Korecktions ~ Globix

Last week I forgot to mention that The Globix Corporation provided all of the
exhibitors at the NY Music and Internet Expo with FREE Internet Access as
well as streamed the panels and concerts live over the web. Yikes! How could
I have forgotten that?!

Shakers & Stirrers and Bits & Bytes

Of course we all know that iVillage Inc. announced their IPO on 3/18 of 3,650,000 shares of common stock -- and the market's going craaaazy!

Community Connect Inc. (www.communityconnect.com),
publisher of ethnic online communities, announced a partnership
with MediaRing Inc, leading provider of Internet voice
communication applications and services. Members of
AsianAvenue.com, the largest online community for Asian
Americans, now have access to instant voice interaction
on the Web. COOL!

Local Jeff Sanders (at Winstar) produced Hellhounds on My Trail:The Afterlife
of Robert Johnson along with director Robert Mugge, in conjunction with the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This premiered at SXSW. More on this cool film as
soon as I see it and review it!

Nicholson NY has been retained by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to
spearhead the museum's new e-commerce initiative involving the Museum
store, collections and educational programs. Nicholson is providing the Met
with strategic consulting, branding, design and engineering services. Among
the goals of our assignment is establishing the Met as a world leader among
museums in leveraging technology to advance its mission.

SXSW More Parties Than You Can Shake A Tumbleweed At

THE PARTIES (and a sick bat): Hoovers.com party @ Speakeasy, Her Domain and Reel Women @ Club De Ville, Home Page @ Wholefoods.com, Alternative realities and laughs at Fringeware

Austin's Interactive Scene (what is it? who's in it?) and Beethoven's 9th Symphony

The BLO and Hacktivism: Bruce Sterling's sterling moderation of R.U. Sirius, Ray Thomas, Alex Sheshunoff and Steven Wray -- What would YOU do with $50 million and why is Bill Gates a "little cyber freak?"

Interface Design as Social Architecture: Monkey Media's brain-child Eric Gould, my personal hero--Nick West (formerly of NYU's YORB), witty and well spoken Peter Merholz, the brilliant Marcos Novak, and talented Paula Wellings discuss innovative, revolutionary design concepts and SEX

MORE PARTIES: Bruce Sterling's architectural delightful home, a flying Justin Hall

Home and Internet Dates

The SXSW LineUp

Opening Night Party with Silicon Alleyers Vivian Selbo, Maura Johnston, Ron English and Jaime Levy as contenders for awards.

Aliza Sherman's panel -- Women Community Sites -- find out about Maura's interesting example of women sharing information on gurl.com, and the call to action for all women!

Robots and Bras made from metal! (Soon at a Cocktails With Courtney?!)

Physicadelic brain games! Cool, man!

Frogs everywhere! (and I don't mean the French)

The dramatic pause in Michael Wolff's keynote

Some Zine owners don't even use spell check?! (A panel discussion with Suck.com, the DistrunteledHousewife.com, Salon.com, Cockybastard.com, and Ain'tItCool.com)

Game producer resembles own creation! (Human Code's new game for girls in development)

Mark Pesce ruffles and wrastles audience members in call do create a fully-integrated web

Catch a rare pic of me kissing………………Austin Powers!

Publisher's Note ~ Southwest Serenade

This week was a lovely break from NY as I traveled down to Austin, TX for the South By SouthWest Conference. Twelve single-spaced typed pages were not what I thought would endear me to my readers, so I have included an outline, some snippets and "teasers" to whet your appetite, and for you to link to.

I hope you enjoy learning about some of the fascinating people I met, ideas I heard, and attributes about this quite wired town, as I did while there.

Don't forget, if you're interested subscribing or advertising (cause it’s a great way to join my club and get in front of a savvy audience), then please drop me an e-mail! courtney@pulitzer.com

A conference that discusses convergence is one thing,
but a conference that IS convergence is another. This
buzzword has been flying around the industry for a while
and Austin, TX's South By Southwest Conference (SXSW)
'99 was a real world manifestation of the future direction of
the Internet.

"Learn, Work, Play." These were the words of Lloyd Walker,
director of business development, Human Code that he gave
during his presentations at the conference over two days. I
feel they best sum up the experience of Austin's SXSW, which
focused on and highlighted the convergence relationship between
industries. This tri-part, eleven day "orgy" (conference) from March
10th through 21st has two "mini" sections for film and interactive
and then a bigger, longer music extravaganza. If you can imagine
every bar in town hosting one band each hour for a week, and with
all the top rock label reps, agents and musicians in town, this place
rocks! Not to mention the Tex-Mex food is divine!

But before the music show takes stage, the first two acts have quite
a draw themselves. "Film" draws at least 2200 registered attendees
and "Interactive" over 2000. Foot traffic for the exhibition will climb
over last year's number of 10,000. Charlotte Franklin, PR consultant
for SXSW said traffic and attendance have steadily risen since '94
when, Film and Interactive started, by one third and she expects that
number to get higher. The music segment, which has been in existence
for thirteen years, and is the main show for Austin, draws over 6000
people. Even the rodeo, an event you might typically associate with
a Texan town, which was going on at the other end of town, doesn't
draw as many people.

Personally, I was anglin' to escape the Technology Frontier track and
head over to hear the Whistling Contest or see Randall's Racing Pigs,
maybe check out the Cow Chip Toss or participate in the Animal Imitation
Contest. I can make a mean Moo! Well, anyway…

SXSW Doug Block's Home Page ~ Fringeware Party

While all these events were going on, Doug Block's screening of , an independent film about people with personal sites was shown at The Alamo with a party afterwards at WholeFoods.com. I stopped by and caught up with the San Francisco contingent--Molly Steenson, Janelle Brown, Adam Powell of Greenrocket.com (and a professional musician), Jeff Veen (Hotwired) and Halcyon Styn (cockybastard.com). They were saying how was a very moving account of times past and left many people with a powerful feeling of high school from two years ago. At the end of the screening all the Hotwired people cheered and Adam ran into the media darling of this film, Justin Hall and Carl Steadman, who he recognized as having definitely changed. Carl is marketing himself now, whereas he used to be grounded and secure, now he's a rock star who's frustrated by Justin's truly engaging personality.

We all formed a posse and in separate vehicles made a procession to Paco's big party of the night at the Fringeware store. I had fabulously witty repartee with Beatrice Springborn, Jeff Veen and Peter Merholz, who has the second best business card I've ever seen, after mine.

SXSW ~ Her Domain and Reel Women

From the Speakeasy, Eric and I ambled down 6th Street, the popular downtown street with bars, restaurants, shops and musical venues. We spied a bat that lost its way and crawled sickily on the sidewalk. Eeew! Then we went a bit further to a nice restaurant called Louie's 106 for some tapas and continued onto Club DeVille for Her Domain and Reel Women's party. Set in an old gas station of sorts, and nestled against a rocky cliff, I felt like I was in a Flintstones' cartoon. This was heightened by the fact that Mandy Jay and "Buttah-Fly" were like Bam-Bam in an all girl ska rap band, and I was sitting in a hard rubber modular chair. Donna Kidwell, an expert in databases at Tipton Cole and Co. and founder of Her Domain and I had chatted briefly before she left for dinner--four months pregnant, she needs to take care of those "details!" Donna also has two other children and says that "it is possible to have a business and be a stay-at-home mom!" Donna is one of Austin's leading ladies in terms of the technology scene. Another personality-about-town is Content Love Knowles, a former dominatrix and now webmaster for adult and non-adult-themed sites.

