
- Jessica Hardwick, SwapThing
- Khalid Shaikh, yousendit
- Joanne Wan, STIRR
- Chris Sun of Storm Ventures

Jessica Hardwick of Swapthing

Khalid Shaikh, yousendit and Chris Sun of Storm Ventures

Overall, it was a laid back good time with pizza, cold beer and stimulating conversation! I am excited to see what is to come with this group!

Good job Shobeir and happy planning!

For more pictures, jump over to the Flickr photo stream.

Feel free to keep us up to date with upcoming events you’re attending or planning. Contact me at alison@future-works.com.

Tags: Shobeir shobeiri, Joanne Wan, STIRR, webex, web 2.0, web2.0, meetup, Jessica Hardwick, spymedia, Swapthing, Bryan Quinn, vc, venture capital, hotfromsiliconvalley, Khalid shaikh, yousendit, Storm Ventures, Christopher Sun, webex, telepal, market remedy, advertising.com

This was STIRR ’s sixth event and there was no doubt that it was the biggest to date. In fact they had to move from Blue Chalk in Palo Alto to The Whisper Lounge in SF in order to accomodate the growth. In discussions with Sean Ness and Joanne Wan, estimates were easily placed at about 225.

225…? Kudos STIRR team!

STIRR is an effective mix of “live” social and business networking among a highly qualified crowd of tech innovators, Web 2.0 execs, entrepreneurs, VCs, bloggers, and journalists.

The STIRR team:
Sanford Barr, Co-Founder STIRR, The STIRR Network
Sean Ness, Co-Founder STIRR, Institute for the Future
Dan Arkind, Co-Founder STIRR, Indico Group
Joanne Wan, STIRR Business Development, Strategic Decisions Group

So excuse the gushing intro here, but STIRR among other events, including the Silicon Valley and SF NewTech Meetups, are by far a blinding beacon for the new economy (albeit painfully humbled,) which is quickly gaining traction among those helping in the Valley’s resuscitation.

According to my friend “Skeptic” from Dead 2.0 , I’m the softball when covering these events. That’s cool. I know I’m an optimist when it comes to seeking a resurgence in, not only the technology sector, but also inflating the enthusiasm and spirit in Silicon Valley in general. I mean, really, how long do we have to continue to bow before the almighty dollar before we figure out how to transform it into some fortuitous multiple that pulls us out of our nuclear shelters for good!

Throughout the evening, I held countless discussions with attendees commenting how the latest series of TechCrunch parties were really getting too big to effectively “network.”

STIRR’s Joanne Wan commented, “STIRR helps everyone keep a pulse on the market and encourages them to talk and explore opportunities to work together.”

TechCrunch and Michael Arrington are in a different league however – not necessarily better, just different. To attend a TechCrunch party is more like going to a concert and getting to hang out back stage. While the TechCrunch parties didn’t necessarily start that way, they’ve simply evolved into monstrous, glamorous affairs, but they do not take away one bit of STIRR’s relevance. It’s all about the rising tide. Everyone floats up together, just in different ships.

STIRR, after all, is much more than a forum to cover Web 2.0 applications, this is a monthy spotlight on the rebirth of Silicon Valley.

Onward to the “original” 60-second spot…

In an interesting change of format, CNET ‘s Rafe Needleman was the guest interviewer at this Founder’s Mixer, and, he seemed right at home. As one of the principal journalists covering Web 2.0, it truly elevated the segment.

While the infamous staircase continued to serve as the stage for the presenters, the enthusiastic crowd somewhat stymied the trademark 60-second spot. It was excruciatingly difficult to focus, but to the credit of the presenters, they let it roll. Especially Rafe, who seemed to successfully take it all in stride.

The Presenters

So, let’s just excuse those in the audience that brought their virtual megaphones and have them check those at the door for 1.7.

The Presentations…

30boxes , Narendra Rocherolle, Principal

I covered 30 Boxes in my wrap-up of the August Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup.

30 days 30 boxes. An online calendar that lets you organize your life and connect with friends. 30 Boxes is brought to you by the minds of Eighty-Three Degrees , Inc.

Eighty-Three Degrees is a small software firm exploring online consumer applications with an eye for improving the user experience, eliminating complexity, and making use of increasingly open systems.

ClickFacts , Michael Caruso, CEO

ClickFacts, Inc. develops auditing software for Internet advertising. They deploy proprietary technology that helps publishers and advertisers detect and prevent click fraud and define a TrueROI. I loved the live demonstration of throwing money away. It was, for a split second, a reminder of Web 1.0 business practices.

