Sock it to me! The partyers at the "Meet Our Makers" sneak preview of the upcoming Digital City New York --due on your screens in January -- were hosted by visiting Virginians Ted Leonsis (president and CEO of AOL Studios) and Paul Benedictis (president and CEO of Digital City) and consumed over 90 liters of Sake, 4 cases of wine, 8 cases of beer, and over 48,000 pieces of sushi. Zounds! Unfolding at a spacious photographer's studio on the grimy far West Side on Monday, Nov. 17, the bash feted an impressive list of content providers who will be partnering with AOL/DC on the upcoming launch, including @NY's own Jason Chervokas and Tom Watson, Talking Heads founder David Byrne, Latin songster Ruben Blades, and playwright Wendy Wasserstein. While I didn't meet Byrne or Wasserstein, I did see some other notable contributors, including John Perry Barlow.
I met Pam McGraw (VP communications, Greenhouse Networks), Bill McIntosh (director of marketing, Digital City), Robert Deigh (director, Communications AOL Studios), and Jim Riesenbach, the new general manager of DCI New York who just moved from the Valley to the Alley. The guys from Social Science (http://www.socialscience.com) were helping me out at the Sushi table, giddy with our sake-filled bellies and slick steel martini shaker gifts, as the local Total New York/Digital City crew of Janice Gjertsen, John Borthwick, Guy Garcia, Eric Baudelaire, Benjamin Weil, and Andrea Scott made the rounds.
(Appeared originally in @The Scene in the @NY newsletter)