SXSW Speakeasy Soiree

I met up with Spain and Wolff at Hoovers' private reception at a truly hidden but poplar Speakeasy. You gained access to the establishment from a smoothly polished wood door in a small alley. Inside it was like any dark wood-paneled, brass and forest green decorated classy pub. A band sang jazz and blues and upstairs guest enjoyed a wide array of finger food sandwiches, tartlets, cheese and crackers and melt-in-your-mouth Viennese brownies. My guest (and personal chauffeur!) for the evening was Eric Olsson who's role as new business development at Novare was perfectly suited for attending multiple events and meeting people. Mary Mickle, an editor with Hoovers told me and Cecil Winzer, a co-founder of collegestudent.com, how Hoovers has a significantly large group of editors. Cecil, in a crisp maroon shirt and matching tie, gave us the history of how he and three of his rugby friends founded their company four years ago. Their 3300 square feet offices are near UT and have 40 employees locally and 100 nationwide. Lucy Mohl, a film critic for 10 years and who founded film.com was chatting it up with Wolff, and I met Tara Fatemi, a writer at Hoovers, who looked artistically elegant with an icy white scarf as an accessory. Enrique Gonzales, editor of Hispanic On-line and Eric Periche, director of on-line technology at Hoovers were giving me the scoop on who's plugged into the scene. Lisa Glass and Stephanie Dodds were doing a fine job in their communication and PR roles, mingling about. Chuck Green of Caprock Media; David Avery, director of the Internet development group at Human Code; David Reid, design director at Tripod and D.C. Toedt III of Arnold, White & Durkee were also enjoying the libations and good vibrations at Hoovers.

SXSW Photodek Cocktail Party

PhotoDek sponsored a happy hour with beers, bad pizza and fried food. The Independent Film channel also served beers and water throughout the show. PhotoDek did make up for any tasteless party snacks by offering fortune cookies everywhere and taking pictures of attendees with either Austin Powers or Darth Vadar. Check out mine! Yeah Baby!

SXSW Web Business Models

Meanwhile, in the seminar room next door, Michael Wolff was speaking to a packed room on a panel devoted to "Web Business Models." Moderated by David Dix of Dell, the panel also had noted Patrick Spain, Chairman and CEO of Hoovers, Carey Earle (Barn Door Consulting and co-founder of Word.com), Chris Clark (GCI group), Tish Williams of Upside and Jim Seymour from PC Magazine. "Sometimes success is inherited" Michael Wolff espoused, "you're either born a retailer or you're not." Dave Dix chimed in promoting Dell's strength of great customer service, which doesn't always mean great prices. Figure out who you want to service and what you want. When asked which sites do they think are successful, Jim Seymour called out "BigWords.com" and Carey Earle told us of various artisans (rug loomers) who have sites where they sell online. Chris Clark wished he thought of ebay or MP3. Guess we all can't have the next great idea, can we?

SXSW Design for Community

The last track of the day put me in the presence of the uber-talented Jeff Veen and Derek Powazek for Derek's presentation on "Design for Community." He spoke to a packed room of community-site webmasters, authors and artists, and his notes are on-line at www.powazek.com/dfc/. Derek is no stranger to creating gorgeously designed community sites, with Fray.com and Kvetch.com under this belt. SFStories.com is one of his most recent sites where he wanted to share his stories of life in San Francisco. Not to be greedy, he's created a "Your Stories" section where other people can add their own. After the panel I caught up with Drue Miller, another powerful design guru who had a presentation on Sunday.

SXSW Architects Online and Offline _ Inspiration

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mark Pesce was ruffling some features in his presentation "Black and White and Read All Over: Post-Test Post-Haste." As he spoke a large screen featured the word "Black" typed in white and "White" in black on a red background while they faded horizontally and vertically. Some of his controversial tidbits for the day were "Apple hasn't had a unique idea since '78 and IBM since '82." He told us about two brilliant architects whose work reveal revolutionary integrated thinking. He thinks architects are the most left-brained artists and what he loves about what they do is that they create the WHOLE work. If you take away one piece of their work, the whole thing can fall apart. He sees this as a way the web must be thought of, as a fully integrated unit, not separate elements.

The first architect he mentioned was Michael Graves in Silicon Valley, who designed a steel cloud that extends between two highways in LA. There are steel fishes and an aquarium integrated throughout the design and the beauty of it is that it is meant to be viewed at 50 mph. Then he told us about Hani Rashid, who started the Computer Lab at Columbia's Architecture School. Rashid created a meta-management system the New York Stock Exchange requested in a complaint that they were losing people, all the IPOs were going to NASDAQ and they weren't as "cool." Done entirely in VRML, he created a room where data is projected streaming by on the walls. If a broker wanted to find out more, they would just pick up a pair of binoculars and interact with the data.

Pesce likes that the web is becoming more personal and believes it needs to be so much more than just text, hypertext, ASCII and links. The web isn't about text at all -- "I think we got confused" -- there're other languages out there: body language, sign language, etc. "Where is the music?," Mark asks. Sound should be integral to the medium (with the exception of hearing your machine furiously whir as you push it to the max!). "It's too quiet!" To which Tristan Mendoza, a multimedia-jack-of-all-trades at the University of Texas, and a few others in the back muttered "I don't want my computer making noises!" Pesce feels it needs to be more tangible, sensual (visually lush, 3D, musical) and kinetic (thinking and interacting) with our bodies -- not just an experience of typing into a computer. How archaic! These problems aren't technical problems however, he sees them as ones that designers must solve. And he doesn't want to see these challenges left to the self-styled designers, either. Otherwise you're signing your consciousness over to them and very soon cyberspace will look like the insides of our heads. Huh? Well, more than one of Pesce's comments elicited responses from the audience and when Paco Xander Nathan, president and editor (and Austin's Alternative Guru) of Fringeware announced we had to end, questions still hung in the air.

Afterwards I went up to Paco, who I'd heard about the night before from a few people who touted his hipness, connected-ness and ultimately hip community-generating role in Austin. Paco founded Fringeware, an on-line and physical bookstore in 1992, edits "Fringeware Review" magazine, writes for various new-age tech tomes and has cyber salons in town. He's been involved in the Internet since 1983 and has a background in engineering. Every week he hosts an event in his bookstore--either an author, artist, DJ or other content-maker/producer comes to speak and people come to engage, conflict, collaborate. Paco gave me some great insight into his salons and others occurring around the country. I got a chance to see it all in action later that night at his big party for SXSW.

