Wednesday, June 30, 1999

Cocktails with Courtney ~ June 99

Tery Spataro (tery@interport.net), COO of Blue Dingo, wrote in a lovely recap of the June "Cocktails with Courtney."
"With a blue moon in the sky, love or lust was certainly in the air at Courtney Pulitzer's cocktail party at Dolphins. Maybe it was the heat of the day, which turn the well to do techno-junkies into wanting more than bits and bytes. Courtney drew a handsome crowd of men and women! While we all spoke so passionately about our companies, products and services the eye contact from across the room was intensely felt. Thank goodness http://www.romanceboutique.com was there! A note to self there's more than business transactions taking place at Cocktails with Courtney! The woman, who shakes and stirs the industry, also has an art for mixing and matching!"

Thanks Tery! You can add your comments or reactions too on my bulletin board on-line at:http://www.TheCyberScene.com.

I must say, the turnout was terrific for the party on the last day of June. Stacey Schrader of Writers House created quite a pretty picture in her lovely creamy silk suit as she drove me over in her new silver Audi. Sharon Greenberg and Jasmine Thompson of Paladin Staffing, Andrew Duncan of EMC2 and Wes Horvath of Flycast Network came early and enjoyed some of the first glasses of chilled wine, compliments of Gundlach Bundschu vineyards. (www.gunbun.com). Once again there was a major reunion at the party (which is becoming a frequent occurrence) when Marina Kolesnik of IQgames.com and Michael Zaitsev of vIntranet met up with Vladimir Bernstein of AllAdvantage.com--college buddies who hadn't seen each other in two years! William Ryan of the hot PR firm Niehaus Ryan Wong was still in town and came by with Laura Hamilton, the NY office's managing director. Laura introduced me to Mark Modzelewski (who I'd met at a previous "Cocktails") and who just started with their firm.

Dynamic recruiter (currently contracting at Organic Online) came over & filled me in on how Organic is doing, (growing!) Even Matt Toner (formerly of the CanApple program) resurfaced, but was still hyper-exclusive in telling me what he's up to. I will say tho', the cartoon on the back of his card is hysterical. It's a picture of a man on the phone saying, "No, Thursday's out. How about never…is never good for you?"! Jeff Newelt (The Ad Club) and Roy Anderson (icomweb.com), Anne Chelius (Chrysalis Computer), and Regina Raiford of Buildings magazine also were guests. Anthony Richard of Globix, Scott Hall of Stream Search.com, and Steve Ward of CENTV.com came out too. Matt Wachinski (WorldSpy), Robert Robinson (4mp.com), Christopher Van Buren (PWBVB.com), Peter Warrick (WeiserGroup.com), Gwynne Beatty (Iname.com) and Philippe Schaack (Urban Utility Center, Polytechnic U.) and Travis Gering (Wuersch & Gering) added to the mix that enjoyed calamari and mussels throughout the night as well.

Gabriel Synder of The New York Observer and Paul Maxim of Independent News Service attended --but unlike me were not writing about the party scene! Jonathan Perkel once again cracked up the guests with his witty humor. Attorney Steve Filler, Tery Spataro (tery@interport.net), Bob Ponce of SiliconAlley.net, Seth Price of FreeRide, Lou Giacolone (Richmond Research) and Richard Frazer (Cowan Financial) and Rich de Sanctis (eekamouse.com) were some of the regulars who enjoyed the party. Wendy Cai of Hagglers.com introduced herself and Gavin McFarland (Inet Specialist), Barbara Frerichs (Consultant), Scott Sassoon (Illusion Fusion) and Jarret Summers (iXL) came for their first CWC. Jay Sulzberger, a regular poster on the WWWAC list, came and wowed the guests with his Jerry Garcia/Einstein-like look and fury of wisdom. By the end of the night, Stacey was juggling lemons, my cousin was enjoying a steak, Amy Brownstein of KPE was my new PR personal agent ("You oughta be in pictures") ; ) and my escape car was Brad Paley's hot black Porsche. Wheeeeeeee!

Monday, June 28, 1999

Streaming Media East party

Straw island hats were bobbing around on head of hob-nobbers in the crowded newly-renovated and swank New York Club for the Streaming Media East party on Tuesday, June 28th. Each guest was lei'd as they arrived and throughout the party sunglasses, straw hats, sparkly "wands" and Yack! chattering teeth were passed around. Early on I attacked the life-size Yack! "Chattering Teeth-man" with giant sized beach balls. After this workout I got my hair braided and headed up to the VIP lounge for a nice big stoagie, compliments of iBeam. Randy Pear of IESG.com came up to me and said, "there's Mark Cuban!" The music was so loud though, I thought he said, "Hey! There's a real Cuban," and was thinking of trading up my cigar for a better one. Alas! No cigar. Just Mark Cuban, who was probably one of the most wealthy (in terms of fame, looks, and a few beans too) men at the party. Mark and I chatted briefly as Nicholas Butterworth (SonicNet) talked up a storm about biz-ness. Absolutely delightful to talk with was Serena Doshi of Liv4Now (and who's engaged to Sean Matalesa--senior executive & co-founder of Yack!). We then met Frank Morrocco of Icon Broadcasting Network, which represents the most famous woman in sports broadcasting--Anne Liquori. Ann had just returned from interviewing Michael Jordan on the golf course with her husband (and producer of her show) Steve Geller. Nearby I ran into Christopher Levy, of Clickhear Productions, and we began our discussion of various ways we'll get The Cyber Scene and Cocktails with Courtney webcast. Soon you'll be able to hear "The Cyber Scene" over the 'Net and eventually, hear interviews of notable industry players, catch part of the Cocktail party and be a part of the scene, even when you can't be there. He introduced me to Jon Fox, Cory Smith (CEO), Randy Levine (dir. of strategic relationships) and Martina Johnson-Kent (strategic advisor) of Webcast Solutions.com. This was one of the nicest groups of people! They were all very friendly and Jon and I spoke at length about how at events in California, people are a bit more friendly and will come up and introduce themselves, whereas in NY, people can be a bit more standoffish and keep to their cliques.

Farhan Memon, executive producer & co-founder of Yack!, announced they just hired execs from Viacom and CBS Marketwatch. I ventured back to the disco dancing room, where some too tuckered out sat in overstuffed antique lounge furniture draped in strings of flamingo, pineapple and crab lights and at tables peppered with plastic shells and fishnets. The tallest person I met (: )) was Jason Droege--a fine young man who told me that his company Scour.net just got funded by Michael Ovitz. I knew this was an Island-party-NY-style when I noticed more people had cigars and martinis in their hands than Pina Coladas. Among the other fun guests who came out to play this hot, sticky day were Cory Podolsky and Dena Lawless (Sonicnet), Andrew Duncan, of EMC2 who just got promoted to Worldwide director of field operations, and who I shared some stories about the Hamptons scene with, J.D. Heilprin (Rioport.com) and Geoffrey Maresca (Yahoo! Internet Life). The party was going full swing and had no signs of stopping even when I left. And I heard the next day that a few select people (from Clickhear, EMC2, and Broadcast.com) tied on a few more into the wee hours!

New Media Summit

In the game Three-Card Monte, the object is always to find the ball under the nut. But of the three conferences in town on streaming media and broadband, which one was the nut with the lucky ball? I started out in my quest at the Pricewaterhouse Coopers New Media Summit '99: A Deeper View Conference, done in conjunction with Forbes. The conference began on June 28th with a lovely networking reception at the Forbes building.

The growth of the Internet business is stunning. But the art displayed in the Forbes gallery far surpasses any revolutionary system, technology or e-com application. The most sophisticated electronic transaction couldn't compare with the craftmanship that went into the ship model's collection. No website design could touch the Fabrege eggs that glistened and sparkled with exquisite delicacy and fine detailing. And the strength and power of American business would struggle next to the dominance and beauty of the American paintings collection. Or maybe they could and would rival and surpass these classic works.

The pre-conference cocktail party gathered a fine collection of guests including the graceful Lori Schwab of Sunny Bates Associates, the dashing Eric Goldberg of Crossover Technologies, a witty Mark Martiak of Forbes Digital Media and thoughtful Anne Chelius of Chrysalis Computer, Inc. Joanne Gebhardt looked stunning in a red & white striped suit and the Most Fun Business Card award goes to LiquidBoy.com (a new web shop). Peter Petrusky of PricewaterhouseCoopers took some time aside with discussions with Tom Hyland (manager of the new media division) to speak with me about PWC's developing growth in the new media division. They have carved their practice out of the traditional research and offer services to help companies stay competitive and intelligent in this marketspace.

The conference was on the 29th at swank Supper Club and had noted speakers, including Tim Forbes, COO Forbes Magazine; Josh Grotstein, global director of e-commerce, Citicorp; and Doubleclick EVP, Wenda Harris Millard, presenting on recent developments and related issues concerning electronic business.

