The boss text-messaged me instructions to report on who was there and who wasn't, but to me all business reporters and publicists kind of look alike. I could only confirm that the lanky guy whom several partygoers mistook for Digg founder Kevin Rose, complete with bedhead and horizontal stripey-shirt, was Not Kevin.

Besides the hacks and flacks, any event south of Market Street includes a few self-styled "startup CEOs" who've yet to hire a single full-time employee. Happily, one turned out to be Kyle Shank from Uncov, the cruelly funny site that aspires to be the anti-Techcrunch. (Memo to Kyle: Trade the 1997 orange shirt for some basic black. Sorry, kid, but if you give tough love, you get tough love.)

Overheard

Your name's Melody? Wasn't she the drummer for Josie and the Pussycats?

Working at home means you can drink whenever you want.

You guys coming outside? You know, around the corner, you know? Look, we're going to smoke some weed, are you in or out?

(Above: Donna Sokolsky and my wife laugh at the boys.)

As the party wound down, I followed Om out the door in pursuit of another photo. He refused. "I don't want to be the story, I want to be the guy telling the stories," he said. "People keep trying to make me the story. It's a problem." Fact check, Om: In the also-ran media world of San Francisco, you resigned from Time Inc. to go blogging. A year later you're doing better than most of those who stayed behind. You're a story. Cope.

(Photos by James Yu and Joey Wan; used by permission)

The fabulous and sexy Conference Fonzerelli has trouble avoiding parties. Even when he stopped to retch up the last of his peyote buttons into an alley off second street, he found himself standing outside of the PingIdentity party.

Elsewhere, Microsoft held a press gathering at the Cartoon Art Museum, irony unimagined. Just another indication of the Mickey Mouse attitude Microsoft has towards security.

So, remember, application security scanning is a 30 million dollar a year industry, max. And yet, Veracode is the bell of the ball at this year's RSA Conference. Lets all hope those shiny new employees and pr people help to get the company acquired before CA's seed money runs out.

Still, best quote of the day goes to Microsoft: "I love RSA, you can assume everyone here is not a complete retard."

[Photo: Getty]

[photo by Scott Beale, Laughing Squid]

Tech people proclaim Silicon Valley is a meritocracy, but you can't get your merit assessed by those who've never met you. Getting into VIP mixers is a fast track to having your business plan read, your resume floated, your lunch calendar booked solid. That's why "How do I get into the next TechCrunch?" is a top SVUG request.

Full disclosure: We tracked Mike down and asked him. He left us to figure it out for ourselves. We reverse-engineered not one, but three access channels to TechCrunch, GigaOm and other permanent floating riot clubs.

• Buy some ads. You can't buy press coverage. But big advertisers get asked to the parties they've paid for. The sponsor thank-you events are boring — great quarter, Josh! — but you can use them to meet players who'll invite you to the real shmoozefests.
• Spill some info. Journalists and analysts can be bribed. Not with cash or goods, but with information. Feed them tips. Serve as a background expert. Build out a blog they can plunder. You know stuff Mike doesn't, right? Out with it!
• Throw your own party. Remember First Tuesday? People who throw good parties get invited to good parties.

Once you're in, what do you do? Easy:

• Put on a jacket. You can always take it off.
• Bring a hot friend. Trust us, it's like fly fishing for moguls.
• Stop talking! Unless you're Jason Calacanis, it's boring as hell. Power players hate people who spout big ideas all night. The funding goes to those who exude quiet I-can-execute confidence.

One personal tip: Don't try to "+1" your pals onto your invitation. The host wants you, not that guy who follows you around. Hey Mike, I know this guy who writes for Valleywag, can he come too? Bad move.

This note comes from a member of an unspecified band:

none of us got any pics of wednesday night (last time we played shoreline they threatened to cut off our left ears and/or testicles if we were seen with cameras backstage) but there were cameras aplenty among the guests.

did you get any photos yet? i'd love to send them to the band.

as expected, the suits weren't really getting into it (except for chris), so we saved our best work for the catering staff that had hooked us up with food and booze, but the best part was actually later when chris came into our dressing room, loudly asking everyone if they "wanted to party."