SXSW Human Code Can Interact Cooly

For a quick lunch break I enjoyed the sunny weather and walked over to the authentic Tex-Mex diner near the Convention center with the Chickclick chicks (Heidi Swanson, Heather Irwin, Caroline Frye and Beatrice Springborn), Joey Anuff, Heather Gold and Owen Thomas. I left them to their burritos and swung by Human Code for the tail end of their lunchtime press conference. This interactive applications development firm has expertise in business, education and entertainment and has created several significant products. On Monday they announced their acquisition of San Rafael, CA Presage Software Development and that they completed their second round of VC financing for $5 million. Dr. David Palumbo, VP learning technologies demoed their K-Prep (Kindergarten Preparation) product for Ignite! This product merges tactile and interactive technology with an engaging curriculum, targeted for children ages 3-5. This smart board technology allows you to use the board as a mouse and trace a letter with your finger. When two people draw together their markings get averaged out and mirrored on the mouse/board/screen. Wanna get more interactive? Hurl a beanie baby at the moving bullseye target. Smart toys are becoming more popular learning toys when something little Debbie learns at school can come home with her and continue its educational value. This product and technology was quite advanced and yet was only out of the laboratory three weeks.

Lindsey Gupton, VP of development then took us upstairs where we saw Ellie's Enchanted Garden, being developed for Zowie International. Heather Anne Halpert, who slightly resembled Ellie with pigtails, dark jeans and white oxford, demoed how the user can interact with the software through using actual game pieces. Heather placed the character Ellie up and down on the game board repeatedly and in the computer, on the software, she jumped-rope. Imitating watering a tree produced apples in the software version, which in a kids testing session produced peals of glee from all the girls, and moving a telescope over the board revealed what was underground in the virtual world. Jennifer Christensen and Jayson Franklin also worked on this game and I'd say have a lot to be proud of. It really is neat! and will retail for $50-60.

SXSW Great Ideas & Secrets of Webzines

After the panel I met Matt Broermsa of ZDNet News, Stuart Heady of the Web Coalition in Austin and the famous Owen Thomas of Ditherati. Owen told me how United Flight 172 from San Francisco was pretty much filled with people coming for this show. The NY contingent also came out en masse and these two camps were interesting cliques to revolve around during the festivities.

One of the great things about the SXSWS was that there really were a lot of great ideas discussed. Unlike trade shows and conferences in Silicon Alley where sometimes it feels like it's always the same schpiel and ramblings about e-commerce and content and broadband and DaDeeDaDadDo, this one had truly rich discussions by serious content makers, designers, and business leaders.

One such panel was the one Joey Anuff of Suck.com moderated. He led Janelle Brown (Salon.com), Nikol Lohr (DisgruntledHousewife.com), Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News) and Halcyon Styn (cockybastard.com) in a discussion on "Secrets of Successful Webzines." Janelle started her first zine in '96 and had a picture of Joey and Carl in her office as a dartboard for inspiration. Nikol's popular site originated out of her feeling she should stop bothering her friends with her gripes and put them on-line. She stared the Dick List and didn't even think people would read it. However, after her first Cease and Desist letter when a CEO of Prodigy was listed, the last names were taken down. Harry Knowles, another microstar in Austin, whose site gets over 400,000 hits per day started his zine out of a passion for and an expertise in film criticism. Joey and Carl started suck.com in reaction against the cult of personalities (yet have become personalities themselves now), and as he states, hates seeing pictures of columnists next to their work. His thought is that it gives people the chance to say "Hmmm. There's something I don’t like and I think its you!" when they can see your picture. Gee. I hope he doesn't see my site ;) ! Janelle said "the really good zines have a strong voice and personality." It doesn't matter if it's written perfectly or correctly, as long as the voice is there, to which Halcyon and Harry replied that they don't even use spell checkers or copyeditors at times.

Addressing the famedom aspect that these panelists enjoy, Janelle retorted that they at Salon are just like everyone else--there are no Madonna's on the web. (Really? Coulda fooled me!) Salon is just a group of people who have opinions and want to express themselves. People who have smart provocative viewpoints, that is. Janelle also spoke ardently against the use of the world "zine" feeling it diminutized the work. Harry didn't mind it and I personally think it's appropriate. Content rich sites with regular updates aren't MAG-a-zines, and Electronic Zine, e-zine, and zine are apt descriptions of something that's quick, changeable, mutable and new. Halcyon didn't focus on the word so much as the fact that anyone with Notepad and a pirated copy of PhotoShop can now compete with the likes of Microsoft as opposed to having to go to Kinkos and make copies for distribution. At Suck, Joey added, they thought having a white background was a step forward. He predicted a future where the next revolutionary site will have a gray background and broken Gifs. Maybe he should check out my site. (kidding!)

SXSW Wolff Strikes Fears And Ends with masterbation!?

Michael Wolff put some fear in the audience with his unusually long pause at the start of his keynote speech this second day of the conference. Was he going to lash out? What would he do? The truth was, he made the classic speech-givers mistake and glanced at his notes before beginning to speak. To his surprise, he'd brought his notes he'd given last week on Telephony. Pro that he is, he recalled his speech from memory and began. He touched upon the huge phenomenon of chats and how they are largely responsible for AOL's growth. Wolff admitted that if he could be anywhere, he'd be in the space of making stories, of making connections, of being with people. He loves the possibility that there is some new way of expanding yourself and touching people. Wolff's closing note was a headline he found so perfect he didn’t even read the story. "Teenage Girl Abducted into the Internet via Web Cam while Masturbating."

SXSW Mornings -- Not as Batty

Bright and early Monday morning, March 15th, I went for a lovely jog along the Colorado River, which runs right behind my hotel. Area crew rowing teams were gathered for their morning exercises too-- and on my way back I discovered that the bridge directly next to my hotel, The Congress Bridge, is famous for the millions of bats that gather there and take flight each day at sunset. So that's what all that chirping was at night!

SXSW Frog Hops Over the Competition

After dinner we went to the big party for the conference at the world-renowned Frog Design (http://www.frogdesign.com/). Designers of the Apple SE and Dual's modular stereo, this architectural, interactive and graphic design firm has expansive offices in Austin. Green frog cutouts were projected on the outside of the building and inside many offices had, well, frog tchotchkes. The paper drywall walls (ala Avalanche Systems new offices in NYC before they merged with Razorfish) and raffia-like carpets, soft lighting and other elements conveyed organic and simple hi-tech design. Vicky Faith, the hostess who ran the party like a pro, and Frog's operations manager, was attired in a lovely green silk kimono, Chinese slippers and had chopsticks in her hair. Flags and beers from around the world where Frog has offices were represented. There was Warstein beer by the German Polka players, Tecate by the Mexican Mariachi band and Voodoo by the Cajun Zydeco band. There even was a room with a bellydancer. Fortune cookies with funny sayings filled up baskets throughout the floors. Mine said, "If you are caught wearing your loved one's underwear, act like nothing is wrong." Okaaay, point taken. Julie Proshek, a curator and artist and who was crucial in starting the Robot Group was striking in a silk silver ensemble and told me of the brilliant and award winning design work she has done. She recommended I check out Design Edge, a company with offices in Austin that truly excel in design. Throughout the evening people flowed through the spaces and oogled at Frog's museum of product displays, super high-end video and multimedia production equipment and views. This was the party to be at and while the space was expansive, throughout the conference everyone I spoke with had been at this party at some point.

