230 Fifth Avenue Rooftop Lounge

Last night I went to the most mind blowing MeetUp.

Looking At A Few Parties

Where is Gary when you need him? He is all over the place. I might go to one, I might go to all, I might not go at all.

Looking For A Few Holiday Parties
A Season For Forgiveness

NYC MusicTech Meetup Holiday Party: Monday, Dec 17, 07:00 PM @ Knitting Factory, 361 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn
Holiday Rooftop Travel Massive: Monday, Dec 17, 06:00 PM @ Eventi Hotel, 851 6th Avenue, New York
UWS Startup Breakfast: Tuesday, Dec 18, 09:00 AM @ Aroma Espresso Bar, 161 W 72nd Street, New York
TiE New York Annual Holiday Party Networking Mixer: Wednesday, Dec 19, 06:00 PM @ Bombay Palace, 30 W 52nd Street, New York
New Work City Holiday Festival: Thursday, Dec 20, 10:00 AM @ New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl, New York
Zemanta Holiday Party: Thursday, Dec 20, 06:00 PM @ The Black Door, 127 W 26th St, New York
Gogobot Wanderlust Holiday: Friday, Dec 21, 08:00 PM @ Culturefix, 9 Clinton Street, New York

Related articles

• Best Tech Events This Week (Queens Tech Meetup, NJ Tech Meetup, NYC Gaming, Enterprise Tech, Health 2.0, Second Screens & Social TV, NWC Holiday Festival)
• Hurricane Relief and the Holidays
• New York Civil Rights Violation Lawyer David Perecman Offers Holiday Advice Regarding Sexual Harassment at Company Holiday Parties
• Party Hop at New York's Finest This New Years Eve! NYCTourist.com Unleashes the Best NYE Party Passes in NYC
• Sandy on the guest list at holiday fetes
• As Holiday Shopping Season Enters Home Stretch, STELLAService Recognizes Leading Internet Retailers For Outstanding Customer Service
• Do the Bride a Favor.com's Top 10 List for Fabulous Holiday Party Themes
• Glenn O'Brien, TV Party, Schott, and the Case of Basquiat's Crown
• Report: Mets 'Not Happy' With Dickey's Festivus Moment At Holiday Party
• Kristen Stewart Dresses Down for 'On the Road' After Party

SpotlessCity Stole The Show At NYTM

At the last New York Tech MeetUp - the go to tech event in town every month - one presentation stood out more than most. That was SpotlessCity. They do one thing, and they do it well. That is the hallmark of a great startup. You can order food online. That did not seem to be true for dry cleaning services. And so the founders got to work.

After their wonderful presentation was over, I was worried for them. So at the after party I cornered the team. The people who come to pick up the clothes and deliver them later, who employs them? You? They said no. The dry cleaners have those people. That answer brought me relief. Because if they employed those people, I was seeing scaling nightmares.

The real time service delivery space is seeing a lot of action. It can feel like crowdsourcing your chores. The world population hit seven billion not long back. I am sure I can find people who will take your clothes to the cleaners.

The Best NYTM After Party Ever

I have been to numerous NY Tech MeetUps over the years. Biggies like Tumblr and FourSquare have all demoed at the NYTM. I don't remember Tumblr's presentation though. Maybe that was a MeetUp I missed. (Dennis Crowley: I Underestimated Him, Dennis Crowley: Role Model For Kids?)

I started going to the NYTM when it was six people at a bar on the Lower East Side, one of them the MeetUp.com CEO. And that was only a few years ago.

I have said several times at this blog that Digital Dumbo beats the NYTM after party. No more. Not after last night. (Digital Dumbo 18: The Dumbo Loft)

What made the difference?

It was not at a bar. It was in the same building. You left the hall and you went upstairs. When people have to walk three blocks to the after party, many of them leave.

The space was huge.

Free drinks, free food. Worth seeking out sponsors.

And that was pretty much it.

I think the NYTM should stick to this venue forever.

Events: Week Of October 3

Monday, October 3
5:30pm Battle of the Brand Apps!
Drom, 85 Avenue A
F to 2nd Ave

Tuesday, October 4
7:00pm - 9:00pm Making Startups Work: Scaling Survival Stories
Refinery29 Offices, 30 Cooper Square, 4th Floor
4/6 Astor Place

6:45pm Cisco VXI meetup!
Cisco New York Office
One Penn Plaza 34th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues 9th floor

Wednesday, October 5
7:00pm - 10:00pm "Worst Day in Advertising" Moth StorySLAM
Lucille's Grill, 237 West 42nd Street (between 7th & 8th Avenues)

Thursday, October 6
6:00pm TechAviv NY Oct 2011 - Founder Stories: Jeff Pulver
Nixon Peabody LLP, 437 Madison Avenue