Were you there? Send stories and photos to tips@valleywag.com. Below, another attendee confirms DeWolfe's busy fingers in beautifully capped prose.

I WAS AT THE GOOGLE EVENT LAST NIGHT AND YOUR DEWOLFE STORY IS TRUE HE WAS HAMMERED DANCING ON TABLES AND GROPING WOMEN. TODAYS FALLOUT WAS WORSE HE BLEW OFF HIS PANEL WITH GOOGLE AT ZEITGEIST AND GOOGE IS FURIOUS. THEY PAY MYSPACE 900 NILLION AND THE GUY CANT EVEN SIT ON A PANEL FOR 2 MINS

Earlier: Google Zeitgeist party at Shoreline: Pix plz k thx bye [Valleywag]

GigaOM founder Om Malik threw a wine and liquor party at his office in San Fran's Pier 38 last night, a trendy gathering of Web 2.0 entrepreneurs and the writers who love them (or at least want them for their bodies). The tech blog kingpin floated about the room like royalty at court, but he did make one faux pas: He left copies of the guest list at the door for attendees to pick up and peruse.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's on the list, as well as SF mayor Gavin Newsom, Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson and Guy Kawasaki, father of evangelical marketing. You get two guesses whether any of them showed. I'm surprised no one wandered the party playing guest-list bingo. The real question is, did Om really think these bold names would come?

View page 1, page 2, and page 3 and play Bingo yourself.

Apparently the Women 2.0 model comes with an accessory in the trunks that 1.0 lacked.

Women 2.0 Poolside Party [Angie Chang on Flickr via Kevin Burton]
Earlier: To-Do this Weekend: Get FUBAR at FooBar [Valleywag]

Behold this party animal, shot in the wild by Laughing Squid's Scott Beale:

Wooooo! That's one ca-raaaazy guy! I hear, later that night, he took his jacket off!

Really, we have nothing but respect for Arrington's ability to hold a schmoozefest, but let's not pretend this or previous Arrington parties were anything more than pale guys pretending to like each other and hitting on the five cute girls in attendance.

There's nothing wrong with that kind of party, even if it was so boring that we couldn't bear to run our usual photologue. But it's wrong of Business 2.0 to lure fun-seekers to spots like August Capital, when they'd be much happier throwing down (twice) with a blogger like Om Malik in San Fran.

Blogging for Dollars [Business 2.0]

First off, it's true, Michael himself bumped Fox Interactive head Ross Levinsohn and other A-listers to the top of the guest list for his next party, which is turning into the social event of the season. Presumably he bumped the names up so everyone will hope to "bump into" Ross and sell him their startups after two drinks.

Second, Mike told John Paczkowski, writer of the Good Morning Silicon Valley blog, "you don't need to bother with silly things like an RSVP. you are on the list."

Third, he wishes TechCrunch writer Nik Cubrilovic would "get his sorry ass out of bed." The whole e-mail exchange is after the jump.

(It really hurts to run an accidental e-mail — an act I've never done before and won't do again soon — because Michael is such a nice guy. But it's just too fun, and no one's gonna lose their job over Mike Arrington being a pimp.)

Nick,

work with nik when he gets his sorry ass out of bed. I'd like both of these guys added to the wiki at the top where dan farber and rob hof are. important. get their sites right too.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Paczkowski, John" <[xxx]@mercurynews.com>
> Date: July 21, 2006 1:32:17 PM PDT
> To: "'Michael Arrington '" <[xxx]@gmail.com>
> Cc: "'[Nick Gonzalez]@gmail.com'" <[xxx]@gmail.com>
> Subject: RE: meet this weekend?
>
> John Murrell - the other half of SiliconValley.com. He copy edits GMSV,
> posts occasionally during the week, and sits in for me while i'm away. Great
> guy — 32-year veteran of Knight Ridder, with reporting and editing stints
> at the Duluth News Tribune and on the National/Foreign Desk of the Mercury
> News.
>
> —-—Original Message—-—
> From: Michael Arrington
> To: Paczkowski, John
> Cc: Nick Gonzalez
> Sent: 7/21/2006 1:24 PM
> Subject: Re: meet this weekend?
>
> you don't need to bother with silly things like an RSVP. you are on
> the list. Who's JM?
>
>
> On Jul 21, 2006, at 12:44 PM, Paczkowski, John wrote:
>
>> now how are JM and I to RSVP to TechCrunch with the comments
>> locked down
>> ...
>>
>> —-—Original Message—-—
>> From: Michael Arrington
>> To: [John Paczkowski]@realcities.com
>> Sent: 7/20/2006 6:27 PM
>> Subject: meet this weekend?
>>
>> John, are you available to meet for coffee or lunch any time this
>> weekend? Where do you live? I'm in Atherton but will drive to you if
>> you are off somewhere.
>>
>> Mike

