The jazz quartet softly played in the corner, adding to the refined feeling at CondeNet's third 5th-year anniversary party in San Fransico. In the opulent and elegant British Motor Cars showroom over 150 northern California's marched in to mingle amidst Bentley's and Jaguars sipping Bombay martinis and sampling herb pancake hors d'oeuvres. This party was a bit livelier than others since we had protestors outside. Ironically they weren't protesting Cocktails with Courtney nor CondeNet, but Conde Nast the publication, which is entirely separate from either entity. San Francisco-based illustrators had a beef with the publisher over rights and payment terms, but they felt making a statement in front of our soiree would be a good chance at publicity nonetheless. And publicity they got-Inside.com wrote about it before the event and there were photographers capturing the precious moments.
Meanwhile, once our guests safely passed the guest list inquiry, we had a terrific turnout of SF-networkers. Craig's List Craig Newmark, Conrad Asper and Steve Scheer came by to check it out and Stockholm-NY-based Liza Svenson, SocialDomain.com's founder and CEO John Colletti, eConstructors Felix Kramer and Heller Ehrman attorney Josh Masur came out for our SF event. SFGirl.com Patty and friends were there. Social-gals about town Lisa Jouris and The A-List's Valerie were a stylish set. Credit Lyonnais Hazel Chin, Attorney.com Hal Winter, M4Internet's Steven Faulkner and Intraware's Eric Kondo all had a chance to meet the CondeNet crew and socialize. Cygaia producer Kevin George and Insider Publications Michael McColl met and Ditto.com's Saul Orbach told me about his very VC-backed ($19 million) visual search engine. Not related to the cars, but very well-heeled nonetheless, Joe Hiross of Bentleys and his charming wife stopped by to check out the scene. RealTime Media is making the scene again in this town with Lizzie Hill and Michael Rosenblatt as reps. HAWK Media EVP Scott Schuman told me how his firm measures broadcasting in more refined manners than any other method out there and Comedy World cartoonist Brian Cano told me how his office is filled with so many toys it resembles a dot-com space! Touche!
Just a week-in of her move to SF from Denver, Fleishman Hillard's Nicole Koebrich and her roommate were intent on meeting some locals. Arthur Anderson's Kirsten Gross, NorthPoint's Dan Fineman and Rapt Inc's Myron Lo were among those in the mix. Before leaving I got to chat with CloudPop's president and CEO Kenneth Goldberg and COO Bryan Kane. And Iconocast's Michael Tchong in a fab blue sport coat and glasses and I jetted around afterwards in his new Kompressor convertible! Woohoo! San Francisco's CondeNet soiree was a smashing end to the month-long six-party in six cities whirlwind!
A chronicle of the people and events in technology, internet and media since 1997, mixed in with snapshots of musings and observations.