SXSW Exhibit Hall Does Not Disappoint

From there I checked out some of the Exhibition Hall booths and found some great groups! Namely The Robot Group (www.robotgroup.com), which has been in existence for 10 years and is focused on promoting the development of blending art and technology and sharing their creations with the world. So here you have about seven men and one woman sitting and building robot arms, tinkering with gadgets, operating remote controlled trucks with cameras attached. Sharing their booth was Brooks Coleman of the Art Bra. Brooks designs bras out of metal, plastic and wood to form avant-garde breastplates. Models have worn his creations in the city and just maybe there'll be a mini fashion show at an upcoming Cocktails With Courtney. But I think I'll wait till the warmer weather.

Another fascinating group was the Brain Actuated Technologies, Inc. Their Brain Actuated Music 2.0 for Win95/98 uses a headband with three sensors that detect electrical signals on your forehead from subtle facial movements and brain activity. Connected to an interface box, the energy from your forehead is transferred to your computer and decoded into music and mandalas. This high tech experience is also a very organic one. Christian Berg, musician and scientist told me a bit about this as a gentleman was exploring new physic dimensions with it.

One of the larger booths was housed by Novare (http://www.novare.net/), a large Dallas-based complete new media solutions company combining serious technical expertise with an artistic eye. After meeting Eric Olsson and Ean Schuessler, who were quite knowledgeable on several "scenes" in Texas, and having a fruitful discussion, I had the opportunity to join them for a delicious Tex-Mex food at Churra's Grill. Ean spent some time telling me about the origins of Debian Linux (http://www.debian.org/), a form of Linux started by Debra and Ian Jackson, which launched with one password and literally overnight had over 100 accounts and developed software living on its server. Now there are over 2200 software packages developed for it. Ean and his girlfriend also have some notoriety for their Disturbathon events. You can find out more about this neat couple at (http://www.hotweird.com/disturbathon/).

SXSW Women on the Web

Panels at the conference were broken down into four different tracks: Web Business, Publishing, Entertainment and The Technological Frontier. Panels started on Sunday, March 14th and ranged from a case study on CollegeStudent.com, to Jaime Levy of Electronic Hollywood speaking on a panel about "Adding Animation to your Site," to Heather Gold of Zing Network and Tangent (a live alternative comedy show) speaking on "Where Web Entertainment is Going."

I stopped by Aliza Sherman's (Cybergrrl) panel to hear Heather Irwin of EstroNet, Ellen Pack (women.com), Janelle Brown (Salon, Maxi), Heidi Swanson (Chickclick) and Maura Johnston (maura.com) speak on how they started their sites and other issues revolving around design, community and making money.

All women spoke of the advantages of viral marketing and befriending journalists. If you become a resource for them, they might be inclined to help you out. In that vein, helping each other out in general was advised because "when one of us succeeds, all of succeed."

Here are some other thoughts:
On Interactivity: Ellen Pack touted "me-centric" programming as something she'd like to see more of, this interactivity based on the user will help the web be more useful.

On sharing: Maura Johnston told us about a section on gurl.com that was devoted to body hair. Next to each woman's post on the BBS was a little icon of what kind of body hair she was discussing in her post, with another icon showing what method of removal she was referring to. Maura cited this as a beautiful example of women sharing information, stories and ideas, which is one of the strengths about women and their use of the net.

One of my personal thoughts on women and the Internet, which has been covered in magazines from Forbes to Wired to Self, is on how and why women will take over the Net. The very nature of the Net is collaborative, interactive and intuitive, which are all precepts that women understand inherently and excel in.

On Audiences: Janelle Brown encouraged long-winded writers with a lot to say with the thought that maybe short pithy web sites aren't always appropriate. Maybe your readers want long, thoughtful diatribes. Maybe short and pithy isn't good enough for them.

A woman from the audience inquired about if there are any sites geared for women over 35. After mentioning thirdAge.com and women2women.com the discussion addressed demographics and how there aren't many sites necessarily geared for the "Sandwich" generation--it's still very youth driven and oriented with a gap till the very large senior demographic.

Molly Steenson of Maximag encourage everyone, "if you don't see it--create it!" On this note, Fazia, a woman from Pakistan recounted how she started her own site in 1994 as a way to tell her new friends about herself, the Internet and Pakistani women. (www.io.com/~fazia).

Local webmistress heroine Nikol Lohr of "The Disgruntled Housewife.com" chirped up and plugged her new site "SmileandActNice.com" and told us she's looking for writers and other people interested in contributing.

The panel ended on a great note of "get out there and just do it" and "collaborate!"

GSD&M Honoria in Ciberspazio Ron English and more stars

The interactive part of SXSW started off with a big party at the GSD&M advertising agency offices on Saturday March 13th from 6:00 PM. In addition to the standard welcoming speeches, there was a tribute to Dewey Winburne, who passed away and was an instrumental part of starting the SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference in '94. Previewing this night was ten minutes of the world's first on-line opera "Honoria in Ciberspazio" performed by real live opera singers singing songs people wrote and submitted on-line. SXSW and Texas Interactive Media presented awards for a whole host of categories. Local stars such as Monkey Media and many other Austin businesses filled out the list of contenders. But NYC had a fair share of representation in the likes of Maura Johnston of Hicksville, NY for best personal site (maura.com) and the only entry for Best On-line Drama/Narrative Site for bittersweets.org. Brisbane, CA was well represented also with Chickclick's entries in Best Girl's/Women's site and Best On-line Community. Other New Yorkers being reviewed for Best Art Site were Vivian Selbo for "Killer @pp~it's all t@lk" and Ron English for "Ron English: Popaganda."

Other Events ~ Upcoming Events

What else went on this week:
* Webcinema-NYC Digital Video and Mini DV "Film Look" Demo on 3/4/99 at NYU.
* No End meeting on building genuine community 3/11/99
* NYNMA Cyber Suds 3/10/99
* WWWAC Brand-New meeting (w/Victoria's Secret) 3/11/99
* Laura Sorokoff's fundraiser for the Leukemia Society Rock n Roll Marathon in San Diego 3/11/99

UPCOMING EVENTS
For the most comprehensive, up-to-date listing on all the cyber
events check out: http://www.TheCyberScene.com/ and click on Calendar of Events. PS. You can list your own and there's an HTML version too!

Shakers & Stirrers and Bits & Bytes

GIST Communications, the leading independent producer of TV listings guides on the Internet, is making news these days. They have added two seasoned and top-of-the-line industry professionals to their roster. Wanda Rachel Glinert is now executive director of marketing and Paul Finster will be chief technology officer. Ms. Glinert will work with GIST's programming and strategic partners, focusing on business development, marketing and cross-media advertising campaigns. Mr. Finster will be directly responsible for managing GIST's global technology operations including strategic product development, IT, e-commerce and technical relations with GIST's rapidly growing list of distribution partners.

