Wednesday, January 03, 2001

Hip & Tasty Wappiness

While making money of the web was the discussion on the first floor, making content for wireless was the topic of discussion on the 2nd floor of Syracuse University's Lubin House. Considering writers have always had the challenge of writing short, pithy work since the web's beginning, developing exclusively for WAP is just the next (size smaller) screen to work on. Hip N' Tasty's Amy Schulman spoke about the challenges writers face getting content on wireless devices. Gromco's Miranda Berner was rallying women for the Silicon Alley 2001 conference - apparently they're having trouble finding a few good women! Mary Jo Fahey was holding court in a sunny yellow sweater as she moderated the panelist and fielded questions from the large number of attendees. Afterwards she introduced me to Ogilvy.com's Leon Wallach, who's exploring what the company's clients can do with wireless. I spoke with New York Daily News' Online Managing Editor Jon Lewin and consultant Nick Willemse, who's working with International Casino Technologies. We talked about the not-too-distant future, when people will wage bets and gamble with their cell phones. Hip N' Tasty tech guru Matthew Sapero began discussing broadband aspects of the business, as The MWW Group's Anne Tramer went up and chatted with Amy. Hip N' Tasty's Evan Ehlfelder and Art Director Club's Jonathan Gottleib networked for a bit afterwards. Amy mentioned how the newest trendy thing in nightclubs is not asking for a light for your cigarette, but remarking or laughing over a particularly funny SMS message. She commented that it's important to use and experiment with the technology as it becomes available. We won't be watching movies on our phones yet, but we need to start taking those first baby steps. And that's a key point for everything we do!