Friday, June 25, 1999

Nerve-iness

The Nerve of them! Those Literary Smut publishers expanded and moved into the sexiest loft space on Broadway -- and had a party to celebrate on Friday, June 25th. The vast loft with glistening hard-waxed floors were preserved thanks to buckets for cig butts, and the mostly-rail thin, lingerie-clad set mixed and mingled, beads of perspiration forming as they gyrated to music, drank single malt scotch and oogled the exhibitionist picture-taking. I hear those pics will soon be up on the site--check out nerve.com for more!

TCS Intro: 6/25/99

June is speeding down the time highway with big road bumps this week. PC Expo and the NY Annual Venture Capital Conference kept media running from the Javits center to Marriott Marquis, respectively. Michael Terpin (Internet Wire.com) and his Press Prowl limos offered some relief (if you could catch them) and there certainly was the traditional goodie basket of parties to attend! If you haven’t seen Redglasses' (redglasses@mindspring.com) party list, you’ll never catch up! This man compiles and helps promote all the events with special ones highlighted.

Wednesday, June 23, 1999

The Cyber Scene in Australia ~ by Aliza Sherman

The Cyber Scene in Australia ~ by Aliza Sherman

Aliza Sherman was speaking at a women's international conference and then spoke to Wellington NZ's Webgrrls and Sydney, Australia's Webgrrls. She writes in about her experiences:

"I spoke at the Women Leaders Network of APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation), an annual international meeting for women to include their voices in APEC decision-making. Attendees were from all the Asian Pacific countries including Korea, Japan, Brunei Darassalam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand.

Last Wednesday, June 23rd, I spoke on a panel about Women and Technology - my topic was the importance of the Internet to women's economic development. Then I was a keynote speaker for the Thursday morning breakfast and gave a speech entitled "10 PowerTools for Women." Wednesday night I spoke to Wellington NZ Webgrrls, about 100 women gathered at the public library. Then that Friday, I flew to Sydney where I spoke to Sydney Webgrrls at a local pub. The women in New Zealand and Australia that I met are really wired and very excited to know what women in the USA are doing online and in new media jobs. Many of the women at the conference were from very poor countries or poor regions and didn't even have telephones, much less Internet connections. It was a real eye opener for me, and I even started out my panel "honoring my sisters who are aren't thinking about getting an ISP but are thinking about putting food on their tables to feed their family, who aren't thinking about upgrading their computer but are thinking about getting equipment to farm their land to feed their village." I felt a little too "American" a lot of the time and tried to be sensitive to the different experiences of the women around me. Yet all in all, it was a really amazing trip - lots of fun, sightseeing, beer drinking, and meeting powerful women."

PC Expo - 2nd day

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1999 -- Venture Conference

Scott Kurnit justified my early rise as I mused the sanity of an 8:30 AM panel discussion at the Fourth Annual New York City Venture Capital Conference on Wednesday, June 23rd when he said "Get up early" as one of his value statements for his new(ly renamed) firm About.com. Oh good. I wasn't insane. And if I was, there were plenty of other early-bird-catches-the-worm-attendees too like Texas-based Dave Gerhardt of The Capital Network, Michael Covitt and Joni Lysett Nelson of The Sabatier Group, Alan Bain of World-Wide Business Centers, the HeyNetwork.com crew (which launched their live beta site on Monday), the Humor Network guys (who also donated 1000 shares to HEAVEN), Dadstime.com, DormNow.com, and Frank Laufer of Alternative Business Accommodations (which has affordable corporate temporary housing for executives). JC Herz (Joystick Nation) and I were chatting a bit before Burt Alimansky's panel about the events going on over the next few weeks and how convergence between industries isn't as easy as everyone's thinking it is. Her example was the lengthy negotiating that's going on between her and PBS for a documentary she's created. Among the exhibitors who were presenting later in the day were Michael Zaitsev and Suzanne Smolyar of vIntranet and Isabel Wolcott and Channing Kelly of SmartGirl.com. One of the more interesting companies that was exhibiting was My-utility.com--a company that's positioning itself to be in the Internet space when the electric industry is deregulated.

But I was most impressed by Lynda Meyer's Net Technologies' new products (in addition to their consulting services). My favorite is their DoTell Interactive TM. Through the use of any touch-tone telephone you can dial a number, enter a PIN, record a message or say what you like -- and then immediately hear it broadcast over the Internet!!!!!!! We played around with a few examples of "Hello New York!" and "Read all about it in The Cyber Scene!" Lynda told me that Morgan Stanley Dean Witter has signed up for this technology internally and I think the possibilities are endless with news sites (click to hear the headlines), celebrity sites (hear Austin Powers say "Ooh Baby! Do I make you horney?") or even to hear reports, stocks, tips, and other information you'd like to get out on the Net quickly. There is no need for coding so the process is streamlined such that any Exec. could put messages on the Web without having to wait for his tech team to find the time to decode and encode his speech.

Additionally, Net Technologies has several other proprietary and patented products. The Instimanager is an elegant, updateable and maintainable interactive on-line multimedia presentation technology using streaming audio/video, text and animation. For Tucker-Anthony, Net Technologies developed several financial calculators not available anywhere else on the Net. There is a comparison chart between a Roth and Traditional IRA with personalized reports, a retirement calculator and one showing required minimum distributions. I've known Lynda since early 1995 and worked with her on some early projects "back in the day" and it's so exciting to see yet another successful woman-owned business that has grown from a one-woman startup to a prosperous full-scale business in the Silicon Alley, New York and Internet business arena!

The panel was beginning so I had to bid adieu to the fun-phone and sat down for Burt's panel of "How we survived our mistakes" with Scott Kurnit (About.com), Steve Brotman (SAVP) and Robert Lessin (Wit Capital, Dawntreader). After hearing about each man's "mistakes" we learned some valuable lessons about this biz. Get up early* (*see above), don't run out of money (B. Lessin), don't be frugal with equity (S. Brotman). We were privy to lots of other tasty tidbits of advice too, like Kurnit's analogy that if you can "manage a 1/2 live TV show, it's like a microcosm of managing a company…Once you make a decision for the camera to zoom in, there's no debate whether it should zoom out. It's zooming!" He also laughingly told us how like Bill Gates, who didn’t invent Windows but adapted the idea from Macintosh, you too must be adaptive. Bob Lessin advised that when you get a break -- take it! And after a few more anecdotes, we were at a break ourselves when the panel ended.

Heavan Fun-raiser

! Join us in... H E A V E N -- 1999 Fun-Raiser and Halo Awards -- Bridging the Digital Divide. June 23rd, 1999. 7:00-10:00 pm @The Sony Plaza: Public Arcade & Sony Wonder Technology Lab, 550 Madison Avenue @ 55th St NYC. This spectacular evening of family fun and interactive festivities will promote awareness of HEAVEN and help facilitate our efforts to bridge the digital divide. HEAVEN and our event chairmen, Jerry Colonna, Managing Director of Flatiron Partners and David Bohnett, Founder of GeoCities, will proudly introduce the First Annual Halo Awards. The awards will honor those outstanding individuals and organizations whose efforts and commitments have had a profound and positive impact on today's youth and technology. These include HEAVEN's founders, Bob Friedman, President of New Line Television and Ted Leonsis, President of AOL Studios. Join us for an interactive tour of Sony Wonder Technology Lab and a VIP Reception in the Public Arcade with cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and food tastings. DJ, dancing and ANGELS performances will conclude the evening's festivities.

Tuesday, June 22, 1999

CMP Media's ShadowRam party

Mike Terpin of Internet Wire.com and The Terpin Group flew in twenty minutes before he arrived at HEAVEN, and as it was winding down, we headed out for one final stop. A PC Expo party that CMP Media puts on for its ShadowRam section. 24/7 media-ers Jody Kahn and Jai Kecker were hanging out with Jennifer Runne of the WWWAC List. I perused the big banquet tables covered with steaming pasta, wagon wheel sized cheeses and a make-your-own (well, the waiter did it) sundae stand! If I hadn't been sampling throughout the other parties and it wasn't 10:00 PM, I might have indulged!

AOL's in HEAVEN

The popular song by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers "I'm in heaven…" could describe quite a few elements of the HEAVEN (www.heavens.org) benefit at the Sony Wonder Labs on Tuesday, June 22nd. Now before I go into the who's who that was there, let me explain a little bit about HEAVEN. HEAVEN (Helping Educate, Activate, Volunteer, Empower via the Net) is a non-profit organization that uses the "online medium to benefit society and bridge the digital divide" with hopes of providing a powerful online forum for positive social change and getting youth the tools and training they need to succeed. By bringing together charitable causes and calendars, volunteer efforts and opportunities in one appealing and effective place, HEAVEN helps its online audience find out where, when, how and why they can make a difference. It enables organizations to increase traffic and raise awareness and funds. And, through an innovative ANGELS education program that couples computers and career training with community service, it uses the Internet as a democratizing force that helps lessen the gaps between technology haves and have-nots." Now, this is quite different, but completely complementary with MOUSE (Making Opportunities to Upgrade and Schools and Education), which provides volunteer human-power and technical support to the New York City public schools-- wiring schools and training teachers and students how to use technology. Some people might confuse the two, but once schools are wired and kids know how to use the Net and technology, they can go out in the world, volunteers, get active and help others in return.