Adrienne Matt has landed squarely on her feet in a fabulous ew position as Senior Writer at Channel Seven.com. Watch out for great work from this talented woman!

US Interactive, Inc., a leading International Internet professional services company, announced today that Stephen Zarrilli has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of the firm. Zarrilli one of the company's original employees, had previously been the company's Chief Financial and Administrative Officer. He succeeds Larry W. Smith, who resigned his position as CEO March 1, remains a significant shareholder and will continue to serve on US Interactive's Board of Directors to assist in the ongoing success of the company.

After four years of hosting the nations only syndicated talk show completely dedicated to entrepreneurship, "Let's Talk Business," veteran entrepreneur Mitch Schlimer has been voted to the 1999 Talkers Magazine Heavy Hundred. The list, which is composed of the 100 most important radio talk show hosts in America, puts Mitch and the show's subject of entrepreneurship and small business on the map.

Biscom announced that it has been awarded a patent, by the U.S. Patent and trademark Office on a device that enables users to send and receive faxes and e-mail over the Internet from a single interface.

Well, "Bill Rudin is at it again," and aren't those fabulous words to hear? Last week Rudin announced that in a joint venture with Cogswell Realty Group, they will completely redo an old Northrop Grumman building in Great River, Long Island. SImilar to 55 Broad, Rudin's first adventure into the wired building world, and copied (thankfully) by the creation of the Plug 'n' Go program by the Alliance for Downtown New York, and the city's Economic Development Corporation, this 2 block-long building will have high-speed voice and data communications, video conferencing capability and a telephone system that will operate wirelessly within the center. Unlike its Gotham City sister building, however, the Long Island Technology Center will house a fitness center, in and outdoors recreational areas, child-care center. Similar to 55 Broad's Digital Sandbox, the Long Island Software Technology Network (LIST) was formed a little over a year ago, which has 514 member companies and organizations, will be the first tenant. This center will function similarly to how the Sandbox does. More info is at:
http://www.nytoday.com/scripts/editorial.dll?fromspage=re/RealEstate.htm&categoryid=&only=
y&bfromind=44&eeid=131183&eetype=article&render=y&ck=22110129&version=587276&adrVer=
920903146&ver=cg2.1

ADV ~ Courtney's Hip Cyber Section

Looking for submissions: Please send me your favorite cyber restaurants, laundromats, coffee shops, libraries, parks, and other fab. cyber hangs to me -- it'll all be a part of our Hip Cyber section!

Subscribe! to this fun, informative read: E-mail "courtney@pulitzer.com" with Subscribe in the Subject

Viant's Offline Dinner Parties

It was a comfortable group in a great Belgium resto. Viant hosted the first of their "Offline Dinner Parties" at the trendy Markt in the ol' meat packing district in NYC. A great chance to eat more mussels and moule frites (another trend I've noticed). I also had a chance to meet some great people and visit with old acquaintances. Mark Oster of Grant Thornton, and even Alison Fishman of Viant in San Francisco came out for the event. Terri Lonier (Founder/CEO, Working Solo) was telling me about her SoHo Summit, and its not a summit about the tragically hip neighborhood, but home office professionals. Laura Berland of Orb.net and I met f2f finally, and Jennifer Gold (barnesandnoble.com) and I shared stories from being in the industry since '94. Viant-ers Andrew Frank, Chad, Laura and Richard Adams were as gracious as ever, as was Marilyn Dintenfass, who spearheaded the whole event and spoke passionately on how truly wonderful this company is. They really invest in their people, which is one of the most important assets of a company, as the upcoming InfoTech forum will attest to! Eleanor Hass of eTechnologies Associates, Red Burns of NYU's ITP program and NYNMA's Alice O'Rourke (who looked stunning in an Indian-princess-inspired ensemble) also came to this fun eatery for sharing stories and taking a break from the hectic new media pace.

Publisher's Note ~ A Roaring March

Roar! March is roaring along and the Alley is doing a good job of keeping pace.

Le Index
1. Notable Women
2. Shameless Plugs
3. NY Rock & Internet Expo
4. Barbie Turns 40 (gasp!)
5. Wine Tasting in the afternoon
6. The One Club Awards
7. All the other events
8. Movers & Shakers
9. Upcoming Events
10. Check out the Web site for John's Vancouver report and Anne's social wanderings!

In honor of Women's History Month, I thought I'd share some names of (famous and not-so-famous) women who have been influencers in my life and/or impressed me as I continue on my journey: My Mom, My Sister, Stacey, Kimberly, Kim, Ainsley, My Grandmothers, Tery, Linda Stone, Emily Davidow, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Pina Bausch, St. Joan, Barbara, Judith, Ruth, Josephine Baker, Amelia Earhart, Coco Chanel, Charlotte Perkins, Calamity Jane, Grace Hopper, Adrienne Rich, Nellie Bly, Harriet Tubman, Mary Harriman, Madame Dumont (Moustache), Aphra Behn, Rita Mae Brown, Dr. Mary Walker, Gertrude Stein, Mary Wollstonecraft, Alice Paul ...


"Surfin' With Courtney" MSG's MetroByte (www.msgmetro.com) show where I reviewed Rock-related web sites. Check back on The Cyber Scene.com for streaming video of all the shows I've been a guest on.

AP Cyberspace writer Chris Allbritton was so kind as to mention me, along with Stacey Horn of ECHOnyc, and Rufus Griscom and Genevieve Fields of Nerve, as the NYC interesting content makers for the Silicon Planet piece. Here are 2 links:
San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/1999/03/06/national1118EST0519.DTL

Sign-on San Diego: http://wire.ap.org/APpackages/silicon_planet/siliplanet.html


A story about "My Friend Jane" by Kim Park: www.geocities.com/~geo-leaders/zine/special2.html

