Friday, June 23, 2000

The Cyber Scene in Dallas ~ by Gregg Wetterman


 The Innovative
Tuesday night, June 20, the Texas Internet Exchange Network (TIEnet) meeting was held at Cuba Libre. TIEnet is an organization for the founders of E-com companies in the North Texas area that meets once a month. As always it was two hours of meeting new people and catching up on what is happening with old friends. When you sprinkle in an open bar and wonderful food you have a must attend event. The e-com folks from Haynes and Boone law firm sponsored this month’s event and did a wonderful job.  As I waded thru the crowd you could feel the excitement of deals making in the air. I was able to grab a few minutes with Chris Scoggins, one of the founders of TIEnet, and ask him about the merger between his company Ithought.com and Clipscom. Chris explained the great opportunity.  I also always like seeing Sharon Ellis and Brent Mellow--the founders of furnitureguide.com so I was really happy to see them show up. Great fun, wish it had lasted longer, but the night was young and we had more stops on the list.

The Music

After TIEnet it was time to hit the Red Blood club for Rare Mediums “Rare Blood Club”. Brian McKinney, VP biz strategy, Rare Medium, puts on an open mic night every Tuesday night for the local E-com crowd. Brian is the emcee and plays and sings like an angel. I think I could listen to him and Randall play all day long. Brian also is the emcee and in charge of the bands that play at my GeekMeet High Tech Happy Hours. We pick bands that play at the Rare Blood club to play at GeekMeet. Brian had just found a new act that he thought needed to play for us. As always he had found a real winner. So I did very little talking and more listening.

GeekMeet

This week’s installment of GeekMeet was held at Tanaya’s in Las Colinas, sponsored by PickaRestaurant.com. Charles Kandutsch, the founder of PickaResturant, had almost enough door prizes to give everyone something. I thought that was pretty impressive considering we had 150+ people show up this week. Charles always knows how to throw a great party. Jeff Prince of the Fort Worth Star Telegram came to do a story on our Happy Hour. David Vance the founder of ShotDrinks.com was spreading the word about his site. It was really cool how he could access his site from his PDA. So the next time you are at a bar and the bartender does not know how to make the drink you want just pop into ShotDrinks.com from your PDA or phone and presto you have your drink. (Now that’s what I call a useful website!). In addition to all the other social networkers, Al Pritchard, from Satama, is always fun to have around.

Tonight we are off to the Dallas Internet Society’s Venture Capital Round Table….more next week!

“Having the time of my life”

If you have any questions or suggestions you can reach me at Gregg@GeekMeet.com