Both organizations, run by dynamic, warm, supportive and intelligent people deserve all the support companies in the Alley (and beyond) and their employees, friends and others can muster up. If we don't start getting our youth and online and provide access for everyone, US school test scores will continue to be among the lowest in the world, our nation will be full of fat, lazy, uneducated, unwired and unsatisfied non-contributing members to society and we will be further behind in technological and societal developments than we already are! How do I really feel about this issue? Come on people! NYC is wiring our town at a rate 100x slower than Asian countries and our youth are continually falling behind other nations in tests. I love this country, which is why I want the United States to do well in the world economy. We have an egocentric view of our developments because we've done so well for so long, and still are ahead of other countries in many areas. But just as we all must stay on top of developments and adapt to the fast pace and changes in the Internet industry for our businesses and personal success, our country too must adapt and move quickly. We need a supportive government, not one that is meddling with enterprises and regulating so much. We need our leaders to focus on spending money on education and technological advancements of our country.

And among the movers and shakers in this industry, who do care, that came out in support of Heaven and its benefit honoring Ted Leonsis of AOL and Bob Friedman of New Line Cinemas were Robert Levitan of Flooz (who told me his company has now grown to 26 in number), Barbara Frerichs (a consultant), Randall Stempler (charityevents.org), Steve Messer (LinkShare) and Chris Patyk of Riverside Management Group. Guests enjoyed delicious food by the Myriad restaurant group, imagine stations with interactivity (caricatures by The Humor Network) and music from Pseudo. Marc Scarpa of Jumpcut was telling Cecilia Pagkalinawan of Boutique Y3K and myself about his upcoming 10-city tour with an interactive talk show and his three-day stay-away-and-webcast-marathon for Woodstock. Middleberg & Associates associates Rob Argento, Adam Glazer, Maureen Landers and Christopher Hayes were out in full force. I met Dargan Coggeshall of LifeMinders.com and caught a bunch of people, including PR dynamo Renee Edelman of PR 21, out of the corner of my eye who I didn't get to chat with. HEAVEN should be in their own heaven today with a wonderful turnout of 614 guests and donations of over $500,000 in cash, in-kind and pledged commitments.

AIM dinner

The AIM dinner and a deal #10 co-sponsored with Empower America took advantage of simulcasting as Jack Kemp, Empower America's co-Director and Floyd Kvamme, partner of Kleiner Perkins and Chairman of EA spoke to a dinner audience at Maddalena's in Palo Alto and guests at the Metronome restaurant in New York. Started in '93 this organization has aims of becoming the premier organization to influence policy and core issues. They are committed to free enterprise solutions over unnecessary government intervention, summarize bills and let people react and have a voice through them. Jennifer Gustafson (asst. dir. of dev., EA) quoted Mr. Kemp with his theory that if a politician sees something move they'll try and tax it, if it moves again they'll regulate it and if it fails they'll try and subsidize it. Among dinner guests in New York were Mark Frisk of VCast, (Joystick Nation) and Biggs Tabler of Tabler Communications in Kentucky.

PC Expo parties

The plethora of parties was not in shortage tonight, but I almost didn't even make any of them after the first one. First stop on my evening agenda was Planet Direct's sunset sail. PD did this little three-hour tour last year but on a cloudier night. Tonight, the WFC was a buzz with hundreds of happy single people havin' beers at Morans, listening to a jazz band play outside, watch (and enjoy) some swing dancing, and take in the stunning sunset. PD rallied people at Morans and then boarded the Petrel for a lovely 2 1/2 - 3 hr. sail. It was a mini reunion for me to see some people I met at the last year's sail, and some fabulous former colleagues of mine at both Brand Dialogue and Darwin Digital. Jason Oates and Alex Delateja of Jordan McGrath Case & Partners and Tom Hespos, who announced that he's leaving K2 Design after TWO and A HALF YEARS to assume the same position at Blue Marble. Craig Marrano, looking cooler-than-cool with his hip sunglasses, was telling me all about the changes at BD and musings about stock options. Kevin "The Man" Howard, Jared "New Meat" Belsky and Andrew "No NickName" Ralles of iBalls.com also came back for this year's cruise. David Forgione (VP, adv. & e-com) and Jeff Cunningham (CEO) Planet Direct were also looking calm and relaxed (and why not?) just before the boat took off. Anthony Mazzarella and Elana Moore of Darwin Digital were looking smart and happy as they told me all about the exciting changes at DD.

More PC Expo

With a jolt of coffee and a bagel with lox energizing me, Sam Albert and I made our way to the belly of the whale (Javits Center) for the PC Expo. After a nightmare with registering I skeddadled down to booth #1859 where Bob Ponce and others at Silicon Alley Station were putting the final touches on the inaugural Net cast shows. I interviewed Mary Jo Fahey about the status of infrastructure in New York and in the world. We discussed lots of pertinent points, some shocking, which you can read in her article in the July/August issue of AlleyCat News. Here are just a few highlights (that should get you emailing your representative):

All of Singapore will be wired for wireless computing in two months and 1 billion people will have 2-MB capacity handheld computing units in Japan. NY should take a cue from Italy, who has a similar problem with wiring landmark historic buildings--they are harnessing the satellites and also going wireless. Asia can more easily wire modern skyscrapers than we can because of having newer infrastructure.

Having interviewed three ISPs offering high-speed wiring services in New York, Mary Jo has seen first hand the power and 100 MB/sec. access to the 'Net on Fiber, at which point we discussed the "copper over fiber" debate. Bell Atlantic, of course, wants to see copper continue since it has such a stronghold in that, but fiber is the way to go, baby!

Mary Jo's interest in quick access to the 'Net also serves some of her other ventures, like heading up the VRML SIG and being a part of the Rich Media sig.

Dan Sweeney (GM, Home Networking Operation) of Intel was also scheduled for an interview in addition to their full day of meetings. After roving around the Expo with my wireless mic, and interviewing the women at WITI.org, a representative from Barbados Investment & Development Corp., and Richard Calton of HarlemLive.org (a newsletter about Harlem) and one of the youths involved in the project, I headed back for the interview with Howie Singer of Reciprocal.com. Bob Ponce, the man behind the Silicon Alley Station, took the reins (er, mic) and went on to conclude an informative interview about music and film trademarking and licensing online.

** After perusing the exhibition hall for a bit, I ran into Brian Czarny, who's now director, corp. comm at DirectWeb. He introduced me to Dennis Cline (pres. & CEO), and Glenn Goldberg (VP of mrktng), Shane Winfrey of THINK New Ideas and Jai Decker (24/7 media).

Breakfastnetwork.com and PC EXPO

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1999 -- Breakfastnetwork.com and PC EXPO

I started off the week at Bogen PR and LPNYTHink’s Breakfastnetwork.com panel on “Taking Your Internet Brand International" held at the Bryant Park Grill on Tuesday, June 22nd. With a format change that promoted more dialogue between the panelists and exploration of the topic than previous months, Edmund Bogen kept the discussion moving along smoothly (and with humor at times) as moderator. Jonathan Spira (senior managing director, The Basex Group), Chris Byrant (CEO & managing director, T3 Media), James Ledbetter (NY Bureau Chief, The Industry Standard) and Alexander Moha (business development manager, Voila.com) were the knowledgeable and engaging speakers. Some of the points that were discussed centered on the differences and challenges of making Web sites global vs. local and how to scale to multiple foreign languages. Discussion also centered around privacy, security and legal issues; managing multiple URLs (.fr, .ge, .it), the Liberty Net case where hate messages were delivered to neo-nazi's in Canada and a porn site directed to Japanese people, and how the companies running these organizations were charged despite their servers being in a different country.

Chris Bryant addressed the difference between translation and transliteration and explained how every project T3 looks at regarding localization efforts (Web sites for countries other than the company's main country) address geography, culture and brand.

Jonathan Spira brought up two examples of translation gone awry--one with a good result and the other less favorable--with his story of Japanese people who loved Coca Cola when their campaign was translated to "We bring your ancestors back to life," and the disaster of Chevrolet's NOVA car in Brazil for its translation to "No Go."

Bryant brought up the point that while the Internet was developed by academics and governments worldwide, the U.S. still takes claim for, and is quickly associated with for ".com" addresses. Alexander added that domain names are considered trademarks in Europe.

In terms of Internet growth, Jim Ledbetter brought up some interesting numbers telling us that by the end of '98 there were 150 million Internet users. 52% of those users are in the U.S. By 2005 their will be 700 million users, 29% of which will be in the U.S. Alex mentioned how the microchip is becoming more developed for PCs in Europe when the conversation veered toward the "Euro" currency and using credit cards online. He also told us that the European user is similar to U.S. demographics (but are quickly changing as Jim pointed out) with 2/3rd users being male, young, urban. He mentioned that the European male is a bit younger (16 - 23 yrs. old) and that the Internet is seen more as a family educational, entertainment tool than it is in the U.S.

