• by Kelly Samardak , October 15, 2010

Meebo Party, Amnesia, New York
October 14, 2010

I forgot what Meebo was.  I mean, I had heard of it years ago, but I'm one of those old school AIM users from back in chat room days (I would just mess with people).  Now I'm a gchat kind of girl, where I've merged my AIM ID because the standalone client has too much swizzly crap on it, which slows down my laptop.  If I was at IBM, I'd probably still be using Lotus Sametime.  Which means Meebo might be a solution to my too-many-chat-clients problem.  Because that's what Meebo does, bring all of your little bubbles together.  And last night, they brought their team, their advertisers, and their clients together at Amnesia for a boozy festival of lights and games that no doubt gave partygoers temporary amnesia today.

It's been a while since I've covered a party like Meebo's.  It gave me flashbacks to the Epic Advertising Heaven and Hell and the Core Media parties at Marquee that exploded with that Internet heyday decadence of a premium open bar, fist-pumping music, and tuna tartare.  Like I said, it's been a while.  In the past year and a half parties have been pared down, open bars are for a designated length of time, venues are in-office or in Murray Hill bars where drinks are "Special," and crusty little eggrolls and fried chicken skins replace the mini burgers.  In fact, when a host goes all out like Meebo, I assume it's a swan song.

Not so, says Pip Marquez de la Plata, SVP of Marketing at Meebo.  "We've been growing and doing well over the past five years and we just wanted to reward our teams," Pip assured me as we stood outside in the rain at the end of the night.

But before the rain and the raffles, these "Meebos" and "Meebettes" played a larger-than-life-size version of Connect Four, stretched and splayed over a Twister board, and wolfed down make-your-own fajitas, duck perched over cold and weird polenta, meat piles, sushi as far as the eye could see, and peanutty noodles.  This delicious buffet for the bellies was wrapped up in a buffet for the ears delivered by DJ Alexandra Richards (Keith Richards' offspring) who never hit a sour note. 

Bars sponsored by Meebo clients like Cafemom and Seventeen (whose tailored beverage was none other than the Shirley Temple, of course!) gave guests more than enough choices of poison.  By the back bar (hiding behind sushi) I met Meebo's Danny Berstein, who knows one of my all-time favorites: Yelp's Chantelle Karl.  They knew each other back in the Bite PR days in San Francisco.  Dan was holding up the bar with Meebo's Ric Mathews.  Both were enjoying the sushi.

I also met Meebo's Chris Eberle and digital advertising consultant Glen Muñoz; KraftOne's Jayna Pedruczny and Alicia Shepard; Kayla Miller, Account Supervisor at OMD (repping Monster) and Cassandre Brutus, Dentsu America, Media Supervisor for Toyota; Ben Levi, founder & CEO of RentingSmart, which is in its soft launch phase, coming at you hardcore in three weeks; Ricardo DeRivera of MediaContact; and "Moustache Guy" Matt Spitz from Meebo.

Because free, never-ending food and unlimited premium booze just wasn't enough, laptops and flatscreen TVs were raffled off to a lucky few by Mike Keohane, DIrector of Northeast Sales at Meebo, Angus Logan of Microsoft, and Carter Brokaw, Chief Revenue Officer at Meebo.

I feel confident in assuming, based on my own little champagne thumper I'm nursing today that there are more than a few hurting units today, but all in good fun, and all in the name of recognition and reward in the form of a kickass party.  As much as I'd love all of you to jump on the big blowout bandwagon, I don't think I could do this every night.

Big thanks to Meebo for a great night and for the candy corn!

Photos photos photos!