One Club's One Show

A mix between memory lane and eye-opening reality check was my experience at The One Club's One Show Interactive awards show at The Roxy on Thursday, March 11th. Sean Skilling, creative director at Brand Dialogue was in attendance with a small posse of beautiful BDers including a recent hire who insisted on calling me "Mrs. Pulitzer." Sean reported great growth and successes on many levels, even on a personal level citing the popularity of "the girls'" web site. "The girls" are his parrots and you can check 'em out at: www.inch.com/~sskiling. Striking Audrey Fleisher of Ogilvy Interactive also was surrounded by her team of talented suave creatives including Daymon Bruck, Scott Storrs, Josh Grossberg and Mach Arom from Ogilvy Interactive. Ogilvy had many reasons to celebrate considering they left with quite a few "pencils" (the award of the night) for e-culture campaign work for IBM. Peter Seidler showed me his silver pencil for outstanding work on Casio's Corporate Identity web site at Razorfish. Dara Tyson of MecklerMedia was there, and I caught up with Damon Torres of Robocast. Damon's new company automates everything on the web and they were streaming and cybercasting the event. Lee Nadler (president/ceo, lead sherpa, Digital Pulp), Gene Lewis (senior prod. manager, manager info. systems) and Vincenzo Sainato (assoc. creative director, interactive media, Siegle & Gale) were enjoying the sense of how this show and our industry has grown up. Steven Sacks (chief creative director, co-founder, Digital Pulp) and I also had a nice conversation regarding how his company is enjoying nice measured growth and quality creative work, as opposed to worrying about IPOs and such. Kiley Bates (Editor, Urban Desires.com) was quite smashing in a slinky powder blue halter top and pixie haircut. Jason Parkin of Blue Dingo and Mike Essl and I all marveled at the fantastical solo dancing by Jason Wurtzel, senior engineer at Nicholson NY. Tom Nicholson might have been doing a private jig himself, considering his company enjoyed the honor of Best of Show for best self-promotion with their snowball fight holiday card. So successful it was that apparently school teachers called requesting their school's IPs be blocked as students were playing the game as opposed to researching on the Net. Honestly, throwing snowballs doesn't seem so bad considering what else is out there. Kyle Shannon of Agency.com, Alice O'Rourke of NYNMA were among the glitterati presenters. And Mike Knowlton of Oven spoke for some of his co-workers including Leanne Fremar and Jurgen Altziebler as he exclaimed how this show is so terrific because "it brings together all the aspects of interactivity with huge, traditional firms and smaller privately held shops. It's so comprehensive and it shows that it's so much more than the web." Salute!

Barbie's 40th Birthday (a bust!)

"Radishes and cake if you get there late, you even miss the raffle." My friend Kimberly and I were stunned to have missed the raffle, only an hour into Barbie's 40th Birthday Bash at the Polaroid Studios in Soho on Tuesday, March 9th. Yes, even Barbie turns 40. There were no Barbie's at this party, though. Maybe a few Ken's, and a few photographs of Miss Thang on the wall by David Levinthal, the photographer from the new book on her. The tightly packed studio smelled of potato chips and cake, and a few radishes. Certainly not the Barbie food I remember.

European Wine Council's Grand European Wine Tasting

"Now what were two nice men from Tennessee doing pouring German wine to strangers in Times Square," you might ask? Well, if it was William Bossert, VP-NA and Steve Farmer, Dir. of Sales, of Baden Wines International (www.badenwines.com), and you were at the European Wine Council's Grand European Wine Tasting at the Marriott Marquis on Tuesday, March 9th, then you'd know precisely why they were doing such a civilized action. The tasting, on March 9th, was a chance for buyers to sample wines, champagnes and cognacs for distribution and purchase. I visited the lunchtime affair to meet Susan Balasny, President of Bacchus Imports and Kevin Greaney to discuss their networking WineRave fundraiser on March 25th. New media art group Gen Art also will be taking part in this affair -- Anne Yoakam and I were also researching which ones we hope to share with you at an upcoming Cocktails with Courtney...The Loire Valley Meets Silicon Alley. Find out about more on my Calendar of Events.

New York Music & Internet Expo

Most of us have heard of the Music Festival that occurs in the city during the hot, sticky month of July. It originated as the Macintosh Music Festival and has evolved into last year's extravaganza with main sponsorship from Intel. Last weekend however, on Saturday, March 6th and Sunday, March 7th at the New Yorker hotel was the 1999 New York Music and Internet Expo. (www.nyrocks.com/expo) For just $15 at the door you too could've seen skinny rockers in tight red leather pants, black furry jackets and cowboy boots and hat mixed in with skinny computer geeks in tight jeans and black t-shirts with clipped haircuts. It was quite a sight! This intersection of Geekdom and Music hippies was swarming with people angling to learn about Nomad or GoodNoise, or hear Richard Gottehrer (The Orchard.com) and Richard Stumpf (MCY) explain about their distribution service companies. Culture City and Discmakers were also distributors on exhibit. Custom CD showcasers included familiar Alley-ers EZCD and CDuctive. Oddest but most useful for audiophiles and joggers was the custom earplug. Similar to how your dentist takes an impression of your mouth for dental work (thank you Dr. Vincent Cali!), brothers Jeff and Steve Stegman (www.customearsets.com) will get an impression of your ear and send back a custom earplug! Best Booth award goes to Ed Furniture.com, a 1950s-styled puppet theater booth complete with recently made 1950-styled movies and a real-live 1950s-styled geek with coke-bottled glasses and a toaster in his arms. I'm still trying to figure out what they do though. Runners-up Spinner.com and EZCD.com had groovy skeletons and South Park Kenny dolls, respectively. Seth Price (who spoke on one of the panels later on Sun.) explained that EZCD was raffling off Kenny. Musicians and bands played throughout the entire expo, but unlike the Intel fest, everything was in one place. New media lawyer and musician Steve Masur also spoke on the technology panel with Heidi Dangelmaier (hi-d.com) and Michael Dorf (The Knitting Factory/Knit Media). Spinner.com and EZCD.com were represented on the content panel by Scott Epstein and Jeremy Kagan respectively. One thing this expo didn't strike a chord on was timing -- everything was at least 1 hour behind schedule. Michael Robertson (CEO, MP3.com) gave a keynote address and Anthony Laudico (CEO, Muze, Inc.) mused about commonalties in the new media, new technology and new music trends. CD Baby Derek Sivers rounded out his 6 Top Marketing for Music People tips with "be weird." This was coming from a man with shaved head save the 3' long dreads stemming from the base of his skull.

Shakers & Stirrers and Bits & Bytes

BigStar
David Friedensohn reports that BigStar is making mucho progress in terms of $$, $$%, and ##s. Investments, sales and traffic are up, up, up. Looks like his business savvy has grown with his new venture!

e-media
Alright, you always wanted to see Evander Holyfield workout, right? Well you can! Just pointcher browser over to (http://www.holyfield-lewis.com) and you will see all the content, chats, merchandise and promotions surrounding the March 13th event you could ever want. e-Media, a full e-business, e-commerce, front and backend developer based in lovely New Canaan, CT developed the site with TVKO (the pay-per-view arm of Home Box Office), ESPN and Microsoft. e-Media will host streaming video content, including live streaming video of weigh-ins, workouts and pre- and post-fight press conferences. So check it out, order a pizza and enjoy the drama!

ifilm.net (http://www.ifilm.net), produced by the dynamic brother and sister team of Rodger and Marissa Raderman, has launched and is determined to change the dynamic of the film industry for good--in favor of independent filmmakers. Filmmakers and folks with an opinion about this sort of thing (writers, film enthusiasts, web surfers, etc!) are encouraged to participate, send feedback, suggestions, and submit work. You can even give other filmmakers feedback via the automated rating system or an online review.

iVillage:
iVillage and Ralston Purina Company have announced a major content and e-commerce initiative for women who own pets. Ruff!

