Subject: The Cyber Scene ~ June 25, 1999
From: Courtney Pulitzer (courtney@pulitzer.com)
Date: Fri Jun 25 1999 - 11:49:26 CDT
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The Cyber Scene (tm) ~ by Courtney Pulitzer ~ June 25, 1999
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WELCOME
THE CYBER SCENE TABLE OF CONTENTS (TCS TOC)
I. This week's specials:
Breakfastnetwork.com
PC Expo
Silicon Alley Station
Venture Capital Conference
Parties, Parties, Parties and HEAVEN
II. Regular Features:
Shakers and Stirrers
Bits and Bytes
III. "Cocktails with Courtney"
Next party is June 30th @ Dolphins. RSVP at:
http://www.CocktailsWithCourtney.com
IV. Where in the world is Courtney Pulitzer?
Media Life -- www.medialifemagazine.com -- Every Monday
AlleyCat News -- www.alleycatnews.com -- Every Month
V. Subscribe! http://www.TheCyberScene.com/subscribe.htm
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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.
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.
Among early attendees were Ravi Chandron of ABC.com, Paul Crayton of
"Digital New York" and Christopher Gerstile of LeBouf, Lamb. 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, an opera singer. 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 reported the good news
that his company now has 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!
Read more about their insightful comments at:
http://www.TheCyberScene.com
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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 registration experience, I skeddadled down to booth #1859
where Bob Ponce and others at Silicon Alley Station were putting the final
touches on the inaugural netcast 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. Read about the highlights at:
http://www.TheCyberScene.com
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 (an e-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,
(director, corp. comm) at DirectWeb, who introduced me to Dennis Cline
(pres. & CEO), and Glenn Goldberg (VP of mrktng) and Shane Winfrey of THINK
New Ideas.
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The plethora of parties was not in shortage this week, but I almost didn't
even make any of them after the first one on Tuesday evening. First stop on
my 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 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 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.
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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 and send out a summary of bills so people can 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.
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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. 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, volunteer, get active and help
others in return.
Both organizations, run by dynamic, caring, 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 online and provide access for everyone, US children will
continue to fall behind other countries in education and ability to develop
technology.
And among the movers and shakers in this industry, who do care about these
issues and 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.
Mike Terpin of Internet Wire.com and The Terpin Group and I headed out for
one final stop. A PC Expo party that CMP Media puts on each year in honor
of 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 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!
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 hour 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.
Peter Shankman held a great party last Sunday for the viewing of "The
Pirates of Silicon Valley." He wrote in that the movie, without question,
would have been shut off less than a quarter of the way through had it not
been for 23 quasi-geeks sitting on the floor of my studio apartment on
Manhattan's mid-west side, shouting at the screen every seven seconds.
"Screw, you Bill!" "Damn, Jobs is an asshole!" "God, Noah is SO CUTE!"
"Hey!, you NON-GEEK FEMALE! WHO INVITED YOU, ANYWAY?" Needless to say, it
was definately a blast. The movie ended and burst into a 2 hour discussion
on everything from Macs to PC's, Palm vs Sharp, Corona vs. Bass Ale, and of
course, the Alley vs. the Valley, all with eighties music off of 2.1 gigs
of eighties MP3's playing in the background. The Geek Factory, Inc. truly
lived up to its name Sunday night.
SHAKERS & STIRRERS ______________________________
Send your announcements to: shakers@TheCyberScene.com
Vernon Steward | Mary Dawne Arden | Joshua A Fruhlinger | Michael Diamant |
Chris Byrant | Matt Peyton | Stephanie Worley
NEWS BITS AND BYTES _____________________________
Send your news to: news@TheCyberScene.com
AnswerThinkConsulting Group & THINK New Ideas | Larry Pearl and the e-com
guys | Office.com & Cliff Freeman, Darwin Digital, Stephanie Fierman |
BDInter@ctive (BDI) & The Simple Solution, LLC (TSS) | Rudin Management |
Alyona Makeeva
More info at: http://www.TheCyberScene.com
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!
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TM/(C) ________________________________________
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"The Cyber Scene" TM is a newsletter owned and operated by Courtney
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