This just in the inbox and RSS reader:

Freelancers Union is issuing an open call for new designs for our homepage. The entries will be voted on by our members, with the designer of the winning submission receiving a contract to redesign our site. For more details, visit the competition page.

 The Freelancers Union has been on the discussion boards of nextNY recently, as members discuss and recommend different options in the City for getting cheap health insurance. Now nextNYers (or any web desiger in the NYC area) can compete for a contract to completely overhaul the Union’s site.

 More information can be found at the Freelancers Union blog and contest page.

 Who’s betting on a nextNY member winning this?

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Nate Westheimer es el jefe de Lower East Side-based BricaBox, LLC — soon launching VentBox.com — and blogs at innonate.com

After hanging out on the email list and blog of nextNY for several months now, I really enjoyed my first official nextNY event on Wednesday night. The aptly named “nextNY Holiday Drinking”, hosted at Apple Restaurant and Bombar in the West Village, turned out a great mix of nextNY members, new and old, current, future, and past. From a newbie’s perspective, here’s what went down:

Apple Restaurant turned out to be a great location for the event and fit everyone comfortably. Some people got tables and food, while most stayed within 15 feet of the bar, refilling their glasses as often as possible.

nextNY old-timer Lee Semel, of Innofinity, was seen talking to nearly everyone in the room, as I saw him in every corner of the bar throughout the evening. It was certainly good to see this guy, after meeting him for the first time several months ago. He also seemed to serve as a welcoming committee, singling out first time nextNYers and giving them a nice introduction to the group.

Charlie O’Donnell, of Oddcast, was on site of course, but he seemed to have the crowd move to him, not staying very far from his table of food. I was one of many to make the trek over to his corner and make an introduction. Good to finally meet the man behind the talking avatar. It was a very Wizard of Oz-like moment.

Most stylin’ of the night was Michael Galpert of Worth 1000, with his brimmed beanie tilted to one side. We chatted for a while about SEO optimization and had a few brewskies. The few times I’ve met him (the first at the Fred Wilson event reported here), I’ve come away with the impression that he’s a jack-of-all-trade type. Good times.

He and I, along with just about everyone else in the room, were also seen talking to Courtney Pulitzer (Cocktails With Courtney) at one point or another. Courtney managed to get more insider info into her tightly held notebook than imaginable (and I managed to say “off the record” more times than I thought imaginable, though mostly just for the fun of saying “off the record”).

Also in the press corner, but of more credentialed bylines, was Caroline McCarthy, of CNET’s Webware.com. She was one of the first to arrive and managed to stay longer than most. Surprisingly, and quite pleasantly, she seemed to be at the party more to mingle than to get a scoop.

Seen chasing Caroline down (to thank her for this great review of his product) was Anthony Casalena, of Squarespace (which powers the nextNY blog!). We chatted, not surprisingly, about press coverage and the type of customers it brings. “Not paying,” was his succinct conclusion, though he conceded it was nice to get recognition nonetheless.

Not too far along in the night I got to say hi to the organizer of the Drinking party himself, Keshava Dasarathy. When I asked him how things were going at his new job at Bain, he said two things: “Amazing” and “I should be back to the office by 10 tonight.” nextNY is lucky to have him still organizing events. Thank you.

At one point, I think after wandering to Charlie’s side of the bar, I stood and held an interesting conversation with Scott Cherkin of DealMine.com and David Dundas of YouAreTV.com. We spoke mostly of David’s company and my soon-to-be-announced project. In the video space, we all agreed that niche video sites will probably be where we see the most growth in the future, as content providers become wary of having their quality videos next to Jackass-wannabe videos. Good luck to David and his team.

Near the end of the night I said hi to Greg Galant, of RadioTail and VentureVoice, who I had not seen since RadioTail had been “TechCrunched” back in September. We actually spoke mostly about RadioTail developer Aaron Quint’s old school animations from his (and my) days at Brandeis University’s BTV. “The Story of A Triangle”, Greg and I agreed, definitely needs to be uploaded to YouTube.

We all know Steve Eisenberg was there, as he took these photos and uploaded them to Flickr.

Last, but certainly not least, I spent a while chatting up Danny Wen of Iridesco (of Harvest and SuprGlu fame). Our conversations revolved around the merits of using traditional forms of advertising to market Web 2.0 products, which, for the record, I’m not sure is done enough.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

(Note: I saw and met others, but have since forgotten. Write your observations in the comment area so I can remember you were there!)

— Nate Westheimer is the Founder & CEO of BricaBox, LLC, a company based in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He blogs at innonate.com.

 

In a fine display of hard-news reporting, VentureBeat — a Silicon Valley-based blog about Web 2.0 deals — posted a recent review/comment about The Mercury News’ latest hyping of West Coast start-ups.

The most astonishing thing about VentureBeat’s analysis is its claim that East Coast start-ups are more self-absorbed! (They use FL-based PayPerPost and their video blog as an evidence that “the most ridiculous examples of self-absorbtion [sic] do not necessarily hail from Silicon Valley, as some might assume.”)

So, my question to the NYC start-up community is this: Really folks? Are we really more self-absorbed as a start-up community? Or is VentureBeat just looking for ways to “Beat up” the East Coast by inappropriately “Beating __” the West Coast?

Are self-absorption levels even worth talking about?

As you think about it, check out the cake West Coast-based Meebo made for a company party.

If you’re in the business of monetizing content and you’re HQed in NYC, you should go to the ContentNext mixer on December 5th.

Registration is now open, and, if history is any indication, it won’t be open for long. You can read more about the event on the PaidContent.org site, but I’ll add my own endorsement of the event:

I went to the last event over the summer and found it to be one of the best, most professional networking events I’ve ever been to. It’s a collection of C-level execs from nearly all of the top content companies in the City. Last event had Arthur Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times, and this time, the editorial guest will be Gordon Crovitz, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, president of the Consumer Media Group and EVP-Dow Jones.

It’s a crowd worth mingling with.

If you want to read some loud cheerleading for the New York City tech scene, look no further than the Autumn 2006 edition of the City Journal. In this issue, Steven Malanga writes about “Silicon Alley 2.0”. This article, alerted to me by Rafat Ali’s post at PaidContent.org, claims that “now—unexpectedly, even improbably— [Silicon Alley] is reemerging as an economic force in New York.” The article also quotes Kevin Ryan, cofounder of DoubleClick, saying what Fred Wilson said last night, that:

Today New York teems with entrepreneurs. Maybe we’re not as deep as Silicon Valley, but we’re probably ahead of most other places, and that’s the city’s strength.

One item to note about the articles: Neither mentions nextNY.My guess is that won’t be for long.