JAMTV
JAMTV has officially changed their name to Tunes.com (http://www.tunes.com) and become "the Web's LARGEST music site," including MP3 downloads from major artists, Webcasting, personalization, Rolling Stone Radio, three major music pubs online (Rolling Stone, The Source and Down Beat), among many other features! Whoo!

Kokopelli
Kokopelli New Media LLC, together with Merck & Co., redesigned and re-architected Merck's existing 3-year-old corporate site. The re-branded online identity for Merck is a result of hard work including an in-depth, online survey during a two-week promotional run, resulting in the collection of valuable data to guide the company's future online-marketing efforts.. (www.merck.com).

Razorfish
Razorfish Studios acquired 100% of Simon Ventures, Ltd., which was started and previously led by Michael Simon, a New York based artist management firm, to help increase its stable of artists, as well as concentrate its efforts on continuing to produce cross-content media and develop talent. Ahem!

Scio-Ltd.
Not just yet-another-e-mail newsletter: SCIO Ltd., (which means "I know" in Latin), an early stage startup founded by Jeff Hearon is offering "Internet Intelligence Now," an e-mail discussion and news resource dedicated toward tracking the growing security challenges facing an increasing networked world. Hearon says, "it is clearly focused on intelligence concerning Internet infrastructure vulnerabilities as expressed in such knowledge domains as infosec, iwar/infowar, and its related geopolitical realities." SCIO LTD seeks to provide a credible perspective on these issues and remove the cloak and dagger mystic, which is often associated with these issues and to offer a resource to freely discuss these topics. SCIO has three websites under developemnt, which will cover Internet intelligence, Internet Infosec e-commerce portal, and lastly a think tank. www.scio-ltd.com/net/org

Tricks and Trinkets
http://www.tricksandtrinkets.com/ -- the weekly "Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter" offers insights into cool, useful, fun, offbeat, unusual and interesting sites on the Internet.

The Cyber Scene in Vancouver, by John McLean-Foreman

"Hey, uh..." snap, snap, snap went the fingers, "you're that guy."
"Yeah that's me." I agreed.
"Bob right?"
"John actually."
"And uh, you're in..."
I opened my mouth but he stayed my remark by holding up his hand.
"No, don't tell me... Educational Software."
"Video games."
"Riiiiight!"
Ah fame.
Good thing that I did not have these celebrity crazed fans around me all the time or I might never have been able to get out of my house. I am however a devious bastard by nature and so managed to sneak away with relative ease.

I went on two tours this week. The first was to Credo Interactive Inc. (http://www.credo-interactive.com ) Ken Bryson showed me about the office and gave me a quick demonstration of their product. He seemed a little confused as to what exactly it was that I wanted, but he was very obliging. The product is called "Life Forms 3.0". It's a 3D animation program that I'm told is easy to use--not that I would know. What struck me the most were the different markets for this product. Ken said that anything that requires the aid of three-dimensional visuals is a viable market (video games, movies, 3D animation, etc.). My two favorite markets were choreography and forensics, both of which seem to me to be clever ideas for this kind of product.

The other tour was of the company that I mentioned last week: Ingenuity Works Inc. http://www.ingenuityworks.com (they're the one's doing the bike tour of Canada). Cris Leykauf was kind enough to show me around the offices. For a company that deals with educational software, they were
much, much bigger than I expected them to be, which just shows my ignorance I suppose. I would guess that it has a great deal to do with Gary Gumley (President and CEO) who is most definitely visionary and very big on giving credit to those who work with him. I left the offices feeling inspired and excited for the future of education.

New Media BC held an event on Canadians doing business in the US. The speakers were: Greg Boos, Attorney at Law. He spoke about the various visas that a Canadian can get. Max Legg, CPA. He dealt mainly with the way governments are all trying to get the biggest slice of Tax-pie possible. Scott Orange, President of NewGrowth Communications, Inc. spoke about marketing and the processes thereof. Douglas McCracken, Commercial Officer for the Canadian Consulate General in Seattle, told us about the various ways in which they can help Canadians who are, or will be doing, business in the United States.

Next Thursday morning, March 11th at 7:30am, New Media BC will hold this year's third breakfast meeting. Don Mattrick, President of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios, will be talking about how he built the largest
interactive entertainment software company in the world (sales last year were over $1 billion dollars). If you want to find out more or reserve your seat, contact Jodaye Garner by phone (604) 739-9878 or by email:
newmediabc@bc.sympatico.ca

Korecktions ~ Jon Heck

Correction: Yipes! It was Jon Heck, EVP and Co-founder of Thoughtbubble Productions, not James Talerico, who endured 40 reviews of the clown turning into "Spawn" at the Canadian CanApple animation festival several weeks ago. Mr. Heck is also a frequent guest on MSG's "MetroByte," which Mr. Rigby hosts.

Publisher's Note ~ A Full Moon & Mercurial Weather

Alright web surfers! Catch me surfin' through web sites (wetsuit, surfboard and all!) during my web site review segment on MSG's MetroByte this Monday, March 8th at 8:00 PM

* # * # * # ADV.
Dewline Communications ~ http://www.dewline.com
Serving the new media elite since 1995
ADV. # * # * # *

Pied Piper Award of the Week goes to Glenn Hauman, co-founder of BiblioBytes and Membership Secretary of the WWWAC (wwwac.org) group. In response to Salon Magazine's (www.salon1999.com) motto challenge for Silicon Valley, Mr. Hauman, never one to be outdone, rallied WWWAC posters and lurkers alike to coin a motto for Silicon Alley. At the time of publication, at least 23 people responded, including yours truly, with several witicisms. Read all the "wwwacky" posts at: http://www.TheCyberScene.com

With a full moon and mercurial weather this week, the Alley offered up some unique events.
Jupiter's Consumer Conference
Art Directors Club show opening
NYNMA's Back-end
Wit Capital Party
TIME Magazine and CBS News roundtable discussion on 100 Great Minds
NYU's MBA@NY

ADC NYTMags Collaboration

“These are our agents--they generated at least two leads for us already.” Artist Marguerita and caterer Mark Fahrer, both in chunky, funky, colorful plastic glasses (hers--lime green with black, his--brown with orange and green speckles), were beaming about their new PR/marketing team--their sons! The occasion for them to bring out their "marketing team" was the Art Directors Club opening of a show celebrating The New York Times Magazine's award-winning collaboration of journalism and design on Thursday, March 4, at the ADC.

What an experience to be surrounded by 95% artists and 5% digital-types. Funky glasses were everywhere! Jeff Newalt, corporate communications director for the ADC, introduced me to Roy Anderson of icomweb.com and the Chairman of ADC's New Media committee. Roy produced the first CD-rom for the ADC, which they've included in their annual book of best work. Melanie McLaughlin, art director for Time.com was there with her friend Janet Waegel, who just launched Interocity with a partner. The exhibit continued downstairs, where in light of all the recent political news, I found the following headline most amusing. It was from Time magazine on November 23, 1924 and it read "Mrs. Coolidge, Too, Is Elected--As the First Lady of the Land, She Has won Success on Her Own Right--All Washington Likes Her--She Helps the Public Understand the President." All this in light of the recent Monica blockbuster interview on Wednesday and Mrs. Clinton's prospective run for the Senate. My how times have changed…

Great Thinkers Think Alike

"Well, I think Evil has been the most interesting aspect of this century." "Let's make a distinction between great tinkerers and ideas people." "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Flipping through a book of great quotes? No, although these thoughts might appear in one soon enough. You would've heard the previous statements, too, if you were at Rockefeller University on Wednesday, March 3, around lunchtime. TIME Magazine and CBS News put on a panel of great thinkers to discuss great minds of the 20th Century.