DevjaVu , Jeff Lindsay, Founder

DevjaVu is a small startup in San Jose, California with the purpose of encouraging people to start projects that might change the world. Their goal is to lower the barrier to entry that comes with the idea of starting a new software project by making it as easy as possible to jump right in and focus on making it happen.

DevjaVu is a great fit for both open source projects and private internal projects. They hope to be the next place you go after registering the domain for your next software project, big or small.

Tariq Krim, CEO & Founder Netvibes

Netvibes.com is a startup company created in 2005. Based in Paris, the company “specializes” in Web 2.0 applications. Netvibes is a custom home page solution, which is free and basically gives the user the ability to create a personalized page with the content they like. The can put together data feeds and services with a very simple interface with access anytime and from any computer.

Users can browse, modify, and import RSS feeds with an integrated RSS/ATOM feedreader. They can also import, download and listen to podcasts without any additional software and can even check their gmail account and stick-on web notes.

SpyMedia , Bryan Quinn, President

I covered them in a recent post following their presentation at the Silicon Valley Newtech Meetup earlier in the month.

SpyMedia is a privately funded company that offers an online market for photos, where a buyer can set a price for a photo they want someone to shoot — and sellers can set prices for the photo they want to sell. It is ideal for amateur and even professional event and news photographers, as well as citizen and cellphone journalists.

ZapTix , Christian Perry, CEO

Small venues and event organizers use ZapTix to sell their tickets online. Founded in May 2005 by Christian Perry, ZapTix empowers performance groups, organizations, companies, conventions, and individuals to sell tickets and organize events online.

It was started with $12,000 and has already earned net proceeds of $35,000.

Back to the action…

I mentioned to Sean Ness that the quality of the crowd seemed to actually improve with each event, and he responded, “It’s all about ‘initiation only.’ This way we can control the caliber of attendees and keep them relevant and conducive to more effective and meaningful connections. It’s our way of maintaining a highly qualified audience. While other events peak and lose their core audience because of a proliferation of various attendees, STIRR focuses on the attendees that matter.”

Joanne Wan and Dan Arkind – Photo Credit: FngKestrel

While trying to make my way around the room, I had the opportunity to meet and speak with several stand-out entrepreneurs, execs, and media, all of whom I believe are “people to watch” or already making a difference:

My man Stowe Boyd, goes without saying… Message
Marc Canter
Jessica Hardwick, CEO of SwapThing
Priya Ganapati, journalist at Red Herring
Ryan Olson, journalist at Red Herring
Laurence Toney, VP Marketplace Operations, art.com
Greg Narain, CEO at Social Roots
Ranvir Gujral, CEO of InsightPath
Todd Parsons, EVP Products & Services, BuzzLogic, Inc.
Vic Podcaster ( blog ), Blogger and Founder, HotFromSiliconValley
Scott Beale ( blog ), primary tentacle, Laughing Squid
Lawrence Coburn ( blog ), founder, rateitall, inc.
Julie Davidson, Principal, 30 Boxes
Mital Poddar, VP Marketing, SwapThing
Neil Kumar, Software Engineer, Yelp
Kevin Burton, Founder/CEO, Tailrank
Peter Pham, Sr. Director, Business Development, Photobucket
Joe Hurd, VP, Business Development, VideoEgg, Inc.
Jennifer Wasson, Co-Founder, Track50
Ivaylo Lenkov, CEO, SiteKreator
Khalid Shaikh, Founder & CTO, YouSendIt
Jesse Friedman, CMO, ZapTix
Shannon Clark, Founder, President, MeshForum and JigZaw

Sanford Barr

The size of the crowd, combined with the meaningful conversations I was engaged in limited my ability to connect with everyone. Those I tried to connect with, but was held back due to uncontrollable obstacles included:
Matt Marshall, VentureBeat
Jeremy Pepper ( blog ), Group Manager, Weber Shandwick
Emily Chang, Co-Founder, Ideacodes
Ethan Prater, VP Products, Jigsaw
Brian Oberkirch, Social Media Consultant, Social Media Consulting
Thor Muller, Managing Director, Rubyred Labs
Brian Sullivan, Founder, CivicEvolution (Well we met at SF NewTech)
James Hong, cofounder, HOTorNOT
Rohit Khare, Director, CommerceNet
Beatrice Tarka, CEO, co-founder, Mobissimo
Alex Vikati, Co-Founder, CastTV
Lee Diamond, Associate, Silicon Valley Bank
Dan Arkind, Co-Founder STIRR, Indico Group
Daniela Barbosa, information consultant, factiva
Lanet Khoda, Partner, LANETWORKS

Ness and friends

Interesting highlights:

Ranvir Gujral, CEO of InsightPath mentioned that they’re almost ready to go into alpha. I’ll learn more this coming week.

