4 Dec

Glittering Women at the Guba/AlwaysOn Party

By Joanne Wan

On a chilly San Francisco evening, Guba and AlwaysOn hosted a steamy networking event at Roe in San Francisco’s SOMA. The gem of the night was clearly Adriana Gascoigne, Director of Public Relations for Guba. Adriana was decked out a beautiful magenta jewel-toned top and conducted video interviews with guests throughout the night. Many of my usually “well-behaved” male tech buddies admitted to having a little crush on her.


Adriana Gascoigne of Guba and Shirley Owyang (photo credit: Jeremiah Owyang)

Maybe Adriana was the driver, but there were certainly more women at the Guba party than at usual tech parties. This was a nice change for your Bubblicious writer, since I got to watch the men try to work their magic on the ladies. Their efforts to win over Adriana may have been thwarted, but the men certainly seemed more flirty than usual. I noticed a couple of canoodling couples in the dark corners of Roe at the end of the night.


Adriana Gascoigne of Guba conducting video interviews (photo credit: Joanne Wan)


Adriana Gascoigne and some of the lovely ladies from the Guba party (photo credit: Brian Solis)

4 Dec

Stickis Launch Party

By Brian Solis

As we arrived at 461 2nd Street (aka The Clocktower Building) for the Stickis launch party, we were greeted by a beautiful, Stickis-uniformed model. The first question from our group was, “Are you Sticki?” Her answer was, “yes.” And that’s how the whirlwind evening kicked-off.


Victor Karamalis, Ms. Stickis and Greg NarainMore... After winding through a never-ending maze of hallways, stairs, elevators, and countless turns, we found the activeweave HQ.  It is a beautiful, spacious, well-lit loft in the South of Market (SOMA) district of San Francisco, near the Giants Stadium, and the bub.blicio.us headquarters at 625 2nd Street.


Get Sticki!

It’s simple and stylish interior was decorated with an amazing array of gourmet appetizers, wine, beer, cocktails as well as a loft-full of Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, tech influencers, fellow bloggers, flickrazzi, French ambassadors, and wall flowers.

The bub.blicio.us team was is full force, with Greg Narain, Joanne Wan, and myself running sparking conversations, snapping killer photos, and learning about activeweave’s new product Stickis – it is after all, why we were there right?


Greg Narain and Brian Solis

One of the most interesting and commonly asked questions of the night was, “who are you?”  It seems as though the party was hosted as an open evite, which was forwarded among friends and business associates.  This luckily not only filled the room, but also maintained a decent caliber of noteworthy tech professionals.


Marc Meyer, Photo Credit: Mark Meyer’s camera

Stickis CEO, Marc Meyer was an exceptional host and made us feel right at home. We received a personal demo of the product, which I will cover in more detail over at PR2.0.  But in short, you can add a “sticki” to any web page with your notes, which can be in the form of text or dragged in images. Every time you return to that page you can pull up your sticki, and those notes can also be shared with friends or kept private.  Stickis offers much more than marking up a single page, it allows surfers to create and subscribe to channels of these notes and other data sources.

The demo, I might add, was running on a gorgeous, 42-inch flat-panel TV.

Back to the party…

The soundtrack for the Stickis Launch Party was provided by a DJ who kept the ambiance perfectly suited for conversation as well as maintaining a coolness vibe.


Jeremy Toeman, Jean Sini


Rafe Needleman of CNET’s Webware


Thor Muller


Xenophan Giannis of AboveNet


Sanford Barr of STIRR

As the night progressed, the headcount continued to multiply. I couldn’t possibly meet everyone, but I tried. Notable conversations with very cool people included:

Rafe Needleman of CNET’s Webware
Jeremy Toeman of LIVEdigitally
Andrew Kippen, market analyst for the Embassy of France in the U.S.
Thor, Amy and Alexandra Muller Rubyred Labs
Sanford Barr of STIRR
Xenophan Giannis of AboveNet
James Yu and Joel Sacks of BuzzShout
Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency
Jean Sini of Stickis
Khalid Shaik, serial entrepreneur (most recently co-founder of Yousendit)
Victor Karamalis, Research Analyst at FutureWorks
Lorna Li
Karin Meyer
Monika Mazurkiewicz
Irina Sini


Who was that masked man?


Lorna Li and me, Photo Credit: James Yu


Tara Hunt


Jean Sini and Joanne Wan
Andrew Kippen and Joel Sacks

For more pictures, jump to the flickr photo stream.

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2 Dec

bub.blicio.us Hosts Bastard Christmas Party at Otis in SF

by Greg Narain

With December comes the holidays. While most enjoy spending time with their familes, digesting their massive dinners and unwrapping gifts, a select few of us shiver ourselves to sleep alone. Not any more.

