With all of the commotion over whether or not Web 2.0 is the new bubble, all one has to do is attend an ad:tech party to see that we have a long way to go – if the caliber of the party is in any way the current benchmark.

bub.blicio.us got back!

DoubleClick held the official ad:tech closing party at the W in San Francisco, and without or without Google’s recent acquisition, the party was very bub.blicio.us.

The evening started in the lobby as anxious invitees casually convened and waited for the doors to open. In fact, the pre-party spilled outside the front entrance with upward of 20-30 people enjoying the nice weather while catching up on their day at the show.

When the doors finally opened on the 3rd floor, the group instantly swarmed the registration table making it quite the chore to get in.

Peter Berg and Adriana Gascoigne

Upon entrance however, we were quickly comforted in the fact that our waiting would be handsomely rewarded.

Rebecca Weeks of DivineCaroline and Lindsay Mure of Adfemme

The party featured an open bar, of course, and scrumptious edibles that are usually reserved for the more elite tech parties. The highlight however, was the Cirque du Soleil-style performances throughout the evening. Unbelievable, I think some of them are missing skeletal frames.

I attended the soirée with Justin Kan of Justin.tv, and of course, he was one of the night’s most popular attraction. Tepid fans would approach and ask if he was “the” just, and then start screaming as if they just met the other Justin, Timberlake that is. Others jumped right in and started throwing high fives – HEY IT’S JUSTIN, RIGHT ON. And then, they’d immediately leave. The best questions through were those from curious attendees asking why he had a camera on his head.

I met some very interesting, and Web savvy, advertising professionals. Noteworthy individuals include:

• Lindsay Mure of Adfemme
• Rebecca Weeks of Real Girls Media
• Nolan Apostle of Event City Network
• Greg Mand of PodShow
• Scott Pyper of VoiceStar
• Michael Caruso and Mikhail Ledvich of Clickfacts
• Steve Hall of AdRants
• Jeremy Pepper
• Sarah Meyers
• Peter Berg
• Megan McCarthy
• Larry Chiang

With Web 2.0, guys far outnumber the girls, typically 27 to 1, but at an advertising technology party, the numbers are almost quite the opposite.

and decided to take advantage of these new and improved odds to help him line up a few dates.

Yes, while I don’t possess the mystical prowess of our very own Adriana Gascoigne (she hosts our new series, date night with Justin), I think Justin still fared very well.

The party, oddly however, wrapped up early, leaving at least 100 party goers questioning what was next. Many went over to the Dragon Bar, and others – like myself – called it a night.

Steve Hall of Adrants, Lindsay Mure of Adfemme

All in all, ad:tech parties assuredly rivaled the 2.0 party scene – hopefully inspiring startups to raise the bar in the coming future!

For more pictures, visit Brian Solis’ flickr album.

See Adrants coverage of the event here.

Follow me on twitter.

adtech ad:tech adtechsf doubleclick google adfemme bub.blicio.us bubblicious podshow adrants voicestar devinecaroline realgirlsmedia clickfacts justin.tv web2.0 web+2.0 web 2.0

by Julie Blaustein

Despite the rain, it was a great turn out at Digg’s 1 million user party at Mezzanine. There’s so much space there, one can wander for hours and never get bored. The upstairs space with its own bar and couches makes it seem like another club within a club.

This was a hard core techie scene. There were even techie games to build robotic looking buttons to keep them busy if they weren’t into socializing. Lots of folks stayed still glued to their computers despite the scene. For others, who were into socializing, there was an open bar along with a killer DJ playing great dance music and a mesmerizing light show.

Photo Credit Brian Caldwell

Digg Party Goers Brandon Arnovick and friend.

What is Digg you might ask? Digg allows their 1 million readers to be the judges of which news is worthy enogh of reading based on the ranking of other readers. They call is a user driven socail ontent website but I call it the best way for the junk to be weeded out and for the good stuff to be made available. Everyone can participate in the process by helping to promote, help remove spam and to comment on stories.

Digg users are hard core. Check out this video made by a big time Digg user Mr. Baby Man

The video that was shown during the party.

Hard Core Digg Users

Photo Credit Brian Caldwell

Christian Williams and Friend

A highlight of the evening was the announcement of Digg’s open API. This s is a good thing especially for a smaller company as it enables theri brand to spread like viral marketing, making them hotter than hot in the space.

Announcement of Digg’s Open API and Contest

Mike Arrington of TechCrunch and Dan Farber of ZDnet

Kurt Collins of Photobucket, Brian Caldwell of Bub.blicio.us, and Robert Scoble

For more party pictures go to Julie Blaustein and Brian Caldwell’s Albums.

digg 1 million user 1millionuser party techcrunch michael+arrington mike+arrington robert+scoble kevin+rose dan+farber zdnet bub.blicio.us bubblicious web2.0 web+2.0 web 2.0

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words by Lorna Li, photos by Bona of Napkin Nights

Online dating needs a Web 2.0 makeover. Engage may be the answer.