Righto, waggers, see you all at tonight's Valleyschwag Hoedown tonight, where the inexplicably-cowboy-themed schwag-of-the-month club will reveal their new space-themed venture.

Should you be at this party? Yes. It's hosted by these fun people:

You still have time to drive up from the Valley and party at 365 Brannan, San Francisco. You don't want to get stuck partying remotely.

Valleyschwag Hoedown [Valleyschwag.com]
Video: The Schwag Lab [Jumpcut]

• New York-based e-mail startup Daily Candy gets a sweet deal: an investment valuing the company at $130 mil, which lets the company take down its "For Sale" sign and get back to the important business of making urban women feel inadequately shoed. [Gawker, link being fixed]
• So some big-city bloggers had a party for Six Apart's new Vox blogging service, right? And some guys sat in a hot tub on the roof? And probably someone called this the bubble? Hon, it's not a bubble until what's in the hot tub can get you drunk. Anyway, click through for topless shots of Gawker Media managing editor Lockhart Steele. [Teen Drama]
• Damn it, Gawker's stealing all the tech news today. As our catty sister notes, the New York Times is proud to name-drop Dodgeball.com founder Dennis Crowley, the man responsible for every New Yorker and San Franciscan constantly updating their friends on how drunk they're about to get. [Gawker]
• Pictured: The Times also uses a photo illustration to remind everyone of those wild days of free drink coasters for all. [NYT]
• Mooching off the "Get a Mac" commercials: You can make a clever parody or a creepy knock-off ad. (Please make the parody.) [iLoad]

It is thus with greatest pleasure that I opened the July edition of Valleyschwag. The monthly branded-geegaws package outdid itself by scoring some edibles from aol.com. Love or loathe it, any site that sends Superman cookies bound up with its logo is a winner. The crumbs may fade, but the memory of AOL's gesture — or is that just the saturated fat — will stick with me.

Equally scrumptious is the fortune cookie from Mozes, which tells me to text "fortune" to 66937 for my fortune. Not that I bothered texting, as adding "in bed" to "Mozes" was entertainment enough.

After the jump, more schwag, and someone's holding a hoedown.

Edgeio sends a pleasantly generic sticker that won't go on my iBook, as do abazab, eurekster, and snubster.

AOL accompanies the cookies with a dogtag bearing that little man. He's jumping. It's a symbol of an AOL user trying to fly. AOL must represent gravity, or lost dreams or something.

Jumpcut sends a rough but rightly-sized (small) tee. The logo looks cool enough to wear on an off day.

That's everything except waitwhat'sthisit'saPOSTER FROM VALLEYSCHWAG! Looks like the cowboys are holding a hoedown on July 14 at their office in South Park, San Francisco. Check out the deets and RSVP here.

Valleyschwag [Official site]
Valleyschwag hoedown [Announcement]

Video: ShopWiki Silicon Alley Luau [YouTube]
Earlier: Crash this bash: Silicon Alley Luau [Valleywag]

PaidContent.org founder Rafat Ali threw an NYC media party last night to celebrate his blog's first investment round. The "guys in nametags making pitches" reminded media pundit Jeff Jarvis of the bashes of the dot-com boom. The Gawker Media overlords were bouncing biz-dev people back and forth like Web 2.0 ping-pong. "All the hookups had the blandness of lesbian sex," said one attendee. "Nobody has any money, so there's no penetration."