Vic from HotfromSiliconValley announced that he will host the podcamp west unconference in November.

Jessica Hardwick, CEO of SwapThing is rolling out a new “localized” version of the online trading service.

Khalid Shaikh, Founder & CTO, YouSendIt mentioned that after being in business for three years, with 37’ish employees, the company officially launched on the 12th.

Todd Parsons, EVP Products & Services, BuzzLogic, Inc. mentioned that the “buzz” around the company is quickly ramping up. I’m looking forward to a demo.

Stowe Boyd gave me the breakdown on the Future of Web Apps conference.

At the end of the night, I was talking with Jennifer Wasson, Co-Founder, Track50 and Jesse Friedman, CMO, ZapTix about a potential alliance between the two companies. It actually was an ideal match, track your favorite bands with Track50 and then buy the tickets when they come into town through ZapTix.

Khalid Shaikh, Joe Hurd, Jennifer Wasson, Jesse Friedman

I am taken aback just thinking about 1.7. Honestly, STIRR instantly outgrew the Whisper Lounge, so I’m eager to see what the October event holds for us. Either way, I’m looking forward to it.

If you know of any potential deals or alliances forged, have any additional information, highlights, etc., please send them along or leave a comment. Also, if we didn’t get a chance to meet, please send me an email at pr2point0@gmail.com .

Links: For pictures from the event, click here to jump to the Flickr photo stream.

Digg This!

Tags: STIRR , 30boxes , , Clickfacts , Michael Caruso , devjavu , Jeff Lindsay , netvibes , Tariq Krim , spymedia , Bryan Quinn , Zaptix , Christian Perry , Stowe Boyd , Jessica Hardwick , Swapthing , Priya Ganapati , Red Herring , Ryan Olson , Laurence Tony , Art.com , Greg Narain , Social Roots , Rafe Needleman , CNET , Ranvir Gujral , InsightPath , Todd Parsons , Buzzlogic , Vic Podcaster , hotfromsiliconvalley , Scott Beale , laughing squid , Lawrence coburn , rateitall , Julie davidson , neil kumar , yelp , kevin burton , tailrank , peter pham , Photobucket , jue hurd , videoegg , jennifer wasson , track50 , sitekreator , Khalid shaikh , yousendit , Shannon clark , meshforum , jigzaw , matt marshall , venturebeat , Jeremy pepper , Emily chang , ideacodes , ethan prater , brian oberkirch , marc canter , thor muller , rubyred labs , brian sullivan , civicevolution , james hong , hotornot , rohit khare , commercenet , Beatrice tarka , mobissimo , alex vikati , casttv , lee diamond , siliconvalleybank , dan arkind , inidco group , Michael arrington , techcrunch , Daniela barbosa , factiva , futureworks , Sanford barr , sean ness , brian solis , web2.0 , web 2.0 , briansolis , vc , venture captial , newtech , meetup

On the heels of the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup in Palo Alto on Tuesday, I spent the day in San Francisco at the Social Media Club HQ specifically to attend my first SF event – well that and a million other things on the SF to do list.

Organized by Joel Sacks, CNET and Marketing Strategist at BuzzShout, and Myles Weissleder, VP of Communications for Meetup, SF NewTech Meetup is similar in format to the Silicon Valley event, but targeted towards the burgeoning tech-savvy and tech-curious crowds in San Francisco, the East Bay, and North Bay. And what better place to hold a tech meetup than CNET headquarters?

This is their sixth event, and according to Myles, its attendees have doubled each month. That says more than you can imagine. If all holds true, the next event will be standing room only.

In a curious and interesting change-up, Myles asked the audience about their professional vocation.

The first question, “How many folks here are developers?”
½ of the audience raised their hands.

Next question, “How many of you are venture capitalists?”
A few were brave enough to identify themselves.

Last question, “How many journalists and bloggers are in attendance?”
Surprisingly, and maybe it was because of our location (CNET), several were in attendance.

