New York – September 26, 1997 (Full Issue)

Related Links:
MSNBC, you know me
WhURLwind tour of the webspaces
Open Sesame

September 26, 1997

MSNBC, you know me
MSNBC, you know me . . . Well we all already know about the little social faux pas that happened last week with the MSNBC party. It’s bad enough if you have to uninvite guests (especially if you’re the guest), but to publicly show e-mail addresses to everyone else who didn’t “make the cut” adds fuel to the fire. Not missing a step, New Jersey Online sent out an e-mail invitation to all those (un)lucky guests for brewskies at the Greenwich Brewing Company. Vin Crosbie slipped me the list, but to republicize the names would take tacky beyond Velvet Diana wall-hangings. Kudos to NJO for seizing a prime opportunity to capture an audience chomping at the bit for a good time and bonding.

The usual characters were filling the stage: Howard Greenstein (Microsoft), Matthew Shevach (Narrowline), David Frackman, Sam Huxley, and Mike Potter (Brand Dialogue), Bonnie Halper (sendresume.com), Richard Greenfield (journalist) and Denise Siedner (Grey Interactive). Andrew Locke (MSNBC on the Internet, Redmond) and Brian Storm (MSNBC, Lead Multimedia Editor) didn’t have much to explain about the eyeballs lapel pins all MSNBC employees were wearing. It was “just something to do…” TV monitors around the three leveled alternative art and music space highlighted the MSNBC site, the facilities and clips of shows.

Dan Schock (Microsoft’s NY Sidewalk) informed me they distributed 20,000 tickets of give-always and prizes in Bryant Park this summer during a lunch-time blitz. Social calendar guru Randall Stempler clued me in to eventual.com for all the latest info on what’s going on around the world. Scott MacWhinnie (CB Commercial Real Estate Group) representing downtown Manhattan offices and John Crosier of Canary Wharf Ltd. in London were enjoying the revelries.

The main floor (middle level) had live music alternating between ambient and harder jazz in the back. In the front there was a feeding frenzy of new media fishes gaping for Chinese take-out food cartons to fill with fried rice, steamed dumplings, and chocolate dipped fortune cookies. Actually there was a feeding frenzy downstairs too at the Mexican food table. I met Tom Morey (Chase Manhattan, VP Electronic Media) and Katie Morgan (sensenet.com) during one binge. The Ex Caminos (excaminos.com) were playing funky jazz for the crowd in this room. Steven Blinn and Stephen Botaglio (NY Bureau Chief for the Hollywood Report) were also enjoying the evening’s revelries. Michael Diamant and Noreen Mastellon (T3 Media) were lining the bridge out from the main room. Noreen was sporting a pretty white dress with leaves from Country Road she modeled in a benefit for her school. Vivian Selbo and Benjamin Weil of adaweb.com were on the third level, overseeing the mosh pit, along with Georgio Palmisano. Back down in the bowels I bumped into James Golden (goldennyc.com, bolt.com) who filled me in on his work with Earthweb, the back-end work he designed for the Miss America segment on MSNBC. His comment on working on this was regarding the women contestants: “they’re so exploited.”

WhURLwind tour of the webspaces
WHILE ALL the big Web music industry types were hobnobbing and breakdancing at the SonicNet party, I ended up with a different view of New York’s nitelife. After meeting up with Ann Yoakam, who currently works with the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a special photography magazine, and Katherine Morosani (JP Morgan)we went to a black-tie event at the Sherry Netherlands for the National Society of Colonial Wars. I unexpectedly bumped into Randall Stempler who told me of all sorts of fun parties, and his work in the Law sector of late. He introduced me to Cliff Ainsworth who has a number of interesting projects.

After tasting some yummy desserts we headed down, but alas! too late for SonicNet. Instead we chatted with Mohammed, the security guard up on the 10th floor at Conde Nast International about Baywatch and the magazines they publish. Continuing south we spied a group of people hanging out on the sidewalk in front of Pseudo‘s building. We ventured upstairs and indeed there was a mini rave going on.