Not everyone felt the same queasy deja vu. ZDNet writer Donna Bogatin felt the party was, well, too boring and productive to match those "just-for-fun" free-for-alls of the 90s. (Or Bogatin's learned to network since then.) Valleywag asked expert socialites: What makes a party a sign of the tech bubble? It boils down to the food, the drink, the entertainers, the partiers, and the scene.

The food
Spot On editor Chris Nolan (who welcomes Ali and GigaOM blogger Om Malik to the funded-content-site fold, which Spot On entered a year ago), has attended (and thrown) parties since her days as the Valley's gossip columnist. "You need free sushi," says Nolan, "and lots of it. And not veggie sushi, free raw fish. Made before your eyes by real Japanese guys."

"An entire table devoted to cheese, preferably with a cheese sommelier," says Business 2.0 online editor Owen Thomas, who wrote for the snarkzine Suck during the Bubble.

The drink
"It can't be a 90s bubble party without Absolut," says Dot-com marketer David Parmet. "Could we say Stormhoek is the new Absolut?" With marketing blogger Hugh MacLeod pimping this wine in the Valley through branded prints, blogging, and sponsored geek dinners, Stormhoek is the official drink of the Valley alcoholic.

The entertainers
Everyone agrees, the bands have to be cool. "Ask Jeeves had Elvis Costello," says Nolan. "AMD had Bob Dylan and his son's band, the Wallflowers. RSA had RunDMC. So you need some bought-and-paid-for musical talent. Or someone like Courtney Love, who showed up at TED one year."

Judging by that, the five-year party hasn't even started. "The bubble's on the way back," Nolan says. "But until I see Diana Krall cooing to the Flckr kids, I wouldn't get too excited."

Slate and Wired writer Paul Boutin says, "It's not a bubble-era blowout unless The Who's on first."

The partiers
Who shows up in a bubble party? "Hot chicks," says Thomas. "Specifically, hot chicks there to pick up free drinks and Internet billionaires. God, you're giving me flashbacks, STOP!"

Thomas also cites "the presence of anyone whose business card includes the words 'business development.' More than half the crowd works in public relations. The rest is looking for a new job."

Parmet goes glassy-eyed. "When you see Jeff Daschis of [profligate Internet marketer] Razorfish appear with Kyle and Chan of Agency.com on the balcony, kind of like Gatsby...then it's a bubble."

The scene
In the end, it's all about the memories. "The most over-the-top private party I went to," says Nolan, "was the one Amy and Ted Barnett threw at their house on [San Fran's] Dolores Street. Valet parking in the Mission District. Oyster in champagne shooters and everyone getting stoned in the backyard."

"When I'm using a piece of corporate shwag to funnel candy up my nose," says one tipster, "then the bubble is upon us."

Party like it's 1999: LAUNCH PARTY: Betting on One Big Night [Industry Standard]
Photo: Dance floor laugh [Mr. Wright at Flickr]

Still hunting for the secret Asian-girl-collection MySpace profile (gotta catch 'em all!) of founder Tom Anderson. But a reader went to Tom's party in Miami (pictured). Sez he:

He threw a MySpace party on South Beach and he had this entourage of Asians from California I believe that came with him, and they basically added to the "show." One of them is a model with her own MySpace page that has a big following i believe.

Not that we should be surprised — if you were a 30-year-old guy worth a few million, and you had 73 million friends to pick from, wouldn't you hang with models? So partly as evidence and partly as eye candy, we've got more pics from the MySpace party. Tom's bikini-clad Asian girls be after the jump.

Watch closely —

— the girls are never —

— next to Tom.

1. It's not a music-store launch party.
2. It's more of a "networking event."

Ugh, a "networking event." Can it not be all about business for one night? Is this separate from the rumored Friday night bash, or have you really got to fight for your right to party?

Google admits music shindig, but denies music store rumor [CNET]

This sounds sketchy as hell, but if Google's gonna launch a music site, this is the way to do it. Here's a hot tip, e-mailed in:

I just heard that several google millionaires are throwing a invite only party to launch some mystery music content website that they built. The party is on the 31st at studio Z in San Francisco.

