Pictures & Words by Victor Karamalis via Flickr
Kevin Rose and Gary Vaynerchuck mingling with local Pownce users.
Pownce founders Leah Culver and Kevin Rose had asked some local Pownce users for mid-day brunch at the Green Street Cafe in posh Coral Gables after the festivities from the Future of Web Apps Conference held in Sunny Miami over the weekend. The amount of Pownce users that came by was very impressive for a crowd outside of San Francisco and New York.
Joseph Smarr of Plaxo.
Tantek Celik enjoying the Miami Scene.
Those that were also at the brunch included the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk of Winelibrary.tv and Joseph Smarr of Plaxo. Tantek Celik, who was one of the Program Chairs for the Conference was there as well mingling and having a hearty breakfast. Of course, there were a plethora of users that were young and old that came by for brunch with the extremely amicable and down-to-earth founders.
What I appreciated from this little get-together was the fact that these founders are making the effort of creating a strong connection with their users outside of the Bay Area. This national grassroots approach would probably never take place now with other social networks. By interacting with their users offline (one of them actually drove three hours from Orlando to have brunch with them), shows their level of commitment and proof of concept that Pownce is a powerful community that truly connects with people online. Even more eye opening, they brought their online community together offline. To see that sense of community recreated offline demonstrates the real power that a successful social network can do to organize around events or a cause. My hat’s off to them for a great experience. More pictures can be viewed in Flickr tagged “pownce brunch.” Next stop, SXSW? Maybe…
Tags: Pownce Tantek+Celik Leah+Culver Kevin+Rose Joseph+Smarr Victor+Karamalis
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Discussion
This was one hell of a lot of fun. Highlights: watermelon lemonade, whole wheat pancakes/french toast.
So much jealousy. I wish I could have been at fowa and this brunch as I am a fan of both Kevin and Gary.
Nice writeup! But a bit of a correction: we were in Coconut Grove, not Coral Gables.
I had a great time and hope this kind of event will happen again for those of us living in South Florida. Go POWNCE.