One of my personal wish list items (if it exists please let me know!) is software that can translate web pages on the fly based on the country a user is logging in from. Of course, always having the "international second language" (English) available as a link on the homepage would be good too.

Among early attendees were Ravi Chandron of ABC.com, Drew Wiliness of Agency.com and Christopher Gerstile. Chrysalis Computer's president Anne Chelius, Michael Weill (Exodus) and Mark Kindley of CMP's VarBusiness were there as well. Peter Crowell (CEO) and Dean Calabrese (President) of Spider Partners (new age web systems) were sharing a table with Jacqueline Russo of Middleberg & Associates, Kailah Roven of Redwood Partners, and Anne Lapointe-Caracciolo and Elizabeth Mayeri of France Telecom, Voila.com. I sat at a table with Andy Levy of LPNYTHink, Zor Gorelov (Pres. & CEO) and Dan Tarulli (VP, Sales) of iaSoft (communities online for your site), Sam--Edmund's beautiful fiancé (until Thursday when they marry) and his mother Joy. Afterwards I had a chance to chat with Joel Scotkin (president of Random Walk Computing) who introduced me to Austin Lear (of RWC) and who had the good news to report that his company is now 50 people! Mark Hanny (director, channel marketing, IBM Corporate Internet division) and Linda White (marketing/communications) of IBM had very positive feedback about the breakfastnetwork.com and sound as if they’ll be back for more!

Friday, June 18, 1999

Bits & Bytes -and- Shakers & Stirrers 6/18/99

SHAKERS & STIRRERS ______________________________
Send your announcements to: shakers@TheCyberScene.com

* Kyra Feldman is the newest kid on the block at T3 Media. As Marketing Communications Coordinator she'll be busy for this burgeoning company!

* Blue Dingo News: Valerie Boyko was hired as Director of Client Practice at Blue Dingo and Mike Meyers as Director of Production. Watch for more additions in the coming months as Blue Dingo continues to strive for unique solutions, full business integration, and increasing our clients' value.

NEWS BITS AND BYTES _____________________________
Send your news to: news@TheCyberScene.com

* On Flag Day (6/14) VAGUEpolitix officially launched on PBS Online at http://pbs.org/vaguepolitix/. They are one of the few independently-developed websites hosted by PBS Online, so we are particularly excited about partnering with them.

* Alyona Makeeva, a smart and beautiful designer and Russian Web Girl has almost completed her newest web site featuring her fine artwork. Alyona's work is strong and vibrant and shows intelligence, strength, whimsy at times, and history. http://www.avant-rus.com/ Her previous exhibit was at: http://www.artofrussia.com/alyona.html/ Check it out and enjoy some beautiful artwork on the Web.

* The Egg Farm Dairy has launched their ice cream into cyberspace! Get yours at: http://www.cybericecream.com

* CEO Mark Patricof and Cary Woods, President and CEO of Independent Pictures, announced the Phase One launch of the Independent Pictures Web site. Independent Pictures (www.indiepics.com) represents the next wave of independent motion picture studios. The site, which will be developed over the course of the next year, will exemplify the true spirit of independent film. Phase Two developments will involve e-commerce functionality and cultural enhancements designed to bring filmmakers into the IP fold through their provision of original content, editorial and programming.

* Lydia Sugarman announced that ChickClique, an online magazine and informal, non-exclusive club for girls, chicks, women and their friends who love reading, talking, thinking and riding bikes and do cycling will be a full blown web site by (hopefully) July 1st. The sister site of TheGoodEgg.Com, is starting off as an e-mail newsletter till publication. Go to http://www.TheGoodEgg.Com, click on ChickClique, and fill out the form for a free subscription to our mag.

* Web guru David Siegel wants to see you in his long-awaited new book - as well as your boss, your co-workers, and your clients. He plans to sprinkle the headshots throughout his new book to illustrate a central principal of Futurize Your Enterprise: Winning companies of the future will be customer-led, not customer-driven, and customers will want to see themselves reflected in the sites they use. Details and special prize info at: www.futurizenow.com. Deadline for entries is Monday, June 28, 1999.

* Mark Jeffrey (VP, Business Development / co-founder, The Palace) let us know that the Palace now has voice capabilities. Check it out! http://welcome.thepalace.com:9990/palace/voice/client/

* Pics from the Methodfive Never sushi party are up at: http://www.methodfive.com

* Roger Tallman, of Tallman NY and Warehouse Recording recently concluded a project for DreamWorks Ltd for an upcoming video release of "Joseph." Tallman is one of the pioneers with audio use on the Internet. His company offers a full service audio and digital video post house! Find out more at: tallman1@idt.net

* Webstakes.com, a leading online sweepstakes promotions company, announced a strategic investment led by Excite@Home and XL Ventures LLC, an affiliate of Big Flower Holdings, Inc. In all, Webstakes.com secured $40 million in private funding from 12 investors.

* WorldSpy (http://www.worldspy.com), an on-line research and shopping service, announced the grand opening of four new product pavilions -- Small Appliances, Home Store, Sports and Fitness, and Health and Beauty that are stocked with thousands of products from well known industry brands.

* Blue Dingo has revolutionized the way business is done on the Web. With one of their clients, Volvo, they developed a radically new approach to promotion, marketing analysis and integrating media. If you haven't seen the site yet, you should take a look at http://www.swedenrules.com. Take advantage of the sweepstakes! Win an S40 or V40.

TCS Intro: 6/18/99

WELCOME
Darling Scene-stirs! Guess what?! June is rushing through and there's so much to tell you! In fact, there's so much -- I'll have to make this Scene so short and let you read all the juicy stuff on ze web site. But don't fret, gentle readers! If you still have that anklin' to print ze edition out and read it on ze train to La Hamptons, you can! (from ze web site!)

* Join me under the stars at a fabulous outdoor concert. As part of The New York Pops Summermusic Concert, June 21st at Lincoln Center's Damroch Park. Starting at 5:30 PM for lovely wine, hors d'oeuvres (dessert & coffee at intermission); an amazing raffle; and the soothing pleasant sounds of The Pops under the incredible Skitch Henderson's direction! Join me at my table -- call 212-765-7677 to RSVP. $55. Benefit for Children's Music programs.

* Check out the newest Internet webcast with Silicon Alley Live @ PC Expo. WWWAC President Bob Ponce has spearheaded and taken the WWWAC group, and now this venture, into new directions. Check out broadcasts of interesting panels throughout the week at: http://www.SiliconAlley.net Psst! I'll be hosting and moderating a few shows!

* Cocktails with Courtney -- June 30th. Stay tuned for the final details on the first summertime cocktail party! www.CocktailsWithCourtney.com

Wednesday, June 16, 1999

We AllAdvantage.com from a free surfboard

"Hurry Courtney! You're going to miss the sushi!" Jeff Newelt, Communications Director at the Art Directors Club greeted me warmly with this warning on Wednesday, June 16th at AllAdvantage.com's launch party. It seems that for most of June I've been just downstream of catching the sushi at these socials. I did get a nice Tuna Roll, though, and then was able to hear a lengthy and informative overview of this site from Alex Gourevitch, PR Director. Lou Giacalone of Richmond Research, Inc. and Peggy Altenpohl of Billboard magazine and I listened as Alex described how the information bar (similar to Alexa.com's) sits on top of your browser and tracks EVERY thing you do on a web site. This permission-based tool helps both the advertisers and the consumers by serving up ads or information based on clicks and interests. Other ways they get around the "big brother" aspect that seemed blatant to me are that they don't release any information about you (other than your web site surfing when you have the tool running) and you get no e-mail from them or their customers (the advertisers). In fact, Jim Jorgensen, CEO of AllAdvantage, told me their privacy policies are more solid than other popular security and privacy initiatives that they aren't even members. Started just 79 days ago with 1.5 million members, this company is going gang-busters and looks to continue to ride high on the wave of momentum.

Another feature is that advertisers can buy key words with them so as to stay competitive in the search engine ranking battle. For instance, Barnes & Noble, bought all the key words they could get from AllAdvantage after Amazon.com bought all the keywords on Yahoo! Nearby I spied William Lopez of Qwest and chatted with Josh Stylman who informed me that his company Rotomedia was just acquired by AskJeeves.com. Thomas Eaton, a tanned VP, biz dev. guy from 24/7 walked off with the slick white AllAdvantage.com surfboard that was raffled off and Marc Newelt, a recent addition to our cities Finest (a newly minted Policeman) was there as a security guard to make sure none other than the winner walked away with the board. Peter Neumann (3D Designer), David Kassel (OpenShop) and Alayna Tagariello (Connors Communications) were also there enjoying the night's fun festivities.

Opt-in E-mail list marketing secrets (shhh!)