They've hired vintage415.com to do the planning and have a couple DJ's from kmel doing the music. I've heard that all attendees will receive a year subscription to the site, other high end gifts will be given away as well.

There's also supposed to be a surprise musical guest performance at midnight but that name is under wraps. I do know that the musical guest is driving there from his/her house and is very famous. All the normal names will be in attendance, Larry, Sergy [sic], etc.

Any bets on the musical guest? Bets whether the party's even real? Bets on whether Larry or Sergey will get drunk and make out?

UPDATE: It's real, kinda: another tipster says,

theres a launch party at the fillmore that night and it doesn't have anything to do with google. its a yahoo streaming audio site and van morrison is supposed to be there.

On Sunday, Yahoo's "got bought and loving it" group — Upcoming, del.icio.us, and Flickr — threw the most star-studded SXSW party after the official Interactive Finishing bash. Among the sparkling attendees: Craig Newmark, the San Fran developer crowd, and a gaggle of Internet-famous folks. Beer, margaritas, and t-shirts flowed freely. Here are the people worth jokin' about, with photos from Scott Beale's SXSW gallery.

Flickr community wrangler Heather Champ. So cool, even her margarita is too hot to hold.

CSS Zen Garden tender Dave Shea: "My preferred Flickr tag, of course."

After the jump, Dooce flips a double-bird.

Rubyred Labs UE guy Thor Muller isn't sure what he's eating, but that shirt will hide any spills.

A rare and mysterious photo of Valleywag's outsourced photographer: The ruling tentacle of Laughing Squid, Scott Beale.

Heather Champ (another meme photographer), Heather Armstrong (Dooce to you), and Mighty Girl Maggie Mason do a stunning, if seated, Charlie's Angels Blogger Edition.

Jimmy Wales and Craig Newmark: Mr. Wikipedia and Mr. Craigslist show off matching facial hair and balding patterns.

"Just some last-minute changes...like adding that guy to the acknowledgements. That should earn me another free beer, right?"

Bryght's Kris Krug: "Get Hammer on the phone! Yeah, it's an Interactive party, but I'm dressed like a SXSW Music attendee!"

New York superblogger Jason Kottke likes being out with people. He really likes it. PLEASE DON'T MAKE HIM GO BACK TO THE BAD BLOGGING PLACE.

The Rocketboom team: OMG Amanda Congdon! (Oh, hi Andy.) (No, seriously, Andrew Baron also rocks.) (Bonus story: Amanda wasn't sure she could wear the GETV "I was Internet famous once" shirt. Amanda, you will ALWAYS be Internet famous — wear that shirt with proud irony.)

Photos: SXSW Interactive 2006 Photos [Laughing Squid]

Robots, girls, theremins and 84-year-old war veterans playing dominoes: this is the kind of Bizarro World party that the EFF and Creative Commons hosted at the Elks Lodge #201 in Austin, TX. Entertaining the party-goers, who stared wide-eyed at the freak show, was the Austin Robot Group — the members built robots who zoomed slowly around the "dancefloor" and pinched the behinds of the ladies who dared to dance. All two of them. Audience participation included fooling with four guitar-shaped theremi [thereminae? — ed.], all playing some sort of cheesy music, reminiscent of a 1950s sci-fi soundtrack.

In attendance and in awe at the general weirdness of the night were geekstars Craig Newmark, Ian Clarke (founder of freenet), Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, the ever-fashionable and emo-haired Peter Rojas (founder of Endgadget) and Doc Searls, the granddaddy of us all.

The members of the Elks lodge weren't scared off by the dorky party and sat around as if there weren't 200 geeks running around changing the world. As a special treat, the Elks' drug prevention literature was laid out. Our personal favorite, "The Elks' Tips for Teens: The Truth About Hallucinogens." Check GETV for GETV's video (to see the bum-pinching, you need to squint).

SXSW06: The Robot Group [GETV]

How is imeem paying for these things? This isn't the first big bash that imeem's thrown; they held a big party at Macworld and regularly throw events in San Francisco.

But whoever's going to these isn't calling imeem back the morning after; word is, the company's running out of cash fast, with no one stepping up to buy. Why would they? It's more fun to watch the IM startups fight it out — like a cage match full of skinny featherweights.