Frankly, science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling was glad this century was over. Other noted panelists were Tufts University's Daniel Dennett, Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Institute of Human Virology, Yale University's Peter Gay, TIME Managing Editor Walter Isaacson, MIT's Steven Pinker and Carnegie Institiution President Maxine Singer. This sparkly group of brilliant minds shone brightly with thoughtful discussions of who might be included in TIME's TIME 100: Great Minds of the Century issue. Hosted by tall, striking, conversational Charlie Rose, you can still catch this content-rich panel discussion on CBS Thursday, March 25, with Morley Safer.

Ms. Singer cited Hiroshima when Mr. Rose asked what was the single most important news event in this century. "Big Al" Einstein was quickly acknowledged as a great physicist, B.F. Skinner got mixed reviews and Freud was debated. Maxine Singer rounded out the 90-minute discussion with inspiring words on what motivates her. "The notion that tomorrow--and it doesn't have to be literally Tomorrow, but maybe a 10-years Tomorrow--I can know something that no one else can know."

Afterwards, I spoke briefly with Charlie Rose and Walter Isaacson. Bruce Sterling seemed eager to get back to his native Austin, TX, and throw a party for attendees at the SXSW '99 conference down there March 12-21, where local digirati Michal Wolff will be one of the keynotes. Or maybe it was because he was bashing Russia during most of the discussion and was now being taped by Yuri Kirilchenko, Correspondent for ITAR-TASS, the Russian News Agency!

Wit Capital Witty Cocktails

Speaking of loft-parties, Wit Capital has expanded vertically once again, and this time literally. Taking over the 7th floor of 826 Broadway, this hot beer-turned-financial firm has grown not only in services but in space. Imagine being in a huge floor-through loft space with a blend of musical influences pumping through the speakers, two small bars, tables set up with cheese and crackers, and a sea of dark blue and black, pin-striped suits. Imagine a sea of such-clad men, mostly gray-haired, measuring about my height. Imagine Bob Lessin being the center of a ring of investors. Well, that's not too hard to imagine. What's even less hard to imagine is him and Andrew Klein being surrounded by 20-year-olds in black jeans, sweaters, rectangle-framed glasses and slicked Hollywood styled buzz haircuts, pitching their start-ups.

Among the more seasoned Alleyers—with similar intentions—were Eugene Carr and Howard Koval. Eugene has been producing his e-mail newsletter and web site with a national arts listing calendar, CultureFinders, since 1995. Since AOL bought Moviefone-- "ticketing on-line is big business!"--Carr isn't totally unfamiliar with AOL. He started CultureFinders's with AOL's Greenhouse program. And just 10 weeks ago they launched their individual city's newsletters. Howard Koval was also there with a dual-purpose and his friend Steve Stein of Sportstation.com. Michael Beckner of Silicon Alley Reporter breezed by and said a quick hello to Steve King of Virtual Growth, to which Mr. King exclaimed "SAR 99 was THE BEST thing we ever did!" Well, alright! Mr. Style-meister Beckner, appropriately deemed, beamed on his way. Zoe Adlersberg, director of marketing at WitCapital, was a willowy and gracious as hostess in a slinky black dress with side cutouts and styled pig-tails.

Headhunter Susan Goldberg and Jane Portnoy, director of B2B & new media at CMA, both hung around me for a while. But I shortly realized it was to attain the attentions of Mr. Chip Austin of BOL.com. Chip had more than a few interesting quips that he shared with me about friends he and Mr. Lessin have in common.

And where will Mr. Austin be jetting off to next week? Why to the AlleyCat News Alley To Valley '99 Conference in San Francisco next week. His interest isn't totally unprejudiced, however. He's going to support his friend Greg Arnold, CEO of Passlogix (www.passlogix.com), who was selected to represent his company. Arnold will be launching this password-management, service-oriented site on Monday. He also filled me in on Hart Hooten's new job promotion at Time Warner. Hooten was named general manager of CNN/Sports Illustrated Interactive. He and Cella Irvine held a soiree to celebrate the New York Theatre Workshop. They attracted such prolific guests as Eric Goldberg and other close friends.

Meanwhile, Bruce Strzelczyk and Richard Shanley of Richard A. Eisner & Co. were sporting flashy ties and rubbing elbows with the guests. Andrew Klein, one of the ol' King Cole's of the crowd, was appropriately merry and looking dapper as ever. Andrew Raisej and Sarah Holloway of MOUSE, Cecilia Pagkalinawan
of BoutiqueY3K and Dennis Adam of Vision Consulting were also looking sharp. @NY associate editor Pamela Parker was also buzzing around, and we shared a few laughs over the frenetic pace of these past few weeks. Randy Whitestone and Brooke McDonald of Bloomberg were also out and about, enjoying the evening, along with the other hundred or so guests.

Jupiter Conference ~ Content Renaissance

Jupiter Conference: The overall motto from this usually well-attended conference, held at the Sheraton on March 1-3, is that there will be a Content Renaissance. That's nice, considering major publishing houses are based here. If we're all just surfing on empty bits and bytes, wouldn't the web be just a little boring? A press release announced that analysts said there will be an "impending content renaissance," which just sounds scary to me. What's encouraging is that the media companies are beginning to realize that consumers and the on-line audience aren't just a massive, anonymous user-base to be exploited. They're actually people!

Other discoveries: one-on-one marketing doesn't always work with large, anonymous user bases and "make people pay," or rather--e-commerce sites are enjoying multiple revenue streams and (the new favorite word) "stickiness." Mark Mooradian, director of Jupiter's consumer content strategies added that the real competition will come from commerce ventures, not media properties. Marc Jefferies of Electronic Communities (www.thepalace.com) played the role of exuberant, welcoming host at his company's luncheon on Tuesday, March 2. He received a good reception and some nice exposure.

NYNMA's Exploring Backends...

NYNMA was exploring back-ends, er, that is, the secrets of making the back-end of e-commerce work, at FIT on Tuesday, March 2. A member of Fortune Magazine's Board of Editors and Merrill Lynch's CTO David Kirkpatrick moderated the discussion of Marc Hansen, VP of systems architecture at J. Crew; Robert Langer, director of Dell.com, John McKinley, chief technology officer at Merrill Lynch, and Michael Richardson, VP of application development at InterWorld Corp. A reasonable crowd was on hand considering the Jupiter conference party and Wit Capital's new loft-space party the same night.