On Saturday, nextNY (now 600 strong) went small, gathering at the offices of Sportsvite to provide some feedback to two growing NYC internet startups. About 20 nextNY members broke into two groups to bounce ideas and constructive commentary back to Sportsvite, a team sports utility and social network, who had the home field advantage, and 30elm, a recently lauched site in the home design space.

The sessions will hopefully be the first of many opportunities for startups to get feedback from peers who are both tech savvy and interested in their particular spaces. There were certainly plenty of techy football, softball and dodgeball players among the Sportsvite group that I participated in.

Anyone can host a “Focus and Feedback” session, so if you have a company or application whose tires you’d like to get kicked, all you need to do is to find a space. Sportsvite was kind enough to buy us lunch, but, for me personally, it’s always great to be able to sit down with the creators of a product to give direct feedback and know that at least one of my 15 bad ideas might accidently make its way into the product.

So, if you want to organize or host a session, just hit up our listserv and post a new page on the wiki.

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.

Deck the halls… Light the candles… Tag your wishlists on del.icio.us! It’s time to gather with your New York tech friends and celebrate the holiday season at the nextNY Holiday Gathering. Join us and celebrate our fantastic first year.

When: December 13th 7PM-10PM

Where:
Apple Restaurant and Bombar
17 Waverly Pl (Cross Street: Between Greene Street and Mercer Street)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 473-8888

Who: Other up and coming members of New York City’s technology and digital media community.

If you’re new to the group or thinking about joining, come out and meet us. We’re a fun bunch and we love great company.

If you’re thinking of coming by, let us know by adding your name to the RSVP wiki just so we can get a sense of how many people to expect.

We look forward to seeing you there.