Last Wednesday, Engage’s yummy evangelist Julian Brass invited me to his “Snazzy Jazzy Engagement” party at San Francisco’s Le Colonial, an elegant French Vietnamese restaurant with old-world charm. It was a welcome break from the past 4 days I spent at the Web 2.0 Expo surrounded by geeky guys who seemed far more interested in their computer screens than the opposite sex. In spite of the male-to-female ratio of 6 to 1, the Web 2.0 Expo was surprisingly, or perhaps, unsurprisingly a dating disappointment.

.

The Engage party, had a hotness factor of 8.5 and no reek of desperation that typically pervades singles events. The crowd was professional, sophisticated, and most were smooth socializers. There was live jazz and swing dancing. And, though I was officially “on the job”, I even got asked out on a date by a very attractive man.

Engage is bub.blicio.us.

Engage removes the randomness factor of online dating by providing a social networking platform that allows your friends to be your matchmaker, as well as a voting system to rate the behavior of Engage community members. In a world where predators roam the Internet, creepy guys (and girls) attach other people’s photos, and everyone exaggerates their profiles, a recommendation from a friend adds a reassuring layer of trust.

Think LinkedIn meets Match.com.

Online dating has a lot of room for improvement. The online dating industry is huge and growing, as time-starved people turn increasingly to the Internet for love. As of 2006, approximately 4 million U.S. Internet users surf online dating sites for at least 17 minutes daily, amounting up to almost 4.5 billion pages views per month.

The 2 largest dating sites are Yahoo Personals and Match.com, with a combined total of 9.3 million monthly visitors. Some would also argue that MySpace.com is essentially huge dating hub in disguise.

While, many marriages have been made through online encounters, I dare to say that e-romantic bliss is hard to find in traditional 1.0 dating sites. There’s far too much trial and error involved, and it’s nearly impossible to verify whether your e-date is telling the truth.

The problem with online dating 1.0 is the relative lack of trust and the high randomness factor in the user experience. And I speak from experience.

I’m a single, exceedingly busy girl living a hectic, urban life. These days I juggle a search marketing day job, cover tech events for bub.blicio.us, and manage a web magazine about the rainforest, where I am web mistress, writer and editor-in-chief. I also just started a marketing blog for green and social activists, and will launch a green business blog very, very soon – if I could just find the time. And often, I disappear for long jaunts into the Amazon rainforest. Most of my ambitious, talented, entrepreneurial friends lead similarly busy lives. So at one point or another, we’ve all tried online dating.

My brief, but interesting foray into the world of online dating began with Craigslist.

Don’t do it.

My girlfriends and I crafted a well-thought out ad with qualifying questions like “Do you go to Burning Man?” or “Psychedelic or entheogen – discuss.” “You are in an intimate relationship and Valentines Day is 3 days away. What do you do?” was a question that stirred up the cesspool of male angst and produced of flurry of misogynistic diatribes.

Fortunately, I opened a new email account, which got flooded. In less than 24 hours I received approximately 150 emails but so many men found my ad inappropriate that they flagged it and Craigslist immediately took it down.

Yahoo Personals, based mostly on basic demographic information, was a bit of a miss. I had the awkward experience of showing up for a date with a guy who had sent me a picture that was NOT him. I actually politely listened to his stream-of-consciousness monologue for 40 minutes before I abruptly excused myself.

eHarmony subjected me to a 45 minute MMPI-like self-reported psychological survey with sneaky, rate-on-a-scale-of-1-5 statements like, “When I don’t get my way, I get extremely angry”.

It then calculated my answers (tchik, tchik, tchik), chugged out my personality profile, and that of my “ideal partner”, which (egad!) was the exact description of my last ex I was madly in love with, who broke my heart when he moved to the Caribbean to chase a far-fetched business opportunity.

Over the following weeks, eHarmony proceeded to email me matches of overweight or scrawny homely-looking guys from the burbs that seemed desperate to settle down and procreate. Wait – I’m certain I indicated a “5” for physical fitness.

Though I got my money back from eHarmony, that 45 minutes of my life was, regrettably, non-refundable.

Where to Find Julian Brass

Julian Brass is a recent transplant to the Valley – he comes from Toronto, Canada, but has lived in Costa Rica and Miami – ay caramba! His flair for fun events comes from 10 years of event marketing with a company called BrassVIPS, where he built market share for brands such as Rockstar.

Julian co-hosts this event with Gabrielle Miller, founder of Ab Fab Productions. The next “Snazzy Jazzy Engagement” will take place again on Monday, May 30 @ Le Colonial.

Join Julian’s community on Engage, it’s temporarily free – his username is ‘ThirdWheel’ or email him for invitations to exclusive upcoming events: julian.brass [ a t ] engage-corp.com

In the meantime, keep your ears open for ‘The Six Match-Me Challenge’ by Engage.

Sources:
Online Dating 2.0: Thirteen Sites To Find Love

Internet Dating 2.0

Photos by Bona of Napkin Nights

lornali lorna+li julianbrass julian+brass web 2.0 engage web+2.0 web+2.0+expo web2.0expo w2e onlinedating online+dating+2.0 bay onlinedating2.0 parties

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Our very own Adriana Gascoigne is celebrating her birthday on May 4th at Harlot in San Francisco – and – it will be truly bub.blicio.us.

RSVP here.

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