Monday, August 25, 1997

Calendar of Events - published 8/25

8/1: LIFILM (The Long Island Filmmakers' Network) (http://www.lifilm.org) is having their summer film bash. August 1st at 8:00 at PRO IMAGE STUDIOS, located on the south service road of the Long Island Expressway between exits 57 and 58 (ph# 516-234-4310 for directions). $5.00 donation to the LIFN will be accepted at the door.

8/5: Exclusively for members of NYNMA (http://www.nynma.org) and the Ad Club of NY: "CyberSplash:" August 5, 1997, 6 - 9 pm, (the boat will sail from 7-8 pm), Circle Line Cruise, Pier 83, West 42nd Street, at the Hudson River. Free, no RSVP required.

8/6: NYNMA Panel: "Push Technology: Love It or Hate It?" at NYNEX, 1095 Avenue of the Americas (btwn 41st & 42nd Strs), Registration opens 6:00 pm; Program begins 6:30 pm, Open to NYNMA members and their guests only. Seating is limited. Advance registration is advised. Please send a check for $15 for advance registration, received at NYNMA by 8/5 ($20 at the door); guests are $30 advance registration ($40 at the door).

8/18: NYNMA's Cybersuds: at The Roxy, 515 West 18th Street (btwn 10th & 11th Aves), 6:00 - 8:00pm, Free, Cash Bar

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

Friday, August 22, 1997

The Alley to Valley Rally - What have we learned thus far?

SO WHAT HAVE we found so far? The cyber scene is alive and well beyond our bookshelf coasts. It is in gas station marine supply shops, car dealerships, and new home complexes. While there aren't computer terminals available to logon at these spots, there is genuine interest and curiousity. AOL may be large, but the yellow page sections under "Computers -- Internet Services" and "Computers -- Web Design" are growing larger by the month as well. The Internet is slowly becoming more and more mainstream. Maybe one day during a Alley to Valley Rally we'll see @Cafe chains next to Shoney's and Wal-Marts. One thing that's for sure, with road trips like this, and getting the word out there in newsletters, radio staions, websites, business cards, and generous sponsors, more and more people will have the opportunity to explore the very issues we're exploring on this trip as well.

See you all in September! :)

(Check in with Courtney "Hunter S." Pulitzer daily at http://www.avr.org and follow the Alley to Valley Rally cross country.)

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

Thursday, August 21, 1997

The Alley to Valley Rally - St. Louis to Kansas City


* Somewhere in America -- Shortly after, we left St. Louis, me with bittersweet feelings. I got to ride on the back of Paul Eisenberg bike through  to St. Peter's. We stopped at a Denny's there and talked about how ridiculous it is for cartoons these days to always have some side-kick stuffed animal and prank. So what's the plan? We'll s-l-o-w-l-y progress towards Kansas City today, and then after that westward to Burning Man and a big wrap party in San Francisco. On the way out from St. Louis, we past an apartment complex (http://www.discover-riverfront.com) and glided past pillowy billowy clouds hanging low in a bright beautiful blue sky and SUN!

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

The Alley to Valley Rally - St. Louis Post Dispatch for @NY Chat

* August 21 -- Today Dave Brown (the CDnow honcho and my traveling partner in TeamNow) and I went back to the St. Louis Post Dispatch headquarters to run my @NY chat. Despite my uneasiness, the Web crew was very generous and let me come back and conduct my chat from their offices. Fortunately the tech gods were looking down kindly on me and I connected using Greg Elin's 14.4 cellular modem, but the Java gods were not so generous. Error message: "Applet can't start:exception:Java.lang.NullPointerException" This is not the kind of message a tense traveler with deadlines and points of destination, tech problems, and the will to ENJOY herself needs to encounter five minutes after a chat has started. Sure, sit back and chortle that we didn't prepare enough. But none of us--excepting AVR founder Greg Elin--has ever done this before. Naive? Maybe, but I'm an optimist, and think my fellow Ralliers are as well. We believe in the technology and are struggling to make it work.