5:30pm - 8:00pm Media and Advertising Meet Finnish Mobile [ Private Event]
Duane Morris Offices, (Heart of Times Square- Enter Building at 45th accross from Bond45), 1540 Broadway

Friday, October 7
8:30am DUMBO Tech Breakfast Meetup
The Gallery, 108 Jay Street

8:30am - 10:00am CreativeMornings/NewYork with Albert Wenger
Galapagos Art Space DUMBO, 16 Main Street, Brooklyn

2:00pm - 3:00pm Japan's Role in Managing the Global Economy
William and June Warren Hall, Room 208, 1125 Amsterdam Avenue

Saturday, October 8
10:30 AM NYC Startup and Dim Sum Enthusiasts Meetup
Jing Fong Restaurant, 20 Elizabeth St

Sunday, October 9
3:00pm New to Robotics
Alpha One Labs, 231 Norman Ave #312, Brooklyn
G to Nassau Ave, TR on Norman

Gender Talk And Pragmatism

Image via WikipediaSo I showed up for this event called The Future Of Women. It was in Tribeca, which is right there by Chinatown. That helps. After the event was over, I walked over to Chinatown, and had some dumplings. But before that I took some cash out from the bank right by my favorite Buddhist temple in the city, the one by Manhattan Bridge.

I am glad I showed up.

Bumped into Scott Heiferman in the lobby. I had not seen him in a long time. I had seen he had RSVPd. But then I have seen him RSVP for an event and not show up several times before, so I was not counting on him showing up. But he showed up.

A lot of people do that. They see an event. They like it. They want to go. And when it is show up time, something else shows up, or they think of something else to do, or they just get plain lazy. It is not like they penalize you for not showing up.

It was a good event. There was some fun, lively talk. There were very few men in the room.

Two AVC MeetUps Two Days In A Row

Image by placenamehere via FlickrAVC MeetUp Tomorrow

I thought I was headed to an AVC MeetUp tonight. I thought so yesterday. I still think so. But then I have an email this morning about an AVC MeetUp that is scheduled for a different day - tomorrow - and a different venue, although still near Union Square.

I did some digging. I have come to find out there are two AVC MeetUps two days in a row, and I don't think Fred Wilson is coming to either of them, which I believe is fine. The guy puts plenty of time churning out blog posts, and reading every single comment left at his blog.

So here's the update.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011 7:00 PM

Olives @ W Hotel - Union Square
201 Park Ave. South
(@ 17th St.)
Gramercy

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 8:00 PM

Smyth Tribeca
85 W Broadway (Chambers St 1/2/3)
New York, NY 10007

AVC MeetUp Tomorrow

I think I RSVPd for the AVC MeetUp last week. I am going. It's tomorrow. Fred Wilson might or might not be there. The venue has to be right for him to show up. The MeetUp has to have its own separate space, perhaps the basement, perhaps a room. You can't just host it at an open bar where 20 different crowds are mixing up with each other and expect Fred Wilson to show up.

Hackers And Founders MeetUp: Amazing

Image via CrunchBaseLast night I dropped by the Hackers And Founders MeetUp after a long gap of months, and it was just an amazing experience. It was about how I felt - very comfortable - and the people I met - fun and interesting and amazing - and some work leads I was able to generate. I might have found myself a business consulting gig. And I am constantly on a lookout for people to grab. If I can't get them in round one, I will need them in round two. That tends to be my attitude.

Tuesday 2/15 Noon EatUp: 46th Between 5th And 6th: Schnitzel & Things Food Truck

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
- Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize in Economics

Be there, check in on FourSquare!

Person Of The Social Media Week: Oleg Voss
February 15: EatUp?
My First Smartphone Is Going To Be A Nexus S

February 15: EatUp?

Image via WikipediaJanuary 15 was the first ever World FoodSpotting Day, and I made a point to go over to Philadelphia to celebrate. It was an amazing experience. I later tweeted saying I had never had so much fun eating with perfect strangers before.

But once a year is not enough. The 15th of each month needs to be an EatUp day.

A MeetUp Pivot

Image via CrunchBase

New York Observer: Screw Meetup: Organizers Up In Arms Over Redesign: In the new redesign, ordinary users can arrange for events, leading some to declare that organizers have been downgraded to moderators..... less than 1 percent of organizers active on Meetup have complained or commented on the redesign .... a simple solution. “If they don’t like users organizing events, they can just turn it off. It's a feature organizers have full control over.” .... "As we see how people are using the new tools we will keep iterating to simplify and improve the experience."

People love the Facebook newsfeed today. It is central to the Facebook experience. But when Facebook first introduced it, there was major ruckus. It is inertia. People dislike change. They are used to doing things one way. They would like to keep doing things the same way.

