Last year, I was involved in organizing an event at Stanford featuring Linden Lab’s CEO and their online product Second Life. It was one of the most surreal topics that we had hosted at VLAB, talking about products and entire economies that don’t really exist. I knew this would be a field to watch, or even better, to participate in the building of related business models.

Jerry Paffendorf and I met quite randomly years ago at a wireless industry conference. He’s now working as Futurist in Residence at the Electric Sheep Company.

I moved from Silicon Valley to NYC for several reasons, including my contention that there must exist technologically-forward, alternative type companies oozing with style outside of the Valley. If a company that architects virtual properties within Second Life and other Virtual Worlds is not such a company, I don’t know what is. They are located within tres chic Williamsburg, Brooklyn (if you’re from the Valley, think Berkeley/Oakland vibe).

Jerry organized an event held the night after Thanksgiving entitled “Thanks for the Metaverse”. 30 or so geeks and geekettes were in attendance, a well-known VRML pioneer gave a presentation, and lots of discussions ensued. I really felt like I was back in the Valley, or perhaps Burning Man…

I’m surprised it’s taken this long, but it was in fact the first party I’ve been where people introduced themselves first w/ their “IRL” name and then their avatar name. Interesting sub-topics included the “CopyBot issue”, real concerns that virtual bling creators have regarding their creations being copied/stolen. The presenter also declared that there likely never will be an actual Metaverse, as the variety of virtual worlds are tough to connect. Of course this was met with cries of:

“The Metaverse is dead— long live the Metaverse!”

Ken Berger is a serial entrepreneur and mentor capitalist who recently made the Valley -> Alley switch. His bio and contact information can be found here.

The big event in the NYC tech/startup world last night was the TechCrunch New York Party, held at the exclusive and sultry Bed (yes, the one you remember from the Sex and the City episode).

I showed up with an agenda in mind: to take the pulse of the NY tech scene, compare to the Valley and gauge whether there is a mania here as there is there. My conclusion is that the hype really hasn’t carried over here yet. This is healthy. We found ourselves attending an actual party— not a check-writing, high-powered, breathless deal-fest like Web2.0 in SF last week must have been— but an actual party.

Ok, maybe more like a party amidst a lot of commercials. The length of the sponsor list rivaled the attendee list. But the venue layout served well, with the exhibitors on a short platform around the main floor, and people free to opt-out by avoiding the periphery and/or hitting the roof deck. Also, I asked around and ran into at least one entrepreneur who was ecstatic about the contacts made with the vendors. An open bar (beer and wine only— or open a tab for cocktails) at Bed can not be cheap, but at sponsorships ranging from $5k-25k (rumored) x the number of sponsors, this still was likely a successful event monetarily.

Heavy rains were a factor, which probably helped as the attendee density was just right.

Congrats to Mike and his crew for a great party and bringin’ it out east. NYC could use more events like this.

Ken Berger is a serial entrepreneur and mentor capitalist who recently made the Valley -> Alley switch. His bio and contact information can be found here.