The Bastard Christmas Party celebrates our lives away from our familes. No crying babies, no annoying cousins, no long-lost aunts and uncles. We like to think of it as Egg Nog for the Remainder. A tribute to all of those who had the good sense to avoid the holiday shopping lines and the crowded airports and highways. Sure, we’re bastards – but we’re entitled.

Join us for the Christmas Party designed just for you, you selfish bastard ;) There won’t be any gifts, and anyone seen wearing a Santa Hat will be shot. What we will have is a mix of people even Santa can’t forget. There will be drinking and plenty of “missletoe” for your enjoyment.

To add a little twist to the mix, we’ll also be celebrating the birfday of our good friend and contributor, Brian Solis.

Our ears will be delightfully entertained by (dj) Mr. Grant and other talented elves.

We’re in the process of working out things like schwag and sponsors, so get in touch with me if you’re interested in either or both. greg[at]socialroots.com


Greg Narain and Brian Solis, Photo Credit: jamesjyu

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30 Nov

The Geeks Come Out at Night

by, Brian Solis

Sing along with me.

The geeks come out at night….

The geeks come out at niiiiiiiiight.

Oh yes, it’s one of those nights again. Here’s where to find the bub.blicio.us team:

6:30 p.m.

activeweave’s Stickis beta launch

461 Second St. #460, san francisco

Stickis brings into your browser what you care about, wherever you are on the web, letting you create conversation community everywhere you browse.

7:00 p.m.

Roe Restaurant (which is also a pretty cool ultra lounge) is the spot for this event. AlwaysOn and Guba will have some special guest appearances and DJ Christopher from Los Angeles will be spinning at the event. Adriana will also be capturing video from the even with our crew which we’ll run shortly after.

GUBA is an online entertainment destination helping users browse, download, share and buy user-generated content and hundreds of movies and TV shows. GUBA enables rapid download to the PC, iPod, PSP, and other portable devices.

8:00 p.m.

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The “reload” party will “unload” at DNA Lounge.

Technology creates a revolutionary way for bands and fans to interact. Reload is an exploration of new models for live music and digital content.

–

So that’s it. A somewhat mellow evening I guess. Hope to see you tonight!

Reminder, if you have an event or party coming up, send us a note, dontpop@gmail.com

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29 Nov

The Sky is Falling 2.0

By, Brian Solis


Photo Credit: Gary Shaw

I originally posted this over at PR2.0, but since this is evaluating whether or not Bubble 2.0 is losing its bub.blicio.us flavor, I needed to run it here as well. This post, afterall, is absolutely necessary in order to stop any potential widespread panic after Dave Winer’s post that semi predicts the end of Bubble 2.0.

According to Winer, “In the late 90s, we knew the end would come, and we knew what the end would look like — a stock market crash of the dotcom sector. So, if Web 2.0 is a bubble, and if like all bubbles it bursts, how will we know when it happens? Today we got the first rumblings of the shock that will signal the end of the bubble. Google stock will crash. That’s how we’ll know. “

But wait, I just wrote about it surpassing $500 last week. Well today, it’s down to $491, but it finished up from yesterday’s close at $484.75. First, let me state that I absolutely respect Winer and I’m an avid reader of Scripting News. But, are we supposed to panic now and cry that the sky is falling just because one financial publication claims that Google is overrated? What about the hundreds of analysts that predict GOOG will hit anywhere from $536 – $600 within the next twelve months, are they all wrong?

Scoble even chimed in on this subject, but to the contrary, “Google’s growth isn’t close to being done yet. Particularly internationally.”

Winer has been saying for almost a year that Web 2.0 is nothing more than an aftermarket for Google. Liz Gannes of GigaOM has even reported that many of today’s Web 2.0 companies are merely extensions to already existing products. I too have reported that advertising and Google Adsense couldn’t possibly support every new startup out there and that companies were going to have to start thinking less about being 2.0 for 2.0’s sake and more about how it will build and sustain longevity and relevance.

But, that doesn’t mean that Google will crash.

In fact, many startups are pushing things forward and users are embracing tech and social media more than ever before. And from an investment perspective, both Google and Yahoo are adding functionality and value for pennies on the dollar by gobbling up all of these innovative startups. We’re only just beginning here. We have nothing to fear about a bubble crash, at least not yet. Winer’s post is simply crying wolf. Technically, all economic data points to a financial spike, not even a bubble yet, and with 3.0 on the horizon, I think we’re set for quite sometime. For a funny sidenote, see these two posts I wrote for help hungry startups attract the attention of Google and Yahoo during O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 conference.


 

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