Miles works for Meetup and attends these events to, “drink the bath water,” and to get a hands-on view of the tech meetup community. Plus he admitted being genuinely enthusiastic about the space.

Joel also took the spotlight to remind the attendees about the Future of Web Apps Summit.

So with that, the first presenter was brought-up to the front.

Yousendit.com, Co-founder and CTO
Presenter: Khalid Shaikh

If you’re an avid reader here, you may remember the recent post about this company. I have used it recently to quickly and safely transfer large, critical files with outside vendors and partners.

It’s an interesting service that allows anyone to send large files, securely, to contacts through email, bypassing any filters or limits set in place by admins on other side of the firewall.

It was founded in 2004 and has grown to 27 employees and has over 300 million file transfers under its belt.

Basically, Yousendit allows you to send up to 1GB files at a time. The site also promises that your data will stay secure: “Your data goes to who you want it to and nobody else. No risk of having data end up in the wrong hands.”

What I didn’t know…is that Yousendit.com is already in the top 300 rankings at Alexa and that they’re transferring upwards of 30 terabytes per day.

Their goal however, is lofty as it is ingenious. They’re seeking to integrated the service into popular applications, similar to Adobe Acrobat…think, “the PDF of web transfer.” When you’re ready to send a file, right-click and send to “yousendit.” Personally, I think it’s a great idea. Let’s see if they can do it.

Even though they’ve been around for a couple of years, the company is planning an official launch on 9/12. They’re targeting SMBs and will focus on 3-4 top verticals to deliver real business value.

Quote of the night, “Give us a few months, and watch us execute. If we can run fast enough, we will maintain mind and market share to stay #1 as the leading file transmission service that users trust with their data to solve their needs.”

Next up…

SiteKreator, Your site, online, your way
Presenter: Ivaylo Lenkov, CEO

SiteKreator highlighted its online web site design and hosting solution. It currently offers a free edition as well as a BETA version specifically designed for businesses. While there were plenty of engineers and programmers in the audience, like Yousendit.com, this is a service that hits home for me.

Lenkov started the presentation by highlighting successful examples SiteKreator customers. He then dove in to show us how quick, easy, and painless it is to build full-blown pro-quality Websites.

SiteKreator Business Edition features an integrated site builder and global hosting services to deliver one total solution for businesses to succeed online.

It even offers advanced interactive features such as online forms, blogs, forums, members-only areas, newsletters, under the same branding umbrella, ensuring a consistent, and impressive, presence all within a few clicks.

The service is designed for SMBs who don’t have Webdesign expertise, the budget to hire a professional designer, nor the desire to build a generic site with the hundreds of site builders out there.

Business owners can get the SiteKreator design tool and global hosting starting at only $95 per year.

Quote of the night was in response to how Lenkov would reach his target audience, “SiteKreator everything you need, and more, to get a business web site online. It is reaching the SMB market through resellers aka site designers. Believe it or not, they are the first place most small businesses go to inquire about getting their business online.”

And the other quote of the night for SiteKreator was actually voiced by a member of the audience, “I just wanted to let everyone know that I am an extremely happy user of the SiteKreator Business Edition…and I wasn’t paid to say that!”

Third…

CivicEvolution, Civic Engagement 2.0
Presenter: Brian Sullivan, Founder

Bryan Sullivan of CivicEvolution opened up his presentation with a powerful statement, “How do we restore common sense to Government? We restore the influence of common citizens.”

I’m glad he answered that question right away, otherwise, my guess would have been, “elect a new President.”

But seriously, CivicEvolution facilitates online tools for stakeholders to get together and create their own solutions. Think of it as civic engagement 2.0.

CivicEvolution is a non-partisan public service designed to facilitate community deliberation and problem solving. It has been designed to provide a flexible set of tools and processes that enable groups to engage in productive deliberation. Groups and individuals can use CivicEvolution to empower their communities, develop deeper knowledge, discover new ideas, and understand differing views and philosophies.

The highly configurable software walks participants through the entire process. First, meeting each other, then proposing a project, getting feedback, voting on it, forming teams, and taking action.

It is impressive and hopefully it gets traction.

Quote of the night, “We’re hoping to set up a meeting with George Soros who will be in Berkeley, and, he understands the value of open society. Every group faces the same problems, the wisdom always is in the room. Our job is to help the group find wisdom and solve their problems.”

Lastly…

Joyent, Simply joyent
Presenter: Jason Hoffman, CTO

After spending a few extra minutes trying to configure the screen, Jason jumped right in for a very cool demo.