After my chat, Dave and I got some pictures of the St. Louis Post Dispatch website crew. They use Lotus notes in a publishing program that allows for reporters to click and code their pages without ever having to learn a tag. Editor Virgil Tipton explained that it's the largest newspaper with an extensive restaurant database. They also created a unique navigation system of expandable folders when clicked on, similar to clicking on a Windows or Mac folder. Virgil created this program, and I was really impressed with how robust and complete it is. Healthfront.com has a "navigator" that uses the same technology.

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

The Alley to Valley Rally - Iowa, Illinois, Missouri (Radio interviews and Pulitzer Publishing)

* August 21 -- Enjoyed my interview with Tim Renshaw of KGLO in Mason City, Iowa. Tim runs a cool Web site at http://www.radiopark.com. At the Kentucky Dam One Stop, Earl Shrum, an older, lake-tanned, and water-wise fishing guide, had several prize catch already de-scaled and packed in the cooler. As I was mentioning the Internet and our website, he said, "sure, we know about that stuff." Earl said that he had some pictures up of his fish on a site (http://www.kentuckylake.com/bigbass/). We pulled into Marion, Illinois for a quick bite at Burger King. I loved the pretty flowers on the counter, a small assortment of fresh cut red, pink, yellow roses, carnations, daisies, and assorted wildflowers. A man named "Bill" brings them in every day. That's all they know about him other, than he wears a white cap, and tips all the employees $1 every day. Just across the street, the Ford Dealership had a sign reading "www.marionford.com." Final stop was St. Louis. My hands were shaking as I entered St. Louis Post Dispatch headquarters on Tucker Boulevard, and was greeted by a bust of Joseph Pulitzer--yes, my famous relative--and quotations on the walls. After a few calls by Ernest, the nice night security guard, I went up to the newsroom and met with the crew in the "Digital Square," the Post-Dispatch's Web group. They were polite, but I got the sense I wasn't appreciated for owning the pulitzer.com site: "Oh so YOU'RE the one who has the name?" and "We heard you wanted A MILLION dollars for it."

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

Wednesday, August 20, 1997

The Alley to Valley Rally - an early perspective

WELL, THIS week has been a highly digital week for me in a completely different way. I'm taking a break from the NYC Cyber Scene--but not from digital madness entirely. Thus far the Alley to Valley Rally (http://www.avr.org) for me has been a digital drag-race. We rev up our computers and digital cameras and sprint, then crash. Problems with connectivity, dialing through a PBX line, missing dongles, broken CD-ROM players, broken images, digital camera software gliches, not enough time!, dialing long distance into our local providers, etc. etc. and more you can't imagine.

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

Friday, August 15, 1997

The Alley to Valley Rally - Kick-off event

SUMMER IS ZOOMING BY and I'm taking off the last two weeks of August with the Alley to Valley Rally '97 (http://www.avr.org). I will be uploading travel journal entries daily to my team site (http://teamnow.cdnow.com) -- @NY is a co-sponsor -- and other rallyers will be uploading to their sites as well. Excerpts of the diary will also appear in the e-mail newsletter and as my column in two weeks. Our send off will be August 15th at the Harley Davidson cafe, as part of AOL's Hub Heaven launch. And don't forget to join me in the inaugural live @The Scene chat tonight, featuring Alley to Valley founder Greg Elin, @NY editor Tom Watson, and a pack of Silicon Alley types. Tune in from 8 to 9 p.m. at http://www.news-ny.com/chat.htm.

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

Ad Agency interactive branch names

* THE BRANDMAKERS' BRANDS . . . What's the deal with these new ad agency interactive names? First, Young & Rubicam branded out its interactive department into the new Brand Dialogue agency. Now, Saatchi and Saatchi is disbanding its interactive wing to form the new Darwin Digital. The "new" firm is being billed as a "standalone, exclusively electronic media-focused marketing" company with offices in New York and the West Coast. Heading up the Darwin effort (http://www.darwindigital.com) are Coby O'Brien as president and CEO, and Greg Smith as director of strategic resources. So is it all about creating new brands and leading clients away from the old-line ad shops? Or is it about making interactive shops stand on their own feet and turn a respectable profit?

