By Julie Blaustein

If you haven’t been to a Lunch 2.0 you should make it a point to schedule the time around lunch to attend one. After all, everyone needs to eat lunch. At Lunch 2.0 you not only score a free lunch but you will also meet new companies, smart people, eager recruiters and maybe even go home with some bling. Lunch 2.0 was started about 2 years ago when folks would sneak into other folks’ corporate cafeterias to eat lunch. Today the lunches are eagerly hosted not only in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Seattle but now in Europe and Asia. Great press has been written about Lunch 2.0′s including from the SF Chronicle and the WSJ. The recent Lunch 2.0 held at the Powerset’s office in San Francisco was held for Bing. Bing was in town to celebrate its six-months since the launch and the recent partnership with Twitter.

It was a full-capacity crowd at Bing. Keep in mind, one can not just sign up on Facebook, one must provide full disclosure of who it is that will be coming for lunch on UpComing to be truly rsvp’d. Sadly, Lunch 2.0 hopefuls were turned away for the Bing Lunch 2.0 at the Powerset front desk if they were not on the list. If you were lucky enough to gain admittance, get past the front desk and up the elevator, you found yourself served a gourmet lunch, beverages including beer, along with desert. Bing goodies were also served including a Bing hat just in time for the winter chill. All types showed up from the web 2.0 world. A few of the players that I ran into included recruiter Robert Greene of GreeneSearch who places whiz kid engineers into the hottest start ups, Jamie Perlman who does Business Development for SlideShare and is known for his ability to “sweet talk” anyone into any deal, Salesperson Michael Hansen of ZenDesk, the latest darling of the start up world and CEO Marc Cramer of SurfCanyon whose technology is integrated into Bing!

To join the list and get alerts for the next Lunch 2.0, go to their website, Facebook Page or their LinkedIn Group. If your company wants to host, you might want to first read How to Host a Lunch 2.0 and if you can handle it, then contact the organizers at their Lunch 2.0 site.

Bing Greeters Giving Out Bling