Party Report

Webbys highlight convergence of digital culture, comedy

NEW YORK--Actor B.J. Novak, host of the 14th Annual Webby Awards on Monday night, was--much like his character on sitcom "The Office"--a little too smarmy for his own good.

"This year, The New York Times is a big winner!" Novak said of the storied media establishment in his opening monologue at the Webbys, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek presentation of Slinky-shaped trophies to both judge- and audience-selected winners in innumerable categories. "The New York Times, accepting an award from the Internet, the very thing that threatened to destroy it! Who knows, maybe next year the … Read more

When everyone's famous, no one's important

NEW YORK--"But I'm not famous!" one woman protested as she walked past the bouncer of the massive Chelsea nightclub Marquee on Tuesday night, only to be asked by ubiquitous party photographer Nick McGlynn if she might pose for a photograph on the step-and-repeat--the entertainment-industry term for that red-carpet setup with a backdrop featuring the logos of party sponsors.

"You don't have to be famous!" the ebullient McGlynn, a former Gawker Media video staffer who now runs a photography business called Random Night Out, responded. "Everyone's famous!"

Yes, everyone's famous. … Read more

Rival parties square off at SXSWi

AUSTIN, Texas--Disco lights. Bubble machines. Big-name DJs. Ashton Kutcher.

Those are just a smattering of the things you would have seen on Monday night in downtown Austin, Texas, where two of the most talked-about parties of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) were happening simultaneously. These would be, of course, the respective parties thrown by Foursquare and Gowalla, two start-ups offering very similar "geolocation" services. And at SXSWi, where everyone wants to know where everyone else is in instant real-time, this kind of social-networking app is going to be big.

Most people expected that SXSWi would see … Read more

Squaring off with Square, for a good cause

On Tuesday, I was enlisted to help out with an event in conjunction with the New York arm of the "Social Media Week" conference-fest--called "Digital Divas," the cocktail affair was organized by a handful of women involved in various niches of technology and digital media. Yes, dudes were allowed too.

As the event grew closer, we decided that we wanted some kind of innovative way for guests to donate to support Doctors Without Borders' relief efforts in Haiti. So after some brainstorming we thought about using Square, the new mobile-payment company co-founded by Twitter Chairman Jack Dorsey. … Read more

Bebo founder drops $1 million at charity auction

NEW YORK--What's it like to watch a dot-com mogul spend $1 million? Well, it's sort of nice when it's going to a good cause.

On Monday night, at the annual benefit gala for the nonprofit Charity Water, Bebo founder Michael Birch, one of the event's co-hosts along with the likes of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and entrepreneur Sean Parker, made a surprise announcement. Shortly before the event's live auction to solicit donations for new wells, Birch declared that he would personally match all donations up to $1 million.

Charity Water, a favorite cause of the dot-com set, … Read more

AOL's first day: We want to believe

NEW YORK--The line on Wednesday night snaked outside the New York Stock Exchange building as a swarm of marketing, advertising, and other media types waited to get into the party that AOL was throwing on the trading floor to mark its spin-off from Time Warner. Onlookers weren't really sure what the big deal was.

An evening commuter walked past, craning his neck up at the massive AOL-logo banner--yes, the one with the fuzzy blue monster on it--and asking a few of the people in line, "Why's AOL having a party?"

"Spinning off from Time … Read more

Internet Week party report: It never stops

NEW YORK--Tuesday evening was the first night on the job for at least one of the waitresses at the brand-new Standard Hotel, a Los Angeles import straddling the about-to-open High Line elevated park in Manhattan's downtown Meatpacking District. And it must have been quite the trial by fire when several dozen unexpected patrons showed up for an impromptu Internet Week New York gathering.

That's the thing about Internet Week. It has no centralized location, and events can vary wildly by geography. (It seems like half the panels and conferences are in midtown hotels and the other half are … Read more

SXSWi's party scene goes do-it-yourself

AUSTIN, Texas--Over a lunch of fajitas at the Iron Cactus restaurant Sunday, one of my friends here at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival shrugged and said, "I'm just not into the party scene this year. It's all a little weird."

I had to concur. SXSWi, after all, is known for its wild parties. But two nights in, I've clocked in a total of 20 minutes at them before opting to hang out elsewhere, and I'm not the only one.

There are obviously a ton of people going to this year's bashes--the line … Read more

Party season rolls on, but we pay for our drinks now

NEW YORK--I hereby insist that we all stop using the "Recession? What recession?" line, which seems to be used every time any company has thrown any moderately lavish party in the last two months. Not only is it overused, but I think folks have caught onto the fact that things have legitimately changed.

Here in New York, the last blowout launch party in the city was for T-Mobile's Android phone in October. Company holiday parties have been scaled back like mad, leaving fewer opportunities for that great New York sport known as party-crashing. But socialization hasn't … Read more

DailyCandy and the blogs-to-books trend

NEW YORK--Tuesday night was the first time I'd been to a digital-media-related event at a bookstore, unless you count the time that Google threw a conference at the New York Public Library.

It was the launch party for girly e-newsletter DailyCandy's new book, The DailyCandy Lexicon: Words That Don't Exist But Should, at the McNally Robinson bookstore-cafe in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. Refreshments consisted of rum cocktails and, not surprisingly, candy.

Sample entry in the book: "textual frustration: a late-night text exchange that fails to result in old-fashioned lip-locking." DailyCandy staffers told me that about … Read more