The Social

NEW YORK--A year ago, a handful of local entrepreneurs got together and threw a party called The Founders Club. It took over a private residence, albeit a very upscale one, in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, and was essentially a low-buzz gathering of Gotham tech enthusiasts who wanted to schmooze.

Bar. Elevator. Awesomeness.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

My, how times have changed. Wednesday night marked the fifth occurrence of the semi-sporadic Founders Club parties, and the organizers (most prominently Blip.tv co-founder Dina Kaplan, Paltalk creator Joel Smernoff, and event planner Celia Chen of Notes on a Party) had stepped it up a few notches. This time around, it was held in ABC's Good Morning America studios in Times Square--and there was a bar in the elevator.

No, I'm not kidding. Upon entering the space, everyone was treated to a desperately needed glass of wine between the ground and second floors. I guess they couldn't wait.

The attendees were a combination of big media's digital gurus, venture capitalists, and local start-up entrepreneurs, overall amassing quite the who's-who of New York tech culture. The roll call, in part, included DoubleClick founder and Alley Corp. chief Kevin Ryan, Greycroft Partners' Alan Patricof, TheLadders' Marc Cenedella (I told him I'd seen one of his company's ads on TV while on the treadmill at the gym), George Kliavkoff and Jessica Schell of NBC Universal, Disney-ABC's Bernard Gershon, InterActiveCorp exec Jason Rapp, CollegeHumor co-founders Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen, former AOL exec and Pilot Group overlord Bob Pittman, Google's president of advertising and commerce Tim Armstrong, Digg CEO Jay Adelson, and a whole bunch of representatives from sponsor Bain Capital Ventures as well as a smattering of other venture firms (some of which I'd heard of, some of which I hadn't).

Representing the city's prolific new-media and blogger culture were Rocketboom host Joanne Colan, Mainstreet's Caroline Waxler, Gawker Media's Nick Denton and Gaby Darbyshire, TreeHugger (now Discovery Communications-owned) founder Graham Hill, and Curbed publisher Lockhart Steele, who told me that his blog network's current plans involve taking over the world. Watch out for that one.

A few folks were willing to dish out details on their companies--perhaps it was the martinis being served copiously at the bar. Tumblr founder David Karp told me about his red-hot micro-blogging start-up's plan to handle a revenue model--he plans to create a central "destination" homepage showcasing cool and popular Tumblr content and then serve ads on it.

I also talked to Carlos Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Scrapblog, who will be welcoming a whole lot of Web-ish folks to his home city for the Future of Web Apps conference next week. Scrapblog is hosting one of the event's official parties--I hope they know what they're getting into!

LX.TV founder Joseph Varet, whose company was recently acquired by NBC Universal, told me that his video site's content will start appearing on Los Angeles-area stations soon, and that a new show is in the works, too--but he wouldn't say anything more about that one.

As for the press corps, I was in the company of quite a few other tech reporters, like Fortune's Jessi Hempel, the Wall Street Journal's Jessica Vascellaro, the New York Times' Brian Stelter and Saul Hansell, TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld, Silicon Alley Insider editor Henry Blodget, and Valleywag assistant editor Nicholas Carlson, who wanted to know why so many people didn't want to talk to him.

Don't worry, buddy, I don't think it's anything personal.

Official photos, courtesy of an event photographer, are on Flickr.

(Credit: NBC Universal)

"It's been a year of surreal moments for me," Digg CEO Jay Adelson said to me, "and the big one was when I met M.C. Hammer."

The funny thing is, Hammer himself was standing right next to us. I was talking to Adelson at Tuesday night's edition of the Founders Club, a gathering of NYC-area digital-media and tech folks from both start-ups and major corporations who meet every few months to drink martinis, socialize, and drink more martinis. And before you start thinking about Hammer as a schlocky celebrity guest, keep in mind that he's a "founder" himself--he's one of the guys behind the new site DanceJam.com.

This Founders Club event was held at the Saturday Night Live studios at NBC Universal's Rockefeller Center headquarters, which meant that unlike at previous installments of the floating party series, restrictions prohibited anyone other than the hired professional photographer from snapping pictures. Some attendees, like Valleywag blogger Nicholas Carlson, did anyway and were repeatedly admonished--but really, the security folks had to understand that Carlson's boss at Gawker Media, Nick Denton, was only a few yards away and that the new "Alleywag" couldn't look like he was shirking his duties as a gossip gadfly. (Blog moguls aren't known to be softies.)

Carlson thankfully managed to snap a photo of M.C. Hammer with Adelson--who is, by the way, based in New York despite Digg's reputation as a scion of Valley 2.0. The rapper's presence spurred a light-hearted debate about celebrity power behind new start-ups, like Ashton Kutcher's involvement in telephony brand Ooma. One venture capital representative at the party informed me that actor Damon Wayans has been attempting to pitch a start-up, and that apparently the majority of his rationale consists of "well, I'm Damon Wayans."