The crowd was hungry to hear Mr. Alan Meckler speak at the "E-Mail Newsletter/Opt-in E-Mail Marketing Seminar," produced by his Zapata-like Internet.com and held at the Marriott Marquis on Wednesday, June 16th. But Mr. Meckler never showed and the seminar was "lite." Each speaker spoke for about 5-10 mins and defined what sorts of lists there are (opt-in and discussion), how they started their respective lists and ad/rental rates. I noted other e-list owners Tristan Louis (TNL.net), Larry Chase (Web Digest for Marketers) and Sherry Reisner (NYNMA) in attendence. Marni Kotak (Virtual Growth) and David Talon (Humor Network) were also there.

Mitch Scherr (iBiz Development), who I met in Austin, TX at my cocktail party, introduced me to Mark Bruneman of the Net-worker.com. Peter Chislett of Postal Works LLC and WWWAC board member and I caught up on the news since we'd last seen each other. Bernardo Joselevich (DutyFreeGuide) and LaLa Wang of Metro List Express were enjoying some of the dumplings, puff pastries and pasta that was being served afterwards. David Meadows and Rachael O'Meara of ScreenShop.com and Betty Wong of Service Finders were also taking a moment to refuel and chat. Dara Tyson (PR director extraordinaire, Penton Media) introduced me to a few key people, including Steven Wright-Mark of Schwartz PR.

Rachel Luxembourg introduced me to Chris Knight, one of the speakers (for the ISP lists) and who has another company in Wisconsin that manages lists (SparkNet). Doug Block, the filmmaker who created a documentary and film called "Home Page" came over to tell me about a NY Showing. This film also made the rounds at the SXSW conference. Despite the slightly canned presentations, Internet.com won marks for how to have a short & sweet event -- the whole thing from sign-in to presentations to reception was managed all in two hours. Now there's effective-seminaring! They also "get" branding with their give-aways: an Internet.com tote, pen, pad of paper and an ad rates folder!

Tuesday, June 15, 1999

NYU CAT -- Preview of cutting edge technologies

Like an arcade for adults, the UltraViolet '99 NYU Center for Advanced Technology showcase on June 15 was a fireworks display for all the senses. In their newly renovated, state of the art facilities, the center had several rooms with computers and wiring and the environment for productive creativity. Interactive Technology Program student Jenna Park's creation was a soothing installation based on dreams. 5x7 inch-ish lanterns with a red glow inside suspended from the ceiling were wired so that when you touched them they created soothing sounds as they swung. Text from dreams covered the lantern-shades. I chatted with Bruce Bernstein, president, and David Jean, director of marketing, of NYSIA. They were excited about the new board they are bringing in and have lots of things going on, so check out my Calendar of Events for their listings! Ross Goldstein of Atlantic Ventures was there to check out software from showcasers like Improv Technologies. Improv is where Jim Burris (formerly of the NYU CAT) is now working, along with the artist-in-residence Mitch Butler who was a bright addition with his bright green leaf-motif shirt. They also have, apparently, the most amazing loft-like office space! Brad Balfour was enjoying himself as he mused about "card orgies" when you get too many in one pocket. Jude Huang, Jason Yung and David Sturman of MaMaMedia gave me an update on Fillus, the company's newest addition (and extraordinary coffee-maker). Rick Goldenberg (IBM) demoed a Web authoring tool for virtual imaging, HotMedia. Theresa McKenna of GeoTechGroup showed me how her company integrates real property data with tax maps so consumers can get valuable information. Alex Tuzhilin, an associate professor at NYU Stern was there showing off his 1:1 Pro product I met Aleksander Williams of Taurion.com and I must say Joni Nelson and Michael Covitt of the Sabatier Group win the award for the two best dressed new media financiers. On the way out I chatted with Chrisitan Cabanero of Kozmo.com, who told me they just opened an office in Seattle and are the largest distributor of Ben & Jerry's in NYC! Wow.

Friday, June 11, 1999

Upcoming Events ~ 6/11/99

UPCOMING EVENTS ________________________________
For the most comprehensive, up-to-date listing on all the events ~
Check out: http://www.TheCyberScene.com/ and click on "Calendar of Events" Add your own events too!

5th in NYNMA's Evening Panel Series: "Money In The Age Of Portals And E*Wallets: The Net Transforms Financial Services" June 17 @ Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza @ 49th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues), James Christie Room, Mezzanine Level, Registration: 5:30 PM, Panel 6:30-8 PM, Reception 8-9 PM, sponsored by Bowne. Moderated by Craig Forman, VP/Interactive, CNNfn

Fahgeddabout what you will be doing for the millennium -- what will you be doing The Next 20 Years? This series--due in NYC on July 29--promises to be the top choice of what to do for new media events. Get pundits positions, see (and show off) slick demos of cutting edge technology and party with the best of 'em!
For more info: contact Bob Ayres ~ bob@tnty.com www.next20years.com

Bits & Bytes -and- Shakers & Stirrers 6/11/99

SHAKERS & STIRRERS ______________________________
Send your announcements to: shakers@TheCyberScene.com

Marj Kleinman will be leaving The Learning Annex and joining the team at MaMaMedia as of June 14th. She will be producing and launching a new educational area on their site and is " excited to be getting back to children's programming, which is what I did before I came to The Learning Annex. "

Jeanine Moss, formerly from the New York Business Forums has joined Organic to create a new public relations and communications division in New York.

Entertainment Drive (http://www.entertainmentdrive.com), announced that Megan Kline has been named Vice President of Business Development and Marketing. In her new role, she will be forming strategic partnerships with celebrities as well as overseeing the individual sites through Starclubs (http://www.starclubs.com), Entertainment Drive's latest initiative which develops, produces and maintains Official Celebrity Websites.

Well how do ya like that? After NYU gave Arul Sundaram his MBA and kicked him out the door, he joined Community Connect - the folks who run AsianAvenue.com - as their Commerce Director.

NEWS BITS AND BYTES _____________________________
Send your news to: news@TheCyberScene.com

+ From: Eleanor Hass (E-Technologies)
Subject: Another EMAIL VIRUS is out there!!

"And very dangerous. Worm.ExploreZip is a virus capable of destroying data. It enters your system through email. If you don't catch it, it may destroy crucial files on your system.

Experts aren't sure how far Worm.ExploreZip has spread, but email systems at Microsoft, Intel, Symantec, NBC and General Electric were hit so hard that some had to shut down mail servers. That kind of malicious power should not be ignored.

You're a target if you use: Microsoft Windows 95, 98 or NT, Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange for email

Be very careful with email. Do not open email with attachments unless you're certain the sender is safe, and only after you've downloaded protective software.

The worm -- first discovered in Israel -- enters as an email attachment with the name "zipped_files.exe." It's deceptively friendly message reads:

Hi "name of recipient"!
I received your e-mail and I shall send you a reply ASAP.
Till then, take a look at the attached zipped docs.
Bye.

Experts say you should delete it without opening it, and then empty the deleted items file.

If it executes, the worm copies itself to the windows system directory with the filename "Explore.exe" and then modifies the WIN.INI file so the program executes each time Windows starts.

It then uses the infected computer's email client to harvest email addresses in order to propagate itself. But behind the scenes, it plays real mean: searching C through Z drives and selecting crucial file extensions and rendering them useless by making them 0 bytes long. Result: Non-recoverable data or computer system failure.

If you have opened the suspected email attachment, shut off the computer, call tech support, wait, and pray it's not done its harm."

(I received this attachment but did delete it. So make sure you know what you're getting from who out there, folks.)

+ Bolt (www.bolt.com), the largest teen-focused Internet destination according to Nielsen/I-Pro, today announced a content and marketing deal with Yahoo! Inc (Nasdaq: YHOO). Bolt will be featured in many places on the Yahoo site.

+ Mark Smith of (by day @ PR 21--Chicago) and his friends are making serious headway with their personal- pet-project Caribbean Traders (www.j3traders.com). They've added e-commerce to the web site and have finished writing the J3 "memoir" about historical-based adventures. Self-publishing the first 1,000 copies while shopping for a bigger deal, they're going to get some traffic with a $3,000/month in banner advertising package on GoTo.com, Link Exchange, shirtcentral.com and teefinder.com starting 7/1. Print ads will be by the end of the summer in high-end consumer books. Mark's partners, Mike Tidd, president of Caribbean Traders is also "one of the most creative guys and astute businessman" and webmaster Lee Stral, is also owner of Essential Presence, a Chicago-based Web site design and e-commerce consulting company.

+ BMG MUSIC PUBLISHING, exclusive music sponsors at the 40th annual Clio Awards, now has available for download Version 2.0 of their 1-888-BMG-SONG search system. The database, in conjunction with their toll free number allows you to search for and preview songs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. http://www.bmgsong.com

+ Broadcast.com and Central Park Media Corporation (CPM), a US Japanimation supplier, announced today an exclusive three-year agreement which will make Anime videos available to fans on the Internet. Anime videos will be broadcast exclusively on the broadcast.com Web site (www.broadcast.com).