A Moment Of Despair

http://bit.ly/fintech

During the wee hours of Friday morning when the rest of the world was asleep I sent out an email to Fred Wilson. I felt ready. I was proud to have a deck that had only three slides. Not only that, the email had no attachment. Instead it was a Google Doc web address, one simple line. T-h-i-s will impress AVC, I thought.

Instead I got put into place. We don't invest in companies pre-incorporation, but I'd be glad to have a Skype conversation with you, he said.

The Day I Got Called Sean Parker

So I am at this NY Tech MeetUp after party last month, feeling fresh - I had skipped the presentations, and gone straight to the after party; presentations are work! - working the room, outenergying most, saying hello, and next. And I shake this guy's hand after approaching him, and he says he has seen me at Fred Wilson's blog.

"It is so great to meet you in person finally," he says.

Events: November 29 - December 10

After Party

I have missed three NY Tech MeetUps in a row. That is uncharacteristic of someone who used to show up when the NY Tech MeetUp was half a dozen people at a Lower East Side bar. But I missed. And livestreaming does not work for me, I never really went that route. So I showed up for the after party last night: 218 Sullivan. No presentations, and no beer, I decided, and it was such great fun. I worked the room like a politician.

Father Of India Dot Com Craze Gives A Thumbs Up To America

Image via Wikipedia

Rajesh Jain is the guy who started the dot com craze in India when he sold his dot com for I believe over a hundred million dollars to a local big shot Indian company. Rajesh got his education at Columbia University in New York City. Then he went back to India and has been doing big things since.

The first time I met Esther Dyson was at a NY Tech MeetUp. And she mentioned Rajesh Jain's work in that very first conversation.

Crisis: Opportunity For Greatness For Obama

Rajesh and I have exchanged emails over the years. I like to drop by his blog when I can. He is on my must meet in person some day list.

Rajesh' blog post today is one that many Americans could benefit from reading.

Rajesh Jain: The Secret Sauce of the US: The entrepreneurial energy in the US is still alive and kicking. That is what creates companies like Google, Apple, Cisco and Facebook. ..... There is that inherent belief that the world needs a better mousetrap - and they are the ones to do it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Esther Dyson On The Future Of Search (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Featured Blogger in Outlook Magazine (swaroopch.com)
• Travel Blogs - India (beontheroad.com)
• Top business school INSEAD names Dipak Jain as next dean (topinews.com)
• What's the worst thing about The Social Network? (Hint: it ain't Zuckerberg) (boingboing.net)
• CPI-M MP loses CWG opener pass to impersonator (topinews.com)

Bloomberg: India's Economy May Expand 9.7% This Year, More Than Forecast, IMF Says: “Low reliance on exports, accommodative policies, and strong capital inflows have supported domestic activity and growth,” the IMF said in the report. “The rapid pace of domestic activity, evidenced by rapidly rising inflation, led the central bank to increase the repo policy rate.”

A 4 AM Traffic Peak, Mostly From Canada

Image via Wikipedia

How do you explain this? I think people in Canada sleep less. Or this is traffic from the northern parts of Canada where the sun is around many more hours of the day. Or parts where the sun never sets in summer.

Hello there. Thanks for dropping by.

The page hits for today stand at 1200, which used to be the previous peak for the longest time. And the day is still young. Looks to me like this blog's traffic is about to take off, enough that I can do this full time, if not right away then perhaps in a few months, or maybe even right away.

Blogging full time would be the best thing I could do for my startup that I expect to launch in about 15 months after I get my green card. Blogging full time would allow me to read all I want to read, to network feverishly in the New York tech ecosystem. I would explore the landscape for my startup through my blog.

If I have 1200 page hits for the day, and the top page for the day is getting only 80 of that, and that page is not a new page, but from a week back, that means I am doing well with the search engines. Traffic from search is the best kind. Otherwise sometimes you get a spike in traffic because some big shot blogger linked to you, and then all that traffic has evaporated in a day.

Search engine traffic is the good kind. It is more stable. Although Google can always tweak the algorithms and make you go away. But then that tweaking can go the other way as well. You could see another spike, spike upon spike.

If I were to treat this blog like a full time business, what would I do?

I like the blog's name: Netizen. It is a solo operation.

Every day I would put out a page of links to all the top stories from all the top tech blogs and from top news sites. A top story is what I determine a top story is. I would be making no attempt to be objective.

And I would write a few blog posts every day on topics of interest to me.

I would go to and blog about many of the key tech events in town. The two top tech events in town are:

• NY Tech MeetUp
• Digital Dumbo

I would watch and share videos from the top tech events anywhere and everywhere. You do that enough and you realize watching those videos is often better than showing up for many of those events. You can't show up for all of them anyways. And if you are going to every event on the list, your networking is not focused enough.

I would be commenting at other blogs much more. You have to be out and about, you know.

