• by Kelly Samardak , May 28, 2009

SocialVibe Tweetup, Hotel On Rivington, New York
May 27, 2009

Oh, what a lovely day yesterday was. I awoke refreshed after a sleep of eight hours -- something I haven't experienced since I was 15. The snottie plague (seriously, search on "snotties") seemed to be leaving my body and I was looking forward to catching up with old pals and unearthing new ones at Joe Marchese (of SocialVibe)'s super-secret, invitation-only Tweetup. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with such a blanket of positive awesomeness? So much.

While "multitasking," I thought "I wonder who else is going to the Tweetup tonight!" With a brain full of cotton, I pittered out a nice little "hey, who else is going to @joemarchese 's tweetup at The Rivington Hotel?" Yeah. The location was supposed to be under wraps because der, invitation only, and Joe was footing the open-bar tab -- which meant strict sticking to the list. I went about my business and forgot about the tweet until Joe emailed me asking me to please put a kibosh on outing the location. My face grew hot and I did something I try to never do: I deleted my tweet. Joe didn't want to be a list jerk and turn people away at the door, so I needed to pretend that tweet didn't happen. I headed out, still feeling like a boob.

Just as the F train passed the Second Avenue stop, I thought I'd look at the great hamburger picture I took at Royale the other night. I turned on the camera. No dice. Why? Because my battery was in its charger. At the office. I stood on the corner of Essex and Rivington and debated: do I turn around and go home to drown my idiot sorrows in pizza or do I improvise and get 'er done? This girl gets 'er done. So today's Minute comes to you courtesy of my BlackBerry's camera. If I had turned around and gone home I wouldn't have reconnected with Joe, who is so unaffected by his success. There he was in his Versace jeans and little white hoodie, sipping on a Heineken asking Toby Daniels what he does. Oh yeah, Toby Daniels was there, accenting the joint. You may remember him as the guy behind Social Media Week (which I was quick to critique) and Twestival. Christie Manning, Joe's lady love and online development type for Social Action at Participant Media, was hanging on the periphery, where I'm fairly certain we discussed pizza.

Speaking of pizza, I looked up from my stupid BlackBerry and saw none other than Adam Broitman, affiliation coming, checking in at the door. "Weird... why isn't he at fellow Crayonista Joe Jaffe's tweetup?" I pondered. Because he's no longer with Crayon, Broitman answered! That's right, Adam Broitman and another dude are the proud parents of Circ.us, to be soon defined for any of you curious parties. Broitman was much more chill than I've ever seen him. I'd say yoga and the weekend retreat he just returned from are doing the boy some good. By the way, "yurt" is one of my favorite words. Sounds like a cat throwing up. Anyway, Adam was wearing green suede shoes, thankyouverymuch.

Josh Sternberg of Sternberg Strategic Communications sauntered over and got all hot and bothered by social media. He's one of those people who gets rowdy about people taking themselves too seriously, which is probably why I dig him. When Tim Smith, SocialVibe's East Coast VP of Sales, asked us how Josh and I had met, I realized that my interaction with Josh began with Twitter. Adam Yellin, SocialVibe sales dude ,emerged and we blathered about photography. He's leaning towards getting a DSLR, which I highly support -- and I tried to steer him towards Canon, not Nikon. I'm telling you, if you just like taking pictures A LOT, when you get a DSLR you'll become obsessed.

Kristen Bryan and Karen Ram of DiGennaro came over to the window Sternberg, Jenean Chapman of Agent16, and I were perching on. Sternberg went nuts over the candy store across the street. Apparently they're stocked with every possible candy imaginable and, for Passover, lots of kosher stuff. While peering out the window, I saw a spikey-haired Brian Morrissey wandering around the other side of the street like an escaped mental patient. I knocked on the window and waved him towards the habitrail that is the entrance of The Rivington.

While Morrissey checked in and then disappeared into the loud and growing crowd like a wrinkle into a botox syringe, I assaulted the Deep Focus duo of Christian Borges, Vice President, Publicity, and Ian Schafer, Founder and CEO. They ran off to chew CNET's Caroline McCarthy's ear off about something digital, I'm sure. Thanks, guys, I see how it is. An elephant never forgets. Lurking nearby was Noah Elkin, no longer with Steak and now mobile analyst at eMarketer. While pestering him about his meatless new endeavor I overheard Morrissey talking about overpronating. I under-pronated away to try and upload some of the grainy photos to Flickr,and that's when I ran into Pauline Ores, social media strategist at IBM. I did the ole "do you know" name game and Ethan R.R. McCarty, internal and alumni communications, editor in chief of the IBM intranet, and singer/strummer for Indelible Beancurd came out the winner (hi, Ethan!).

Oh -- I also met Masha Geller, most recently of iMedia Connection (but now listed on the site as "Free Agent"), who many many moons ago started MediaPost's Just An Online Minute with completely different subject matter. Greg March of Weiden+Kennedy entertained me for a bit and MTV's Jason (Jay) Rzepka offered me some hearing-aid advice (I swear, I'm deaf). Also spotted around the room were Wade Rifkin of W+K, Katie McCormick of Macy's, Jesse Pickard from Ave A, Anne Pol and Scott Cappuzzo from Digitas, and David Berkowitz and Sienna Farris from 360i.

That's it! If I had had my camera I would have scooted off to BLVD to cover the Wokai's launch party for their peer-to-peer microfinance donation platform -- dedicated to help the impoverished dig themselves up and out, but as you see from the captioned photos, I wouldn't really do the party justice -- so I took the scariest cab ride home instead. Thanks again, Joe: great location, delicious drinks, and a great group of people. Next time I will staple a battery reminder to my head.

Added at 3:26PM EST: some photos! Thanks Kent William Albin!

Send invitations for anything AFTER Internet Week New York (June 1-8 2009) to kelly@mediapost.com