+ Basketball great Dennis Rodman will jumpstart ICONOCAST's Web Attack! next week. Read all about it at:
http://iconocast.fl0.com/scripts/flo.exe?x=dmKYYuYwAhouK

+ Blast Radius Sends Shockwave Through the Web
Four days after launching the G-shock site (www.gshock.com), Blast Radius won the coveted Macromedia Shocked Site of the day on June 5th. The newly developed site is a showcase of the most advanced internet design and interactive content incorporating games, contests, special events and the world premier of " G-Gurl" an interactive online comic.

+ Firstsource.com, a leading business-to-business Internet portal that specializes in sales and on-line service of hardware, software and office products, announced today the selection of D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles Los Angeles, Blue Marble ACG, and Ruder Finn as its new brand communications partners for advertising and public relations. Firstsource.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of En Pointe Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENPT), utilizes a new proprietary technology enabling it to offer the largest virtual inventory of computer products on the web.

+ Farrell Fritz, P.C. Corporate/New Media Attorney Jonathan Ezor got a nice write up in the Long Island Business News: http://www.libn.com/Features/Features_article.cfm?ID=417

THE CYBER SCENE IN SAN DIEGO ~ by George Edw. Seymour (with valuable enhancements from Joe Crawford)

THE CYBER SCENE IN SAN DIEGO ~ by George Edw. Seymour (with valuable enhancements from Joe Crawford)

The Official WebSanDiego Happy Hour #2 List group meeting was held on a misty and somewhat dark third of June at David's Coffeehouse in Hillcrest. The group was small but engaging, and consisted of the stately Jim Langston of et. al.), the young and creative "webturk" Tim Wayne of , our seasoned fearless leader Joe Crawford , and the "Word 6" guy (me) http://members.tripod.com/~GES227/>.

Apparently, half of us do web creation pretty much full time and professionally, whereas the other half just enjoys creating web pages.

Our backgrounds differ, but apparently we share the "move a lot during school years" experiences.

We sat outdoors under a friendly sprinkle of "almost rain," and without the benefit of "The Mummers' Dance", [music], and the topics ranged widely from futurist David Brin to options for other meeting locations. But, as expected, the topic of choice was web building. Of course, we each mentioned our favorite web tools (and one not-so-favorite):
1. HomeSite 4.0
http://www2.allaire.com/Products/HomeSite/
2. Word 6.0 (okay, okay, I only use it as text editor which
has great cut and paste, spell check, thesaurus, etc.)
http://www.microsoft.com/word/
3. BBEdit 5.1
http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/bbedit.html
4. TextPad
http://www.textpad.com/
5. Vi [N.B., only discussed as an historical example of great
(pain and versatility) that no longer applies].
http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/vi/

However, Flash , received special attention. In particular, if anyone wants quality movies or great navigation support, then Flash has strong appeal in this group.

Another topic: Should web pages be generic or designed for specific browsers? Obviously there are two points of view. But a consensus was to build generically for the lowest common denominator (480 pixels high by 640 pixels wide), but allow designs to flow to fit other sized browser widths and heights.

Some of us like to center tables so that the view is "automatically" scalable regardless of the monitor size and display settings for any visitor.

Then a lively discussion emerged about the inability of html to center an image within a text paragraph. The web is indeed not print . But IT is driving us that way. PowerPoint can put images anywhere, include sound, and can be converted to html in15 minutes flat. Scary, huh?

Before long, the second meeting came to an end, and almost certainly all of us will be back for Meeting #3.

Here is a summary of tools that this list has reported within the past two weeks:
* "I love Dreamweaver,"
* "I started out writing bare code in a product called NoteTabPro" I also use Fireworks for almost all of my graphic creation and editing. I also use Fireworks for almost all of my graphic creation and editing."
* "I switched to Web Edit when it came available"
* "In preparation for DHTML, I have recently obtained Dreamweaver and Homesite."
* "Graphics: I use Photoshop & have started to use Fireworks also."
* "Audio: I have recently added a music clip to one of my sites, using Emblaze Audio."
* "The plugin I have used most in my professional life is for Windows - ULEAD's SmartSaver ... the version they're selling now is a newer version." http://www.webutilities.com/ssaver/ss_features.htm
* "On my Mac I use the SmartGIF and SmartJPEG products (which are also available on the Windows side)" http://www.boxtopsoft.com/
* "I use Fireworks for many more things than I used to, but ProGIF out of PhotoShop is still very essential to me. And incidentally, there's a pretty complete of plugins for PhotoShop available at: http://www.pluginsource.com/photoshop
* "(PhotoShop plugins, btw, are something of a standard: many other products can use them, such as Paint Shop Pro, GraphicConverter, DeBabelizer, Premiere, and others.)"
* "I've been writing HTML code for so long it's at an abstract level. I've tried Dreamweaver and Cyberstudio...and in my ancient past I've had the opportunity to work in Claris Home Page and PageMill...Now I do my primary work in BareBones BBEdit and with a Mac product called Myrmidion to convert documents to HTML. My usual workflow is to layout in PhotoShop or illustrator, export individual graphics, and go to town. When I work on a PC (less and less these days) I *swear* by a product called TextPad - it's an absolutely fabulous text editor. Excellent Regular Expressions handling. When I'm called on to edit files remotely (more and more these days) on *nix servers I use emacs or pico. emacs is more powerful- but pico is idiot-proof."
* "I tend to use Netscape Composer, for my first pass at relatively simple pages. After that, I tend to go direct into HTML using a text editor (SuperNoteTab, PFE, or WinVile). Composer has now gotten tolerant enough that I will sometimes
make small modifications using it."
* "I make html pages with Microsoft Visual Studio. It is like an enhanced text editor with advanced formatting shortcuts. It's great!"

Let's raise our glasses high to applaud Tim and the WWW!!

TCS Intro: 6/11/99


Hi Folks! Guess what?! Starting today you can search for your lovely selves in The Cyber Scene -- check out how many times you've made "the scene!" PLUS! You can also discuss with other scene-stirs your favorite hotspots in the city, what you thought of the latest party, conference, or what events you're going to attend on the DISCUSSION BOARDS! WooWee! Interactivity comes to "The Cyber Scene." Please be aware that these are betas and we're all working hard behind-the-scenes to make these features more useful. In the meantime, use them and send us feedback! (courtney@pulitzer.com)

TCS Intro: 6/11/99


Hi Folks! Guess what?! Starting today you can search for your lovely selves in The Cyber Scene -- check out how many times you've made "the scene!" PLUS! You can also discuss with other scene-stirs your favorite hotspots in the city, what you thought of the latest party, conference, or what events you're going to attend on the DISCUSSION BOARDS! WooWee! Interactivity comes to "The Cyber Scene." Please be aware that these are betas and we're all working hard behind-the-scenes to make these features more useful. In the meantime, use them and send us feedback! (courtney@pulitzer.com)

Thursday, June 10, 1999

A Creative Time w/ MOUSE


And with that bit of primary knowledge I headed out to the Brooklyn Anchorage for the Creative Time/MOUSE party. Before there were bits and bytes, there were bricks and mortar, and this exhibition space, inside the historic Brooklyn Bridge took use of the cavernous brick spaces for fashion and art installations. Odd fashions were draped on mannequins, videos were on TV and computer screens and ambient music pulsated in the historic base of the bridge. Originally designed to be a market -- this traditional commerce space might soon well be an e-commerce space. Carl Goodman, who's on the board of Creative Time, and SonicNet were instrumental in fully wiring (by Bell Atlantic) the space a few years ago for a Digital Music festival and there are plans and hopes to host more new media events there. Jaime Levy was hanging out with a small group of creative types in one nook/cave. Sarah Lefton, Greg Elin and Seth Price (Freeride.com) were among the over 1800 people who came out in support of this awareness-raising event for the two organizations. Andrew Raisej (MOUSE and Digital Club Network) told me that Joanne Wilson just joined as Chairperson of the Board and her first act was to convince StarMedia that it was in their best interest strategically to donate 100,000 shares of their pre-IPO to MOUSE. Go Joanne! MOUSE has had an incredible amount of success with bringing 40,000 kids on-line in 21 schools in the short 18 months they've been in existence. I was even more touched when I heard the $1500 from their first benefit I organized as part of the WWWAC Holiday party in December of '97 gave them their vital seed money to get things rolling.

Other guests who traversed the bridge for the fine event (and luscious strawberries) were Jennifer Runne (who showed me how her cell phone still had reception under the tons of brick), Tim Nadeau (Brandscape), Rob Steir (MBA Free-agents), Stephanie Agresta (who was very excited about broadband), Michael Pozner (Robocast), Randy Schoenfeld (Redwood Partners), Jeremy Kagan (EZCD), and Anthony Lorado of PR21. Julie Saltzman of MOUSE told me more about their intern program and I chatted with Mark Sawicki (VP of Virtual Growth), who made an appearance in stead of the usual Virtual Growth guerrilla marketer-partiers Marni Kotak (Development Coordinator) and Stephen King (president). Alex Santic of Silicon Alley Connections told me how after our joint appearance on the Metro Learning Channel's Metro Byte show with Bobby Rivers, the host followed up and featured them on Fox's Good Day New York. Woohoo!

