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 , 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 . 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!

Tags: Techcrunch, TechcrunchBBQ, Startups, Entrepreneurship, Web 2.0