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

The Alley to Valley Rally - @NY Ad

/------------------------------------------------------------------------\ 
alley                 Silicon Alley Hits the Road!
valley        @NY is proud to sponsor the Alley to Valley Rally '97 
alley            The first continental digital road rally, 
valley               heading west to San Francisco 
alley                 via the Burning Man festival 
valley       Join @NY's Courtney Pulitzer and a tribe of dozens 
alley           as they crisscross the digital continent 
valley                   http://www.avr.org 
alley               green light -- Friday, August 15 
valley     Follow the exploits of TeamNow http://teamnow.cdnow.com \-------------------------------------------------------------------adv.-/

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

Friday, August 08, 1997

The Alley to Valley Rally - My intro

SUMMER IS ZOOMING BY and I'm taking off the last two weeks of August with the Alley to Valley Rally '97 (http://www.avr.org). I will be uploading travel journal entries daily to my team site (http://teamnow.cdnow.com) -- @NY is a co-sponsor -- and other rallyers will be uploading to their sites as well. Excerpts of the diary will also appear in the e-mail newsletter and as my column in two weeks. Our send off will be August 15th at the Harley Davidson cafe, as part of AOL's Hub Heaven launch. And don't forget to join me in the inaugural live @The Scene chat tonight, featuring Alley to Valley founder Greg Elin, @NY editor Tom Watson, and a pack of Silicon Alley types. Tune in from 8 to 9 p.m. at http://www.news-ny.com/chat.htm.

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

@NY Ad - E-pub Chat Promo

THIS WEEK, our controversial debate on the meaning and commercial viability of Internet communities continues as Scott Kurnit, CEO of the Mining Company, follows up Viewpoints by @NY editor Tom Watson and Concrete Media chief Dan Pelson. Meanwhile, @NY's own online community gets more interactive. For six months, Courtney Pulitzer has partied hard as our cyber-gossip columnist. Now, thanks to some nifty technology, the party's coming to her. Tonight (Friday) from 8 to 9 p.m., Pulitzer will host the first-ever "live" edition of her must-read inside Silicon Alley column @The Scene. The chat room and its graphical interface have been provided courtesy of E-Pub, Inc., makers of communications and gaming technology, and an @NY advertiser (http://www.e-pub.com). The virtual @The Scene features a glamorous ballroom decorated with Pulitzer's trademark martini glasses. Courtney's first guest will be cyber-traveler Greg Elin, the man behind the upcoming Alley to Valley Rally, in which a band of hardy Silicon Alley folks will make a cross-country trip beginning Aug. 15 to see America's digital revolution first hand. (@NY is a co-sponsor of the Rally, and will sponsor the TeamNow vehicle with retailer CDnow featuring Courtney). The chat will take place at http://www.news-ny.com/chat.htm.

Java compatible browser is required. So drop by and schmooze.

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)

@NY Ad - E-pub Chat

This Section Is Sponsored By:
/------------------------------------------------------------------------\ 
Oasis Games          Chat live with Courtney Pulitzer  E-Pub Chat           
As she gears up for the Alley to Valley Rally 
Oasis Games          8pm Tonight   http://www.news-ny.com/chat.htm 
E-Pub Chat            Rent your own E-Pub chatroom today.
\-------------------------------------------------------------------adv.-/

Movers and Shakers - 8/8

* Riding on the tail coats of the recent merger between Young & Rubicam advertising departments and Wunderman Cato Johnson interactive departments worldwide, the joint venture now has a new name: Brand Dialogue. Developed to help clients with digital brand-building and commerce, relationship marketing, and brand and consumer equity, Brand Dialogue aims at being a dominant force in interactivity.

* Jim Orsi is leaving his post at Time Warner to join CKS/Site Specific.

* Denise Siedner will be joining Grey Advertising heading up the Dell account...doing all of their interactive media planning and working on new business.

(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)