So who was there? It was more like "who wasn't there?" The event was hosted by a handful of start-up founders, but the most visible of the bunch was Blip.tv co-founder and COO Dina Kaplan, who emceed the affair along with NBC Universal's Jessica Schell. Among the other hosts were Mark Cenedella of TheLadders, LX.tv's Joseph Varet, Paltalk's Joel Smernoff, Musicnation's Daniel Klaus, and TreeHugger's Graham Hill, who informed me that he actually was at Monday night's IdealBite party, contrary to my observations--he just didn't ride the bull.

I spoke briefly with MediaBistro figurehead Laurel Touby, who said she still can't believe that her start-up (recently acquired by Jupiter Media), has been as successful as it has. "I'm still pinching myself every day," she told me.

Connected Ventures, the InterActiveCorp division that encompasses CollegeHumor, Vimeo, and BustedTees, was heavily represented--CollegeHumor co-founder Josh Abramson was a co-host, and had brought his "better half" (in a strictly professional sense...I think) Ricky Van Veen with him. Also present was Vimeo's Jonathan Marcus and BustedTees' Josh Mohrer, as well as former Connected Ventures executive Zach Klein, who recently left the company and was consequently wearing a name tag that described his affiliation as "Huge Corporation." Conspicuously missing was Jakob Lodwick, who was across town presenting Vimeo at the November installment of the New York Tech Meetup. (The two events happened to awkwardly coincide.)

Zach Klein was also wearing an impressive pair of massive tortoise-shell eyeglasses, which he informed me that he'd purchased for $7 on eBay.

Also present: legendary Valley investor Ron Conway, who required no introduction; Henry Blodget and Peter Kafka of the Silicon Alley Insider; tech party staple Charles Forman of Iminlikewithyou.com, complete with his trademark oversize business cards; Toby Daniels of British import Mint Digital; Glasshouse New York's Caroline Waxler; the socially prolific Auren Hoffman, CEO of Rapleaf, which has been known to raise a few eyebrows; Lorien Gabel of the yet-to-launch Pingg; Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron; and Wallstrip host Lindsay Campbell.

Also present was a guy without a name tag who looked so much like David Spade that some people thought he actually was David Spade. Hey, if M.C. Hammer shows up...

ConnectU co-founder Divya Narendra, still embroiled in a lawsuit against Facebook that goes back to the two companies' days as rival social networks on Harvard's campus, was there in good spirits and informed me that he has no intention of giving up the fight. Several of Facebook's executives, in town for the afternoon's big advertising announcement, were actually on the Founders Club guest list, but word has it that they were tied up at a company dinner at the once-trendy-but-now-mostly-touristy Meatpacking District joint known as the Spotted Pig. (Oh, you West Coasters.)

One of the most interesting conversationalists of the night was undoubtedly ASmallWorld president and CEO Joe Robinson, whose elite, invite-only social networking site has stood in stark contrast to the uber-open nature of many of the sector's leaders--and generated plenty of controversy along the way. Despite its rich-and-famous reputation, Robinson explained, ASmallWorld is really just meant to replicate real-world relationships in an online setting. He said that people ought to think of an invite-only but nevertheless diverse event like the Founders Club as analogous to his company.

"You're probably only one degree of separation away from anyone in this room," he told me.

Afterwards, the word going around the SNL studios was that the legendary Rockefeller Center bar known as the Rainbow Room was open for business, and that we ought to shift our attention there. Unfortunately, the posse of Founders Clubbers that I'd latched onto didn't quite make it over, since two members of our ranks were wearing sneakers--something that the Rainbow Room doesn't permit.

So we slunk somewhat sheepishly out the door, plagued by an awkward reminder that even though New York's technology scene might be thriving, things are still a little more formal around here than they are in the Valley.

A correction has been made to this story regarding Joe Robinson's status as president and CEO of ASmallWorld.

Every few months, a contingent of New York digital media entrepreneurs known as the Founders Club gets together and hosts a mixer for several hundred people to celebrate the start-up spirit of the local tech industry. The end result, as one might imagine, is a mixed bag of "big media," venture capital and finance types, start-up entrepreneurs, and members of the press.

On Tuesday night, the Founders Club threw its third event at the Frank Gehry-designed InterActiveCorp (IAC) building in Manhattan's West Chelsea neighborhood. I've put together a slideshow of some photographs from the event; a few captions may be cut off, but you can see the entire titles by clicking on the pictures in question to open up a new window.

UPDATE (9 AM ET): If you're more one for words than photos, the Alley Insider's recap is here.

All photos were taken by Wilson Tang of CNET Networks.