The elevator pitch…Joyent offers simple, powerful, Web-based software that provides small teams with email, calendars, contacts, and shared applications.

It’s a fully hosted app, with nothing to install, configure, and there’s no need for computer staff or consultants (which I like!). The surprising part here is that hosted plans start at just $15/month.

The Joyent platform includes:
Joyent Connector – An suite of applications allowing teams to stay organized, informed and up-to-date, all within a web browser.

Toolbox – A collection of developer and deployment tools. Includes mobile device support, e-commerce, traffic analytics, and management of on-demand resources.

Strongspace – An easy to use and secure data storage service to safeguard all digital assets, from backing up copies of important documents to restoring an entire laptop on the road.

Joyent Accelerator – The Accelerator allows users to manage data securely behind the firewall, while continuing to benefit from network-delivered services such as proactive monitoring, software updates, spam protection, virus protection, gateway services, and real-time backup.

The service features tagging, search, RSS and calendar subscriptions, comments, security, and a ultra friendly UI. The features go on and on, but it seems incredibly simple to deploy and use. I might have to evaluate this for my team since I’m running back and forth between SF and SJ every week.

Impressive.

Joyent is part of TextDrive, a hosting company run by and for people who love publishing on the web out of Marin County. TextDrive has worked on projects for Tom Peters, cnet, Ruby on Rails.

Quote of the night, “We’re a group of 19, with 12 of them virtual, and we developed this service because we needed it.”

So that did it for the presentations. Questions seemed to run a bit longer, which gave the presenters an improved opportunity for authenticity – meaning they were stripped out of presentation mode and placed in a relaxed p2p discussion environment. This is where the real gems and value propositions were brought to light.

Prior to the networking portion of the evening, Myles called for an open mic night and allowed courageous individuals to make announcements, offer help, ask for jobs, etc. This part, I think we could do without, simply because we had been sitting for a while, and it was time to meet everyone else.

The room then opened to allow guests to network.

The group was diverse in age and backgrounds, and it was genuinely cool to meet some of the faces behind the Web 2.0 movement. Some of those I had the opportunity to meet include:

Rafe Needleman, Editor at Large, CNET
Angie Chang, co-founder of themintpages.com
Ranvir Gujral, CEO of InsightPath
Kristie Wells, Diva of Details at BrainJams.org
Lawrence Coburn, Founder of RateItAll
Jon Marcus, Corporate Presentation Coach – jonmarcus.com
Christian Perry, Founder and CEO of Zaptix (Welcome to CA.!)
Vincent Lauria, Meetro and Silicon Valley Newtech Meetup
Sunny Madra, Founder of Posticky

Quote of the night from anonymous, “Hey weren’t you at the Silicon Valley event last night? Me too…God, we just go to all of the same events don’t we?”

It’s true. Pretty soon, we’ll see a Web 2.0 sponsored tour bus that will transport us between events!

But seriously, I can’t emphasize enough the impact that events such as SV and SF Newtech as well as STIRR have had on the spirit, motivation and enthusiasm in the Bay Area.

In the meantime, enjoy September, and I’ll see you next month…

For more pictures from the event, follow the jump.

UPDATE: Joel Sacks also has a great post about the event.

Digg this!

Tags: alexa, buzzshout joel sacks, myles weissleder, joyent, posticky, brainjams, textdrive,
sunny madra, vincent lauria, angie chang, themintpages, women2.0, silicon valley, vinnie lauria, meetro, futureofwebappssummit, Socialmediaclub, Lawrence coburn, rateitall, sitekreator, yousendit, Khalid shaikh, kevin burton, kevin burton, Rafe Needleman, CNET, siliconvalley, meetup, web 2.0, web2.0, Zaptix, newtech, brian solis, briansolis, Christian Perry, Daniela Barbosa, factiva

Last night’s Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup was definitely the biggest yet.

Vincent “Vinnie” Lauria again took center stage to welcome guests, which included VCs, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, and plenty of CEOs.

The evening’s lineup included four up-and-coming Web startups, some more well known than others (and maybe one that really isn’t a startup per se). And interestingly enough, all seem to have found their niche for creating a loyal customer-base.

For those of you too busy drinking Andrew Lane wine (the event’s wine sponsor), networking, taking notes, or if you couldn’t make the event, I’ve summarized the presentations below.