• Content
• Traffic
• Monetization 

Those are the three elements. 

As for monetization, the Google ads are back up. But Google ads only make good money if you have a ton of traffic. I wish I could dig into the NY tech ecosystem to have more companies let me do blog post ads. 

Or maybe it is too early to think of full time pro blogging. The traffic is building up but it's not there yet. But it would be nice to be able to do it full time for a year. And then I could do a $1 salary thing for my startup the way Bloomberg does for the city, he is a $1 a year Mayor. 

I should probably send out a few emails. Hey, how would you like for me to do a blog post ad for you? Letting me do a blog post ad or two for you is almost like hiring me as a business consultant. I bring along more than exposure. I bring perspectives. 

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Just Happened? 3,000 Page Hits (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Traffic: Canada Top Country, 2 AM Peak (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Canada: Yes, same traffic-shaping rules apply to mobile data (arstechnica.com)
• Are Link Wheels an Effective SEO Strategy? (seodesignsolutions.com)
• Google Cash Generator - Useful On Page SEO Techniques For Beginners (ronmedlin.com)
• Top search engine optimization tool: Sheerseo (Review) (marketingblog24.com)
• WestJet, Air Canada June traffic up (cbc.ca)
• Monetize Your Blog Based on Traffic Type (quickonlinetips.com)
• Sure Shot Tips To Increasing Web Traffic How To Achieve More Page Hits (slideshare.net)
• The Google Algorithm (voices.allthingsd.com)
• WestJet traffic up 19 per cent (thestar.com)
• Normalizing Search Engine Traffic Reporting (realestateseo1.com)
• Analytics Study: Organic Conversion, Algorithm Updates (aimclearblog.com)
• How To Discover Money Making Topic Ideas For Your New Blog (makeuseof.com)
• Google Search Results Rigged? (outsidethebeltway.com)
• The New York Times Algorithm & Why It Needs Government Regulation (searchengineland.com)
• Increase Web Site Traffic With Firestorm SEO - The Best To Increase Site Traffic (web-traffic-pro.com)
• 301 Redirect Test: How Much Link Juice are YOU Losing? (seerinteractive.com)

Scott Contrarian Heiferman Does It Again

Image by jdlasica via Flickr

Scott blew it last night at the NY Tech MeetUp. There were some great demos for sure including one with a HTML 5 inkling: Thumbplay. And it was great to see Tikva Morawati's KnowMore.com up there. I told her last night I will be at Ignite NYC tonight, but I can't be: something came up that will have me tied to 10 PM. Nate showed up in formal attire last night: that was a letdown for me personally. His trademark jeans and shirt with the cut on the sides, the curve cuts look better, I think. But I am all for trying out new looks. Iterate.

So Scott Heiferman smashed Dawn Barber's iPad with a sledgehammer. I ran into Dawn later.

"Are you guys still friends?" I asked her.

Scott was offering the 2010 version of that famous 1984 ad, of course.




Scott presented MeetUp Everywhere.

And then he introduced ThePoint.com guy. Ends up that site did not take off. So they launched a side project that did take off: GroupOn.

"I started out wanting to change the world," he lamented." And I have been reduced to dealing with coupons."

Most startups fail, but the trick is to rise from the ashes.

At one point Scott called AVC.com "a stupid blog." Then he whispered, "I should not say that. He is one of my investors."

The Highlight Of My Internet Week
Not MeetUp
Women In Tech-Media Event At JP Morgan: Internet Week
Meeting Fred Wilson In Person
Internet Week: Going To Three Events So Far
The Biggest NY Tech MeetUp Ever?
Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

Related articles by Zemanta

• Silicon Alley Insider: "In 2 weeks, we launch something @Meetup that I couldn't be more excited about" -- Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman. What i... (businessinsider.com)
• Startup Movement Hits NYC Universities with NYU Startup Week!! (nytm.org)
• Come To One Of 150 Meetups Around The World To Celebrate Our Fifth Birthday (techcrunch.com)
• Apartment Therapy Meetups Everywhere! (apartmenttherapy.com)
• Announcing AVC Meetups Everywhere (avc.com)
• Meeting Fred Wilson In Person (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• We Love You Too: 250+ TechCrunch Anniversary Meetups And Counting (techcrunch.com)
• Check Out Meetup's New Free Product, "Meetup Everywhere" (businessinsider.com)
• How Can Technology Impact Social Change? (techcrunch.com)
• Meetup Everywhere: Turn Your Followers Into A Real Movement. And Celebrate Our Bday! (techcrunch.com)

Not MeetUp

After Entry Level Jobs, An Internship
Lady Liberty Whispers
Entry Level Jobs
Job Search
Me @ BBC
Not Union Square Ventures

There is an old Indian school of philosophy - and old in India means thousands of years - called Neti, Neti, not this, not this.