by Brian Solis
Note: Video below
PowerSet threw a lavish party by 2.0 standards, which may have been more in line with the days of Web one point oh. It wasn’t a launch party however, it was to celebrate the millions the company has generated in venture funding. Now that’s bub.blicio.us.
With over 12.5 million in the bank, there’s a lot more questions than answers when the name PowerSet emerges in conversation though. One thing is for certain though, the company is already seeking its next round of funding.
Matt Marshall over at VentureBeat, snipped this sound bite from Barney Pell, CEO, “Once you raise money, you start raising money over again.”
The party was thrown at the stylish and high-end Frisson, and according to Thomas Hawk, “…it certainly did feel frothy and hypey – but then again so did TechCrunch 7, so I’m not sure that really means all that much.” Hawk continues, “The PowerSet party was kind of over the top. It was weird.”
Party Crashers’ Chief crasher, Sarah Meyers, who is usually the one to stir things up for the sake of getting good footage (it is Party Crashers after all), let PowerSet walk the line all on its own.
Mike Arrington sets up the video perfectly over at TechCrunch, “Pell talks at a high level about the product…At around the 2:47 mark, though, some poor soul gets caught on camera and answers Meyer’s question about what exactly Powerset is. His answer: ‘We have a demo where you can, like, search web pages and get results, like, like, books by children versus books for children…and that’s what we claim we can do…we’ll see in a year.’”
Either way, videos, photos, and stories like this are becoming mainstream, and it really brings the need to embrace restraint and have a trained spokesperson on hand (sans booze) to answer these questions on or off camera.
These days, it’s almost a given that either bub.blicio.us, Party Crashers or Valleywag will be on hand. While my coverage focuses on the “social economy behind Web 2.0,” some guests make it extremely easy for other reporters/bloggers to run with something that has instant viral appeal, such as the case with PowerSet.
Marketing 101 – If you’re going to talk about your company, stay on message and say only the things that you “want” to read about or see the next day. If you’ve had too much to drink, or don’t know enough to position your company in a favorable light, then have the sense to step away from the camera, say “no comment,” and by all means, find a designated spokesperson – and a designated driver for that matter.
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