First up…

VideoEgg, The easiest way to get your video online
Presenter: Joe Hurd, VP of Business Development

VideoEgg offers web-based video publishing solutions which make it easy to for internet users to encode, upload, host and watch video. The VideoEgg Publisher, is a small website plug-in that makes it easy for end-users to capture, edit, encode, and post digital video online.

VideoEgg allows internet users to painlessly publish video in a format that anyone can watch without worrying about player compatibilities, encoding settings, or extra software. A “universal adapter” captures directly from hundreds of devices and reads dozens of formats.

VideoEgg makes their dinero by usage and subscription fees. It’s not competing with YouTube, as according to Hurd, “the company is targeting partners.” VideoEgg is funded by August Capital and First Round Capital. Customers include Bebo, dogster, and NBC San Jose

Quote of the night, “Get it onto the Internet…VideoEgg is for anyone that wants to take video and upload to the net, blogs, and social networking sites.”

Next…

Boompa, Your garage online
Presenter: Dave Snider, co-founder

Boompa was a fun presentation as it really targets the “car nut” in all of us. Boompa was originally built during a 10-week marathon coding session in the Spring of 2006 by Ethan Lance and Dave Snider . We were even treated to pictures of where Dave slept in his Berkeley office during the site’s development.

The two partners met and previously worked for CNET Networks where, along with some other fine engineers, they launched TV.com and MP3.com .

Boompa.com is the first site they’ve launched under their independent Enemy Kite banner, and you can expect more sites from them soon.

The name “Boompa” comes from what a young Ethan Lance used to call his Grandfather, who was of course also a car-nut, and who the site is dedicated to. The hope is that the site can mature into a friendly community of tinkerers, fanatics and speed freaks.

Boompa.com is a community driven online vehicle encyclopedia devoted to showing off, tweaking and cataloging anything that drives, flies, floats or pedals. Registered users can showcase their vehicles in their boompa “garage” as well as write guides dedicated to vehicle tweaking, maintenance and humor.

Everything on Boompa is user submitted, which is impressive as the community already appears active and enthusiastic, even though the site has only been online for about 2 ½ months.

Although tons of car-specific forums and online groups exist, Boompa brings everything together under one virtual roof.

User’s rides can battle it out through community votes and can even receive community love in a “hot or not” or “digg” voting style.

Boompa will be advertising-“driven” and they have outsourced that process to Federated Media .

Quote of the night, “Boompa is a social network and wiki for car enthusiasts that pulls together under represented sites, forums, and resources, without trying to sell you cars or auto accessories. It’s a community specifically for rides, mods, how to’s, and car communities.”

Third…

Zazzle.com, Create or shop for unique designs, shipped in 24 hours
Presenter: Jeff Beaver, CEO

Per Zazzle, the creativity marketplace, it is the meeting of your imagination with on-demand manufacturing to allow you to create, share and celebrate your unique interests and passions. It combines manufacturing, community, a large online collection of customizable digital images, and personalization tools to create custom apparel, posters, cards, stamps and more. I’ve personally have many friends who have created shirts with clever Web 2.0 slogans.

Zazzle also recruits contributors to share their creations in Zazzle’s public galleries. Contributors also earn royalties every time their creations are purchased by others.

In 1999, Zazzle developed new printing technologies to improve automated manufacturing systems. In 2003, they launched the Zazzle.com website to test the user experience.
Over at Zazzle Pulse, visitors can get the scoop on the latest stuff and see what’s happening right now.

Jeff was asked about how Zazzle competed against Shutterfly and CaféPress . His response was focused, “Zazzle is a marketplace for customized products, not just personalized, photo-related gifts. Even though CaféPress is similar, we have the highest quality, custom designs out there, and we can turn it around in 24 hours.”

Vinnie Lauria also jumped in to support Zazzle’s quality having ordered shirts from both services.

Quote of the night: “Zazzle is all about user-generated commerce. The creativity of an individual is precious, and our products must be just as good as if you pulled it off a retail shelf.”

And Vinnie offered up a good quote too, “If you’re familiar with the longtail, Zazzle is the longtail of physical products.”

And to close out the night…

SpyMedia, Keep an eye on your world.
Presenter: Bryan Quinn, President

Bryan Quinn, who is only in his early 20’s, opened up his presentation stating that he was “Chevy68” on Boompa, which was classic.

A last minute addition to the lineup, SpyMedia is a privately funded company that offers an online market for photos, where a buyer can set a price for a photo they want someone to shoot — and sellers can set prices for the photo they want to sell. It is ideal for amateur and even professional event and news photographers, as well as citizen and cellphone journalists.