After the jump, imeem's invitation. Get a few imeem-sponsored drinks in yourself and ask them who's paying the bills.

Then stumble over to the Velvet Spade around 900 Red River (near the invite-only Blogger party at the Iron Cactus, which started too early for our tastes). Ben Brown of the Consumating dating site co-hosts with music service Odeo and developer firm (and stellar party-throwers) Adaptive Path from 9 on.

Have fun, careful 'bout your drug choice (unless you don't have a panel to lead tomorrow), and keep that little card with your hotel room number.

For those of you coming from uncool places, all the hip (and by hip I mean geeky) city folk use Upcoming to plan their weekends. And Austin's SXSW Interactive conference is hip (and by hip I now mean hopelessly Internet-addicted) as hell. Now you can find, and stalk, all your favorite techies. Tonight's highlights:

The event itself. That roster to the right shows who's gonna be there and who's gonna be stuck home watching all the vidcasts.
Hit up (but not on) the lady bloggers at the BlogHer meetup at 9, in Stubb's Bar-B-Que.
Who knows, maybe it's still going on: the Austin Bloggers pre-SXSW meetup started at 6 at the Mongolian Grille.
Break Bread with Brad at 7 at the Ginger Man Pub. Who's Brad? Who cares? With 104 attendees, you're bound to know someone there.
The Friday Night Mix at Six (the place, not the time) starts at six (the time, not the place) and is just, like, another fun party for killin' time before the conference. Either Six or the Mix is co-owned by Lance Armstrong; no idea which or what that means to you.

Also invited are Wired ed-in-chief Chris Anderson, scientific historian George Dyson, and Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg.

All invitees were instructed to "keep the buzz down." So if you'll be so kind as to not tell anyone, we'll keep it a secret, eh?

Full invite after the jump.

=================================================
"Freeman Dyson and Jared Diamond, sharing the same room at the same
space-time instant. How could their brains not explode from critical
mass?...This goes beyond all known schmoozing. This is like some
kind of virtual-intellectual conspiracy-in-restraint-of-trade."
- Bruce Sterling, "Third Culture Schmoozing"
=================================================
Dear XXXX,

JOHN BROCKMAN & KATINKA MATSON

invite you to the annual Edge Foundation, Inc. "Billionaires'
Dinner"in Monterey.

=================================================
"The dinner party was a microcosm of a newly dominant sector of
American business." - WIRED
=================================================

DATE: Thursday, February 23

TIME: 7:45 pm

PLACE: Cibo
301 Alvorado Street, Monterey
(831) 649-8151
(diagonally across the street from the Conference Center)

INVITATION LIST

Chris Anderson/Wired
Paula Apsell
Jeff & Mackenzie Bezos
Adam Bly, SEED
Stewart Brand & Ryan Phelan
Sergey Brin
Rod Brooks
Daniel C. Dennett
Dan Dubno
George Dyson
Juan Enriquez
Neil Gershenfeld
Brian Greene & Tracy Day
Danny & Pati Hillis
Salar Kamangar
Walt Mossberg
Larry Page
Lori Park
Lisa Randall
Eric Schmidt
Michael Shermer
Megan Smith
Cliff Stoll
Kara Swisher
Craig Venter

We are aiming a a discreet, selective dinner with a limit of 35
people. No guests, please, other than significant others. And please
keep the buzz down.

Hope to see you!

Best,

JB

rsvp: [redacted]@edge.org

=================================================
"Like a lot of things in the frothy Internet world, it didn't take
long for an annual get-together at one of the industry's trendiest
conferences to show mindboggling growth -in this case a change in its
name from the Millionaires' Dinner to the Billionaires' Dinner. ...
the crowd was sprinkled generously with those who had amassed wealth
beyond imagining in a historical eye blink.
- Kara Swisher, WALL STREET JOURNAL
=================================================

—
John Brockman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edge Foundation, Inc. [redacted]@edge.org
5 East 59th Street tel: [redacted]
New York, NY 10022 fax: [redacted]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visit the EDGE Website at: http://www.edge.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~