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TechCrunch 3rd BBQ

The TechCrunch story is really amazing. Mike Arrington started a blog in June with the mission of “ obsessively profiling and reviewing every newly launched web 2.0 business, product and service”. Since June, the blog has grown to close to 5,500 6733 Feedburner readers, a Technorati rank of 566, and made it to the CNET Top 100 list. In September he moved from LA, rented a house with a large backyard in Atherton which now became “the place to be” in Silicon Valley, having just hosted the 3rd TechCrunch BBQ. The event was a blast. Here’s a pretty good roundup of the new product demos – Philippe adds some of his commentary. So many bloggers wrote about it, not much more to add, just a few of my impressions. This was my first TechCrunch event, and the intensity of the 200 or so crowd was a bit overwhelming in the beginning … in a positive way:-) The demos were really exciting, but these meetings are also about meeting people, and with the tight demo-schedule, one had to make a tough choice between watching the demos or mingling in the backyard. I did my homework, and made a list of companies / people I would definitely want to meet – yeah, right… try to do it in a crowd of two hundred, in the dark. In this setting the social interaction is more accidental, unless you know most of the participants, you talk to whoever you bump into, forget seeking out anyone in the crowd. I think having name-tags printed would facilitate more targeted introductions. In fact Mike could just ask the guests to get creative and bring their own tags next time. Wow, I’ve just created a new acronym, the BYONT Party:-) Back to the demos for a minute: too many cool products / services… where do I get the time to try them all out? One of my personal favorites is zvents Zbutton, and I am tempted to try Goowy, as a way to get out of Microsoft-slavery ( Scoble noted This crowd isn’t using very much Microsoft stuff “ ) – but wait, do I sign up for Goowy, or Zimbra, Hula, Open Exchange, Kolab, RoundCube .. or …? Ahhh … so many choices… Anyway, the crowd, the energy level, the interaction was great…. this is what the Bay Area is all about. If you did not make it, you can still buy the T-shirt , and come to the next one Zbutton. Ok, this is a joke: Ethan and Tyler created this event as part of their demo, and if they don’t delete it, the TechCrunch HQ will get raided come December:-))) Thanks Michael, Keith, Fred for hosting us. Update (10/25) the TechCrunch blog has picked up another 1,300 Feedburner subscribers since yesterday!

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Comments

  1. Thank You For Coming To Our Party

    I believe we had as many as 200 people here last night for TechCrunch Meetup #3. The last of the guests left at 4 am. Thank you to everyone who came and everyone who tried to attend via festoon.
    Scott Beale took my favorite picture of the event. Here…

  2. Naked (?) Party at TechCrunch

    It only took 40 minutes for the 5th TechCrunch Party to “sell out” after Mike announced it on his blog.  200+ people registered on the wiki, and those left out left out are asking for unused slots or even offering Mike $$$ to get in …&n…

Trackbacks

  1. […]  My first TechCrunch party was in October 2005 – back than it was called the 3rd TechCrunch BBQ. The first two, which I had missed were (almost) impromptu backyard BBQ's with a dozen or so entrepreneurs at Mike Arrington's house. I'm not sure how I discovered these events, but it may have been Ethan's blog, which led to a wiki with open signup. I started to monitor the wiki for the next one, and a month or so later signed up for the 3rd event. The first parking spot I found was half a mile away from Mike's Atherton house. Wow! This was no longer a cozy BBQ, the pace was cramped with about 200 people. Lots of food in the backyard, a keg that the geek squad could not force to produce beer, and lots of startup product demos inside. It was a great event – probably the last one right-sized for the  house.  As a newbie blogger I was impressed  with what I considered phenomenal growth back then: Mike Arrington started a blog in June with the mission of “ obsessively profiling and reviewing every newly launched web 2.0 business, product and service”. Since June, the blog has grown to close to 5,500 Feedburner readers, a Technorati rank of 566, and made it to the CNET Top 100 list. […]

  2. […] kid with big hair in  2005,  at Michael Arrington’s house, at what turned out to be the 3rd TechCrunh BBQ.   For reference, AOL was nowhere in the picture, TechCrunch was a non-entity, reaching 5k (yes […]

  3. […] kid with big hair in  2005,  at Michael Arrington’s house, at what turned out to be the 3rd TechCrunh BBQ.   For reference, AOL was nowhere in the picture, TechCrunch was a non-entity, reaching 5k (yes […]

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