While there are many professional media agencies that do this sort of thing, there isn’t really a platform like SpyMedia’s where anyone can go buy or sell photos.

The company also demonstrated a very cool feature called “Spy Bounties” – where anyone can request a photo of a certain event, place or person and name the price they’re willing to pay. Quinn referred to examples of posting bounties for someone to take pictures of their old house or even an ex-girlfriend. In a humorous moment during the presentation, he cited the example of Valleywag’s Nick Douglas and his bounty for a streaker at TechCrunch7, and how it was ultimately paid.

SpyMedia makes money by charging 35 percent of all photo sales – and is not interested in advertising revenue at this time, unlike most other new Internet companies. Quinn also stated that most of the company’s business stems from overseas customers.

Rumor has it that SpyMedia may be ready to seek VC funding to keep its edge.

Quote of the night: “We had a customer who attended the World Cup in Germany. He was able to catch a picture of a key turning point in the USA/Italy game. His photo sold well, rivaling a shot from an AP photographer, and SpyMedia gave him the forum to sell it.”

The room was indeed packed. After the presentations, I had the opportunity to briefly meet some very interesting Silicon Valley professionals, including:

Angie Chang, CEO of themintpages .com and co-founder of Women 2.0
Khalid Shaikh, yousendit , read more about them here.
Priya Ganapati, reporter for The Red Herring
Ivaylo Lenkov, CEO of SiteKreator
Paul Hancock, CEO of Silicon Valley Technology Marketing
Daniela Barbosa, Information Professional at Factiva and blogger

Well that’s a wrap for now. I’ll see you in October…

More more photos from the event, follow the jump .

Digg this!

Tags: angie chang, Bryan Quinn, Daniela barbosa, factiva, Khalid shaikh, meetup, newtech, Priya Ganapati, Red Herring, silicon valley, siliconvalley, sitekreator, spymedia, STIRR, themintpages, vc, venture capital, videoegg, vincent lauria,vinnie lauria,web 2.0,web2.0, women2.0, yousendit, zazzle, brian solis,briansolis, futureworks boompa, dave+snider jeff beaver, andrew lane nick douglas, valleywag, citizen journalism

I will be attending both NewTech meetups this week. Stop by and say hello!

Silicon Valley Tuesday, September 5, 2006, 7:00 PM

Presenters include:

• Video Egg – Video publishing over easy! [Joe Hurd]
• Boompa – Your garage online! [Ethan Lance and Dave Snider]
• Zazzle – Buy, sell and create custom products [Jeff Beaver]

San Francisco Wednesday, September 6, 2006, 7:00 PM

• Yousendit – Khalid Shaikh on how to send BIG email files with ease.
• Civic Evolution - Brian Sullivan on civic-minded group tools and services for a better world.
• Joyent – Jason Hoffman on group email and calendar tools and ways to share applications.

Tags: sf newtech , silicon valley newtech , video egg , boompa , zazzle , yousendit , civic evolution , sitekreator , joyent , meetup , silicon valley , newtech , cnet

For a couple of years, I’ve used a similar service from Dropload – basically, when I needed to send files in excess of 5-10MB.

According to Dropload’s site, it is a place for you to drop your files off and have them picked up by someone else at a later time. Recipients you specify are sent an email with instructions on how to download the file.

In my opinion both services work extremely well and are helpful in ensuring that large files make it, intact, to their intended recipients. The difference is the level of perception, branding, and professionalism you wish to portray.

Per the YouSendIt site, “The company was founded in 2003 to solve a simple problem – we needed to get big files to other folks reliably, without email limits, firewall constraints, esoteric FTP or ‘briefcase’ contortions. And we wanted it to be simpler than email, yet as secure and dependable as FedEx and such are in the real world.”

Photo Credit: Angie Chang

YouSendIt allows you to send up to 1GB files at a time. The site also promises that your data will stay secure: “Your data goes to who you want it to and nobody else. No risk of having data end up in the wrong hands.”

For example, today I was working with PRNewswire, and I needed to prepare a series of folders consisting of high-resolution digital images weighing-in at about 10MB each. I decided to give YouSendIt a try, and within minutes, the files were received…in tact.

The company offers a variety of packages for personal and business users.

