Techcrunch NY - No bubble yet

Techcrunch and Meetup had their big bash in NY this evening.  Lots of fun, lots of people, but not quite as crazy as last week's Web 2.0 Conference, which Kevin Maney captured best in his USA Today column.
When I left, the doorman's clicker had counted 503 people, quite a bit fewer than the expected 700 or more. Of course, the threat of rain might have dampened some of the enthusiasm.

Still, there were lots of interesting things to see. First, Snap.com launched Snap Preview Anywhere
(this is a shameless plug since I'm on their board).  Fred Walti and Jason Fields of snap were there showing how with just a line of Javascript on your blog or web page, you get previews of any link by just hovering.

Connie Connors was showing her new service, Hittail, which really helps you to do search engine optimization and keyword selection. With the freemium model, anyone can use thisquite handy service to get better placement and lower costs. And Connie thoughtfully provided neat glowstick stirrers for the free drinks.

Compete.com, originally an Idealab company, was showing its new easy to use site statistics.  I find them more accurate for US sites than Alexa, and a lot easier to read. 
Their marketing brought back memories of the techniques used by half.com, putting their pitch in a place that half the audience could not read, but the other half was sure to linger over.

There were lots of other companies there - mulitply.com looked interesting, as did fleck.com.  But it didn't have the hordes of venture capitalists roaming around with open checkbooks the way Web 2.0 did.  Maybe in New York, we're still way too early for another bubble.

Comments

[Andrew Parker]

Glad to see you eat your own dogfood with the snap thumbnail preview on hover. I've had it on my blog for a week now, and I dig it. I just wish it loaded faster (or had a way to request preloading when I change my site).

[Patrick Aievoli]

TechCrunch was great. Would have loved to have met up with you. Your concept of Way Too Early is desperately needed. Would really like to talk to you about my company. We are a startup looking for funding. TechCrunch could use a meet and greet for startups and angels/VC. Would be agreat boost to this new wave of Web 2.0.

Patrick

[Gideon Marken]

>> QUOTE: Compete.com, originally an Idealab company, was showing its new easy to use site statistics. I find them more accurate for US sites than Alexa, and a lot easier to read.

Yes - the stats are very nice but they seriously need the following to get better traction:

1. an API
2. a simple JS widdget to show charts by passing domains in the JS URL

I'm just about to launch a site that displays the charts from Alexa for social media sites - http://socialnetwork.in . I would much rather use Compare's data and charts... but they're a closed system - no sharing of data, so there's no opportunity, and no links pointing to compare.com.

If Compare wants to become THE place on the Web to compare traffic - they need to open up!

- Gideon

[othemsthesk]

What an interesting topic, but I think in a different way.
Extrefox

[Cathrine]

To anon 11:50BS. As a news reporter, I of cousre owe a certain allegiance to my supervisors and the organization that employs me (which as far as I know doesn't have jack to do with Halliburton et al). But my primary duty (and indeed, that of my supervisors) is to cover news and inform the reading public of things they need to know. I have, in my career, quit jobs where I felt that wasn't the case.If all I cared about was pleasing some boss, I could make a h--- of a lot more money writing press releases for a phone company. So spare me your ill-informed and paranoid media conspiracy theories.

[Mahasen]

We're absolutely on the same track here, Joey. I agree the rbospnsieility for creating a community environment rests with the industry. When people won't use our products, that has to be our problem, not theirs.Livingstories is a step in the right direction, tho implementation thus far is lacking. I like to talk about "news services" now rather than "newsstories" to acknowledge that the old atomic unit of news -- the article -- is insufficent.News articles are a commodity. Communities of people who care about news are not.