Wafts of strange smoked weeds greeted us as hosts and producers Thomas “T-Bo,” and Uzi Fisher of the show “FreQ” were well into a jam session. FreQ is 3 hrs. of electronic music ranging from house to techno and trip-hop to jungle. Thomas had already painted his face all bright blue, donned 4 ties, a red Bozo clown wig, tweed hat and jacket, fake glasses with eyelashes, raw silk beige shirt, faded charcoal twill pants, and birkenstock-like shoes. Hopping around, and warming up, he wasn’t too talkative to us. Uzi however filled me in on how this show is more rave oriented and they are interested in building a community or mud-like channel. (They should try Burning Man!) Uzi states: “People get ahead by helping each other.” The interface he describes as like a Matryoshka, a doll within a doll, a navigable world, multi-national based community. Regarding Burning Man he comments the “cultural fragmentation is unbelievable…Sometimes the fragmentation doesn’t’ lead to wholeness.” We were like magnets to the blue screen and the big guys break dancing in front of it… In near giddy-hypnotism we moved behind the ravers and boogied a bit ourselves. After a few rounds of songs, we stepped out from the mesmerizing music (you should see the psychedelic colors on the webpage!). One raver came up to us and said, “the contrast was intense!”

Open Sesame
OPEN SESAME! echoMEDIA demo’d its new product, Sesame-Ad, to a select audience Tuesday morning at The New York Yacht Club on 44th Street. Based out of Rhode Island, this club a natural choice for this company’s demo. If you’ve ever walked down 44th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, you may have noticed odd bubble shaped windows jutting out over the sidewalk. Originally designed in 1901 by Whitney Warren, who studied at the L’ecole Beaux Arts and went on to design Grand Central Station, the Model Room has these windows, which on the inside have soft, deep red velvet and leather banquettes under them, perfect for sharing a cup of tea in the morning or cocktail in the afternoon. Of course there is nothing dainty about the interior this room. Was this space designed by William Randolph Hearst? It could have been for “oppressive,” “massive” and “domineering” are the words one might use to describe this two-storied room.

Dark polished oak wood covered the walls, ceiling fixtures, and moldings. Nautical motifs including sea monsters, dolphins, and seaweed adorned most every fixture: a wood balcony on one side was detailed with light and dark painted green seaweed, 10′ tall Caen stone (from Normandy) sea monsters flanked a large oil painting of ships at sea on the 47 ton fireplace. Heavy black iron chandeliers with coconut-sized frosted glass lamps speckled the ceiling and, while dark, couldn’t hide the 30′ oval brilliant golden-toned stained glass sunroof. Dark Teal fabric covered with halves of ship models covered the walls in addition to large models contained within even larger exhibition cases.

But enough about the impressive nautical room. echoMEDIA has hopes for Sesame-Ad to be the secret opening to a new wave of interactive-web advertising. This software delivers already made TV commercials on the web in either 1/4, 1/2, or whole page ads in small pop-up windows, or as interstitials. The user doesn’t go away to a different site as with a banner click-through, or have the entire page blocked by an ad (with the exception of the interstitials).

You can see samples of this new model at: Jumbo (one of the largest software, promo download sites) and Travelfacts.com (a 23yr. old company and one of the largest publishers of travel info on the web). Some current clients include: Kodak, Sandals resorts, Carnival Cruises, United Airlines, and USA Today.

Among the guests at this morning’s preview was Katie Antheil of Rodale Press. Not focusing on the Amazon.com model, as that’s a proven big competitor, Rodale has created various websites based on books they’ve published. Some sites are: FatFreeLiving.com and Men’s Health magazine.

Introducing the panel and this product was Richard Fisher, Director of echoMEDIA. echoMEDIA was founded in 1995 and is based out of Newport, R.I. Fully owned by NetMaster now, echoMEDIA is traded on Nasdaq as NETZ, and is a major player in the web advertising arena. Tom Burgess, President/CEO of echoMEDIA came up to speak and take us through the demo.

This software will deliver the appropriate ad based on various user specifications. It will be delivered in any format you want, any length, has auto scheduling, and starts playing during the download of the webpage. Part of the software is the Campaign Manager, which can determine the frequency of the ads, target the audience by time, timezone, website, and ensure there are no repeat ads — if you so desire.

All of this wonder is served up from the proprietary ad-server. This efficient machine not only serves up the ads but also generates a report in the structure you want.

Later on Tuesday, the Canadian Consulate General and Augustine Fou (go-Digital Internet Consulting Group) hosted this month’s “e-dinner” (Entreprenuer’s Dinner). Set down in the concourse level of 1251 Avenue of the Americas, our trip to Canadian soil was a modern comforting experience. The fine blond wood-paneled room with seafoam green marble-tiled floors and matching carpet was a warm invitation despite the nice wine and cheese.

The speakers included Ted Werth, who co-founded Total New York and managed it successfully until it was acquired by Digital Cities/AOL and is now consulting with several entertainment and new media start-ups, and Todd Krizelman and Stephen Paternot, the former Cornell compatriots who founded WebGenesis and recently landed $20 million in funding.