YouSendIt Lite
Your own Inbox
Sent files history
Address book
100 downloads per file
$Free

YouSendIt Plus
No ads on your pages
Track downloads
3-day email support
200 downloads per fileSend files up to 2 GB
$4.99/month

YouSendIt Business Plus
Display your brand on file deliveries
Request files from clients through your own branded Dropbox
No ads
Track downloads for 30 days
2-day email support
Send files up to 2 GB
Files available for 14 days
500 downloads per file
$29.99/month

YouSendIt BusinessDisplay
No ads
Track downloads for 30 days
2-day email support
Send files up to 2 GB
Files available for 14 days
400 downloads per file
$19.99/month

At the end of the day, I was impressed with YouSendIt’s straight-forward and dependable service. I will still use Dropload for sending personal files (out of loyalty) and for business, I will continue to use YouSendIt. Either way, my files will arrive securely and on-time, which at the end of the day, is all that matters. Oh and for those of you who want to make some cool “YouSendIt” paper airplanes….follow the jump for the company’s set of instructions.

Digg This!

Tags: dropload, yousendit, business, angie chang, web2.0, web 2.0, stirr, prnewswire

The August STIRR mixer was held last night at Blue Chalk in Palo Alto and it was a HOT event – literally. No A/C on a hot August night…but still, the place was packed until the very end.

Photo Credit: Ian Kennedy

This was STIRR’s fifth event and appeared to be its biggest to date. What sets STIRR apart is that it is an effective mix of “live” social and business networking among a highly qualified crowd of tech innovators, Web 2.0 execs, entreprenuers, VCs, bloggers, and journalists. Kudos to the STIRR team:

• Sanford Barr, Co-Founder STIRR, The STIRR Network
• Sean Ness, Co-Founder STIRR, Institute for the Future
• Dan Arkind, Co-Founder STIRR, Indico Group
• Joanne Wan, STIRR Business Development, Strategic Decisions Group

Photo Credit: Jackie Danicki

As usual, companies are held to the event’s trademark 60-second business pitch. The evening’s line-up of presenters were:

• ConnectBeam, Puneet Gupta, CEO – Social collaboration for the enterprise
• OpenDNS, David Ulevitch, CEO – Rock Solid DNS that puts “you” in control
• YouSendIt, Ivan Koon, CEO – Wow, that’s a big file… YouSendIt!

The key questions asked after each presentation were extremely poignant and all companies should be prepared to answer at a moment’s notice:

• What pain do you solve? (What does the company do 100x to 1000x betterthan anyone else?)
• Who pays you and why?
• How are you going to dominate your market? (What strategy is going toobliterate your competition)?
• Who is the competition?

Photo Credit: Vic Podcaster

I had the opportunity to meet and speak with several stand-out entrepreneurs, execs, and media, all of whom I believe are “people to watch.” I also recorded a segment for Vic’s Hot From Silicon Valley podcast – direct link here. People to keep your eyes on:

• Vinnie Lauria of Meetro and Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup
• Kristie Wells of BrainJams
• Jessica Hardwick, CEO of SwapThing
• Ivaylor Lenkov, CEO of SiteKreator
• James Yu, founder of BuzzShout
• Priya Ganapati, journalist at Red Herring
• Laurence Toney, VP Marketplace Operations, art.com
• Sanford Barr, co-founder of STIRR
• Sean Ness, co-founder of STIRR
• Greg Narain, CEO at Social Roots
• Ranvir Gujral, CEO of InsightPath
• Tracy Sheridan, CEO, Waxxi
• David Allen, Founder & Managing Partner, New Castle Partners

If we didn’t get a chance to meet, please send me an email at brian@future-works.com. My goal is to profile as many companies and entrepreneurs as possible.

Photo Credit: Brian Solis – more pix here

There’s no question that STIRR is gaining in popularity, and it was evident last night. They hit maximum capacity and the word is out that they’re looking for a bigger venue in Palo Alto.

All I can say is that I’m looking forward to STIRR 1.6. In the meantime, there will be updates here, so feel free to visit again. If you have any information, highlights, etc., please send them along. Until September…

Links:
For pictures from the event, click here to jump to the Flickr photo stream.

Vic’s podcast featuring the event’s presenters is online.

Tags: stirr mixer, connectbeam, yousendit, opendns, swapthing, buzzshout, brainjams, meetro, socialroots, insightpath, vincent lauria, vinnie lauria, kristie wells, sitekreator, futureworks, sanford barr, sean ness, brian solis, pr, public relations, pr2.0 web2.0, web 2.0