Primary Knowledge (& Hot Tips)


Since there are so many basement to boardroom stories of successful startups in this industry, it's only appropriate that one of Silicon Alley's newest companies, Primary Knowledge, began literally in a basement. Their launch party was set (in the basement) on 30th Street on Thursday, June 10th. Outside in the bamboo-stalk-encircled garden, the four founding partners--Peter Adams, formerly VP strategic planning, Modem Media.Poppe Tyson; David Sabel, a 13-year information resources veteran; Matt Grosso, previously senior architect for Reuters; and Sherry Szydlik, former GM of Poppe Tyson--drew a colorful crowd of investors and supporters. Matthew Debnar and David Sturman of MaMaMedia told me all about "Fillus," the company's new cappuccino maker. Not a second after installation, MaMaMedia stickers plastered the much-loved addition to the tightly-packed office.  Complete with a phone jack in the back, Fillus will soon have stats about itself on the web (temperature, who's making what with it at any given moment, and probably a Fillus-Web cam). John Nives was talking with Primary Knowoledge's first employee, Chief Architect Alexandre Medouni. George Russell of Brandsforless.com (parent company is E-commerce Solutions Inc.) introduced me to the company's chivalrous CTO Gus Spathis and Phil Gunn of Growth Capital Partner, Inc. The sparkling-blue-eyed Kevin Clark (KMC Holdings) is on the Board of Directors for PK as are Bob Dorf (Peppers & Rogers) and David Carlick (Vantage Point Venture Partners). John Young (DDB Digital) and Craig Marr (US Interactive) were enjoying the garden. Sherry introduced Larry Pearl (e-com advisors) and I to the much-written about (NY Times Styles section, Industry Standard) Jon Gelberg, VP of Luxuryfinders.com. On my way out I chatted with Larry Smith, founder and ex-CEO of US Interactive and now with incubator MercuryCoast.com and Steve Blondy, Senior VP, Corporate Development, Y&R who gave me a hot tip: Y&R just gave Clarant Worldwide (which just filed for its IPO) 100% of Brand Dialogue in order to be the largest shareholder (at 13.5%) in this new Internet and e-commerce services company.

Wednesday, June 09, 1999

NYJL Website Launch

It's almost 100 years old and just before the millennium, the New York Junior League entered into cyberspace. Launched at 4 PM on Wednesday, June 9th, at the first half of the annual meeting Mary Beth Tully, Secretary/Communications VP announced our site was live. What an exciting moment as I'd been interested in helping this 2684-strong volunteer organization get on-line since '95 when I joined. The site has information about the history of the Junior League, the volunteer efforts of its members, a list of our community partners and headquarters information. Founded in 1901 by Mary Harriman with a small group of friends, today's Junior League volunteers contribute over 100,000 hours of service collectively to New York City with more than 25 community projects focused in four areas of community need each year. As we prepare for our centennial celebration, in 2001, we have been restoring and reorganizing our archives. As a part of the Archives committee, it was fascinating to learn about things like the Baby Shelter that operated out of one of the League's former headquarters at 221 East 71st Street, and which is now Marymount College. Twenty babies from birth to nine months received temporary care from volunteers and in the early stages of this ward, all Junior League members were asked to contribute $10 to help support the shelter, which was running at full capacity, due to unemployment during March 1929. The League's interest in health care issues for children and the family continue and were marked by this year's grand opening of the CHAMP (Community Health Access Model Program) preventative healthcare facility in East Harlem. The NYJL has many other significant committees, so stop by the web site and learn more about this organization that has made significant contributions for almost a century. (www.nyjl.org)

Tuesday, June 08, 1999

Convergence and Knowledge Management Summit

Without skipping a beat, The Basex Group drew a respectable audience for their summit on Convergence and Knowledge Management at 3 World Financial Center on Tuesday, June 8th. Ringleader Sam Albert, who got to the summit in the nick of time thanks to a cabbie that recognized him as the 1010Wins CompuTips host, opened the summit and introduced speakers throughout the day. Topics ranged from "Content and Convergence," led by Gayle Hardy (knowledge management consultant, Lexis-Nexis) to "Enemies and Enabelers of Knowledge Management" by Larry Prusak (executive director, Institute for Knowledge Management). Larry Thaler (Director, News Studios, NBC) moderated the panel discussing Converging Industries" with panelists including Monty Sharma, Chief Technology Officer, MT&T; Stephen C. Miller, Assistant to the Technology Editor, New York Times; and Mike Wheeler, President, CNBC Dow Jones Business Video. Other afternoon sessions included a panel discussion between chief knowledge officers including Nick Rudd, CKO, Wunderman Cato Johnson; Chris Newell, CKO, Viant; and Gary Beach, Publisher, CIO Magazine; all moderated by Chris Bryant, CEO and Managing Director, T3 Media, Inc. I listened in on Neal Goldsmith, Research Director, The Concours Group speak on "Disruptive Technologies and Listening Corporations" and Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director, Kroll-O'Gara on "Securing The Converged Environment." Brill started off his talk with an interesting definition on "what is an Expert" as told to him by Edwin Meese from the White House: you must be 50 miles away from home, can't be responsible for what you implement and you must use slides (in your presentation). (I knew we had a lot of experts at all these conferences and now I know why!)

Here are some of the more serious points they discussed:

Disruptive Technologies and Listening Corporations
+ Change is everything--the way you order supplies, the way you process a client, the way you go on-line
+The web can be disruptive to businesses--for instance: when a company goes "virtual" that's very disruptive. Now employees and customers have a significant change in how they deal with the business.
+ An organization chart in a business can be disruptive--a company is made up of people who do things, not just people with titles (Although titles define what that person does)
+ Change management isn't disruptive if it's done correctly.
+ Stay flexible with your business model
+ The difference between an ego-based change and cybernetically listening to the industry for your business plan is a vital difference
+ The Web is also a supportive and sustaining technology for businesses: make it iterative, not disruptive, to your business plan

Securing The Converged Environment
+ Brill's philosophy is that "at any given moment there is a percentage of the population that are up to no good"
+ 80% of all crime (abuse) happens from the inside--disgruntled people at the office, etc.
+ Currently his company is investigating a bank that's being extorted over the Internet (wow)
+ Ways to materially reduce the risk of a security breach
. Limit directory access
. Correctly configure the firewall and staging server
. Automatically refresh static content of your site with a CD-rom
. Change Web server defaults and remove unused web applications/scripts
+ The most popular password? "Password" the second most popular password "Secret"
+ The favorite passwords of administrators? "God" and "NC17USS1"
+ Trust NO ONE: security breaches come from temps, employees, contractors, vendors, competitors and sabateurs. Temps are called "invisible people" -- they show up on a job, sit in someone's cubicle and get access to information only employees (who have been interviewed, referenced, checked & drug tested) have
+ How to protect yourself: background checks, applications, drug tests, computer backups, register your domain name spoof sites (mycompanysucks.com) and misspellings of your company name before your competitor or a disgruntled employee does
+ The government is training more inmates about computers and technology than cops
+ When you get rid of your old computer, don't just reformat the hard drive, make sure you have a professional completely overwrite the HD--there is still data on the computer even if its been reformatted.

After getting the bejeezums scared out of us about security breaches, conference attendees walked across the bridge into 4 WFC and enjoyed (and endured the slowest service ever) at the Hudson River Club. Sam Albert introduced to Nick Rudd, who in addition to working with Wunderman has several other projects going too (don't we all?!). Edmund Bogen, Robert Frankel and I enjoyed the lovely view as the hors d'oeuvres were passed around. And then at dinner, Larry Thaler, Monty Sharma and I laughed most of the way through our meals as we heard in horrific detail about Monty's recent laser eye surgery and contrasted other funny stories about life in Canada and New York City. Craig James and Kristine Kehoe of LexiQuest were also at our table, and sponsors of the day (along with AMEX Tax and Business Services). LexiQuest has a really unique product for intelligent searching based on language and linguistics. Check it out! Jeannine Parker (pres., Magnitude Assoc. & EVChair, Worldwide AIP) and Jonathan Spira (senior managing director, The Basex Group) joined us for crème brulee. A satisfying meal and interesting information--now to just manage all this knowledge!

