When I got an unauthorized invite, via a tipster, to Dave Morin's birthday party Tuesday night, I knew I had to crash — if only to find out what he and his friends were thinking. Morin, you see, is a Facebook employee and a prime instigator of Camp Cyprus, the gang of Internet instigators whose shockingly fun video…
No one quite understood why venture capitalist Stewart Alsop was handing out salamis at Alsop Louie Partners' annual party at Tres Agaves Tuesday night. Power investors in the crowd: Ann Winblad and Ron Conway. The boring business gossip: Sequoia's funereal presentation to entrepreneurs on the coming financial…
Brit outsider Toby Young has made a career out of getting fired from Vanity Fair, among other things. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is now a movie—take that, Graydon Carter. A gathering was held at Soho House to celebrate, and to give people the chance to pretend to be friends with some while alienating…
Last Friday, we were wondering how many people we could fit on our new office roof deck before it collapsed. So we got a bunch of alcohol (thanks Svedka!) and invited a whole lot of people over! It was a nicely catered clusterfuck. The roof stayed intact. Nick McGlynn took photos.Click for the slideshow.
Things end. People move on. The Brooklyn hipster kickball league has entertained us with their exploits all summer—fights, getting arrested in Macy's, letters to dive bars demanding a laminated free drinking pass. Now the season is over. Last Friday, they gathered in Greenpoint one last time for the Kickball Prom. We…
Please tell me someone has pictures of Seesmic founder Loïc Le Meur giving small-time technology investor Michael Arrington Segway riding lessons outside 330 Ritch for the TechCrunch50 conference's closing party. For now, I'll have to settle for Siqi Chen, left, and Alex Le, right, the guys behind Facebook widget…
Stubblicious Flickr developer Cal Henderson and his "fake wife," Pownce community liaison Ariel Waldman, were sharing a precious booth with their entourage at yet another overpacked Seesmic party. Here, Waldman tries to chat with Laughing Squid founder Scott Beale over the din. Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis and Twitter…
A Valleywag spy attended the second day of TechCrunch50 and then followed the crowd to a dinner, a party and an after party. He learned that blondes love Mark Cuban, Jason Calacanis likes to drink, and flack turned TechCrunch blogger Calley Nye knows how to leave with a billionaire. Also, our spy reports that the…
On Friday, lease negotiations broke down between the owner of Astroland, Coney Island's honky-tonk, 46-year-old amusement park, and its landlord, Thor Equities. It was abruptly announced that the scruffy Brooklyn park would shut down forever on Sunday—a month ahead of schedule. Damn, gentrification! Would it really be…
Jason Calacanis, the Mahalo CEO and email list administrator, and Michael Arrington, editor of TechCrunch and hero to hopeless website creators, held a meetup in Menlo Park last night for finalists in their TechCrunch50 startup beauty contest at the British Bankers Club. Our spy infiltrated the proceedings — and…
PALO ALTO — How was Facebook's toga party, held to celebrate the company's 100 millionth user? We couldn't sit back and just read the status updates. So we sent a Valleywag spy deep inside the social network's headquarters. At last, the answer to the question, "What do you get when you mix 5 kegs of beer and a case…
Programming Django isn't quite the same as dropping Dorothy Parker quips at lushed-out parties, but Pownce cofounder Leah Culver's line last night warmed even my cynical heart. Scene: We were mobbed briefly around the photo booth at 330 Ritch, former gay bathhouse and setting for the public launch of Yahoo's…
As the risk of being increasingly self-referential, photos from last night's Manhattan Media Meshing event follow. Round up the usual suspects, including bright-eyed young literary woman Jessica Roy, microceleb Rex Sorgatz, and all the other Internet kids standing in line for the bathroom. Click for the gallery, with…
We asked for spies to infiltrate (far too dramatic a term, really) the Julia Allison/ Nonsociety pilot show shoot yesterday. We know the event caused a good deal of drama amongst the fameballs themselves; but what was it like for the average attendee, drawn in by the heady promise of proximity to Mary Rambin and co.?…
TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is viciously critical of Web startups that make their users pay for their wares. But he's perfectly happy to charge party sponsors for booths. The return on investment was hard to find at TechCrunch's annual party held at August Capital's Sand Hill Road offices on Friday. The…
The other night, Lockhart Steele, the ex-Gawker Media guy with the porn-star name, threw a lovely, cliquey little party in SoMa. Steele ditched the usual startup-founder blowhards for a pack of writers and editors — I had a national newspaper assignment before my first club soda. But things turned ugly when Wired…
Attention, rival Facebook-application developers: Slide has money in the bank, and your widget startup doesn't. Such was the unsubtle message of Slide's third anniversary, held last night at San Francisco's newly opened Contemporary Jewish Museum. It was the first tech-company party held at the sleekly modern spot,…
At the brand new Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco last night, the team at European VC firm Wellington Partners celebrated the addition of an outpost in Palo Alto to their existing offices in London and Munich with a swell mixer. The hors d'oeuvres? Cheese gougères, tiny lamb chops, mushroom napoleons,…
The most shocking sight at yesterday's SF Pride parade wasn't the contingent of marching Googlers. It wasn't the Yahoo booth handing out temporary tattoos. It was the total absence of other tech companies, small or large, from what should have been a cheap and easy opportunity to build brand goodwill among the…
An epic battle for control of the Internet was waged Friday night under the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge. n+1 editor and novelist Keith Gessen threw a party to "Take Back the Internet." He basically invited everyone who has ever been mean to him online, as well as readers of his Tumblr, which is mostly aimed at…