Friday, June 04, 1999

Throw me a Foodline


Imagine a world where you could go on-line and check out all sorts of information on restaurants you're interested in going to. Old news, eh? Well, what about if you could also make a reservation on-line, then change it, customize your favorite preferences about drinks, the way you like your salmon prepared, your spouse's name and other important details so when you arrived at the restaurant you were greeted like an old friend and everything was the way you like it. Well. This lovely feature is coming your way soon thanks to Foodline.com. Already one year old in Boston, their NY-office launch party on Friday, June 4th in their new space. Wonderfully rich paintings, done by the high school pal of Foodline co-founder Paul Lightfoot, Benedict Cressy decked the walls. Already in two restaurants in Boston--Le Zygomates and Ambrosias--the company is working with NYC downtown restaurant Foxhounds for their launch here in August. Mundi Morgado and Richard Park of Zefer consulting group helped Foodline prepare the system to work with many existing systems already in place in restaurants. Mofo.com man-about-town Jonathan Perkel, NYNMA-event planner Sherry Reisner and entrepreneur and author Jeff Cannon (Marcis Interactive) came out to check it out too. Board Member Mitch Soniex was checking out how the system even has features like "VIP" and "Blacklist." Wow. Better watch those table manners!

iXL's Impromptu Xcellent gaLa (IPO)


With a skip and a jump I wound up at Decade on the Upper East Side -- with over 100 other jumping-for-joy newly IPO'd iXLers. With loud music, lots of dancing and an open bar for three hours, this impromptu party was fun! Mark Swanson, president of iXL New York and his lovely wife were enjoying the bubbly atmosphere, and to juxtapose the situation -- we met and chatted with iXL's most recent hire (from earlier that week) -- the mail guy (dressed in a fine beige summer suit with carnation pink dress shirt and complimentary tie!

The Cyber Scene in Dallas ~ By Eric Olsson


Behind the sudden mainstream media attention to first-person shooter gaming following recent school shooting incidents, other storms are brewing here in Dallas, ground zero for the 3D gaming industry.

First Brian Hook announced his departure (http://www.Q3Arena.com/cgibin/finger.cgi?login=bwh@idsoftware.com) from id software. A key programmer at id since 1997 and regular contributor to gaming newsletter Voodoo Extreme (http://www.voodooextreme.com), Hook is expected to issue a press release any day now revealing his new whereabouts. In the meantime, no one at Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/articles/99/06/02/1259236.shtml) seems to agree on where he's headed next.

And on Thursday the Dallas Observer (http://www.dallasobserver.com) reported that CEO Todd Porter and art director Jerry O'Flaherty had been forced out of IONStorm (http://www.ionstorm.com) in a dispute with their London-based publisher, Eidos Interactive (http://www.eidos.co.uk), perhaps best known for Tomb Raider (http://www.tombraider.com). A new CEO for IONStorm has not yet been announced, but would most likely be chosen from IONStorm's remaining partners, Tom Hall, Warren Spector and legendary id alum John Romero. IONStorm's long-awaited title Daikatana (http://www.daikatana.com) is now slated for a September release.

Porter would be the second CEO to leave IONStorm in the company's short history, the first having been Mike Wilson, who set up the cooperative game publisher Gathering of Developers (http://www.godgames.com) 18 months ago, less than a mile from IONStorm's headquarters in downtown Dallas at the top of Chase Tower (http://america.net/~roblin/Tex_Com.JPG ), affectionately known to hipper Dallasites as the "pierced penis" building.

Many of these events have already been covered in great detail in a series of articles in the Dallas Observer, beginning with a now infamous cover story (http://www.dallasobserver.com/1999/011499/feature1-1.html) back in January. As the Observer is already facing several lawsuits relating to leaked emails, I'd better leave it at that...

Bits & Bytes -and- Shakers & Stirrers 6/4/99

**** NEWS BITS AND BYTES
 Send your news to The Cyber Scene

 Here's a hysterical little animation that Daniel DeFabio of Clickable Magic announced
 on the GOODTIMES list: a first look at Star Wars episode _2_ Little Padawan Anni.

 Now in its fifth year, the Digital Club Festival, formerly known as the Intel New York
 Music Festival, is the only annual music event to combine the excitement of live music
 with cutting edge interactive technology. Founded by co-executive producers Andrew
 Rasiej, creator of Irving Plaza, and Michael Dorf, creator and owner of The Knitting
 Factory, the Festival finds its niche in creating a large-scale local event that can be
 accessed by a worldwide audience in real time via the Internet. The Festival website,
 www.digitalclubfest.com, is the virtual location for visitors to participate in the event
 and experience how music will be performed and purchased by the wired music fan in
 years to come. This year, all participating nightclubs will use streaming media
 technology to webcast live concerts from their stages, reaching thousands of music
 fans worldwide. While the 1994 Festival was only able to make digital photos and text
 available to a worldwide audience, in 1998 more than 400 continuous hours of live and
 archived performances were available on multiple "24 hour channels" along with
 interviews and online shopping links. British rockers Bush will be among the headliners
 performing on stages throughout lower Manhattan during the festival, taking place July
 20-23 in New York City.

 Go MoFo! MoFo issuer clients Razorfish, Inc. and Informatica Corporation priced
 their highly successful initial public offerings in April. MoFo clients Beyond.com and
 EarthWeb, Inc. each completed successful follow-on offerings of Common Stock.
 Also, MoFo client Xoom.com continued its pace of deal making with the
 announcement in May of an innovative $3.9 billion merger involving key Internet
 properties of NBC, including the Snap.com portal site.

 Razorfish, Inc. signed a strategic agreement to further develop and enhance the Web
 presence of Unisphere Solutions, Inc., a U.S.-based, wholly owned subsidiary of
 Siemens AG.

 Renegade Marketing Group's enthusiasm for its Gold Effie last year, and this year's
 nomination so inspired them, they brought out their "Doughboy" and toured him around
 town. www.renegademarketing.com/doughboy

 Continental Airlines relaunched their new site, done in collaboration with Blue Marble
 ACG, Ltd. 


SHAKERS & STIRRERS ______________________________
Send your announcements to: shakers@TheCyberScene.com

Omar Wasow, Internet Analyst for MSNBC and WNBC and former President and Founder of New York Online, has joined Community Connect Inc. (www.CommunityConnect.com), developer of ethnic on-line communities, as the Executive Director of the company's upcoming black community site.

Bennett Kleinberg, who co-founded Edelman New Media AND PR21 with Renee Edelman, is now heading up PR and marketing efforts for the Digital Club Festival and Digital Club Network .

Bolt, the largest teen-focused Internet destination and one of the fastest growing portals, has added a number of veteran new media executives to its top ranks it was announced today by Dan Pelson, CEO, Bolt Media Inc.  The appointments include former YM executive Jeanne Sachs who will serve as vice president of advertising sales, former Music Boulevard/N2K Inc. executive Alexa Tobin who boards as vice president of commerce and former CDnow executive Brad Mehl who joins the company as vice president of marketing.

BITS AND BYTES - 6/4/99


NEWS BITS AND BYTES
 Send your news to The Cyber Scene

 Here's a hysterical little animation that Daniel DeFabio of Clickable Magic announced
 on the GOODTIMES list: a first look at Star Wars episode _2_ Little Padawan Anni.

 Now in its fifth year, the Digital Club Festival, formerly known as the Intel New York
 Music Festival, is the only annual music event to combine the excitement of live music
 with cutting edge interactive technology. Founded by co-executive producers Andrew
 Rasiej, creator of Irving Plaza, and Michael Dorf, creator and owner of The Knitting
 Factory, the Festival finds its niche in creating a large-scale local event that can be
 accessed by a worldwide audience in real time via the Internet. The Festival website,
 www.digitalclubfest.com, is the virtual location for visitors to participate in the event
 and experience how music will be performed and purchased by the wired music fan in
 years to come. This year, all participating nightclubs will use streaming media
 technology to webcast live concerts from their stages, reaching thousands of music
 fans worldwide. While the 1994 Festival was only able to make digital photos and text
 available to a worldwide audience, in 1998 more than 400 continuous hours of live and
 archived performances were available on multiple "24 hour channels" along with
 interviews and online shopping links. British rockers Bush will be among the headliners
 performing on stages throughout lower Manhattan during the festival, taking place July
 20-23 in New York City.

 Go MoFo! MoFo issuer clients Razorfish, Inc. and Informatica Corporation priced
 their highly successful initial public offerings in April. MoFo clients Beyond.com and
 EarthWeb, Inc. each completed successful follow-on offerings of Common Stock.
 Also, MoFo client Xoom.com continued its pace of deal making with the
 announcement in May of an innovative $3.9 billion merger involving key Internet
 properties of NBC, including the Snap.com portal site.

 Razorfish, Inc. signed a strategic agreement to further develop and enhance the Web
 presence of Unisphere Solutions, Inc., a U.S.-based, wholly owned subsidiary of
 Siemens AG.

 Renegade Marketing Group's enthusiasm for its Gold Effie last year, and this year's
 nomination so inspired them, they brought out their "Doughboy" and toured him around
 town. www.renegademarketing.com/doughboy

 Continental Airlines relaunched their new site, done in collaboration with Blue Marble
 ACG, Ltd.


 COORRECTIONEESS
 Oops. Pardon my fast and furious fingers typing these mistakes: Dawn Barber is the
 correct spelling of the NYNMA highly energetic woman. Bernardo Joselevich is the
 correct spelling of this dynamic, charming and intelligent businessman of Duty Free
 Guide