Usually it goes like this; The for the most part power brokers are invited to the tech event. Then the day of, an industrious PR chick, realizing that her own gender is way underrepresented, panics at the thought of “too many dicks on the conference floor” and calls up every woman she knows in the space, begging them to come.

For better or worse this is not the case at Techcrunch50, where women are vastly outnumbered (a big collective reader DUH). If you are a woman at these things you usually fall into one of two types: ballsy journalist or well-manicured PR rep. And you are probably a member of an organization called appropriately, “Girls In Tech.”
Which is why it came as no surprise to me, an L.A. native, when an industrious young start-up founder approached me last night with the hit-on line, “Didn’t I see you last week at “Girls In Tech” Palo Alto?”
You have to hand it to him for trying.
Read more »
The LAWeekly has submitted a SXSW panel that brings together tech scene thought leaders from across the nation and thought I would share our top secret wish-list of panelists. Because I can.
Lately we’ve noticed a disturbing trend amongst our social networking invites. Along the onslaught of people you don’t know haranguing you to join LinkedIn, there also lies an entirely different breed, friends i.e. people we go grab beers with etc., asking us to become their fans.
Not that we aren’t fans of our friends (we are), but when people we know on a personal level are asking us to become a fan, or by definition an “enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc” it begs inquiry as to what exactly constitutes a “sport, pastime, or celebrity” in this day of instant and abundant fame.
A time-consuming search through Facebook pages reveals some of the dumb things you can become a fan of. And to save you clicking time, we’ve compiled some of the best…
Read more at “Five Most Pointless Facebook Fan Pages.”
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone just announced the launch of “Phase One” of a Re-tweet API called “Project Retweet” on the Twitter blog.
Aside from the fact that this actually seems pretty rad (buh bye copying and pasting!) one of the most striking (IMHO) things about the post is how skillfully Biz has drawn the impromptu API mock-up.
It’s beautifully rendered and makes me wish (albeit briefly) for a hand-drawn sketch version of the popular micro-blogging service. Hey if this Twitter thing doesn’t work out, maybe Biz could hit up the art world?
I was joking about this last week and then it actually happened. Now I’m thinking www.bitchstolemytweet.com should be a place when people can register complaints:

For example, Michael Arrington (@arrington) “stole my tweet” about a LAWeekly.com article today and attributed it to Facebook, by making it look like @facebook had actually re-tweeted it.

I LOVE when they start talking about selling marijuana once CA makes it legal. It’s funny ’cause it’s true.
Video courtesy Rock Cookie Bottom.
Comic-Con official policy is that press is treated (in terms of access) like any other “fan.” Except they shouldn’t be, because fans are there voluntarily while a member of the press is (if things are working as they should) is usually doing a job.
While I’m not saying that poor Comic-Con policy is the entire reason I ended up in hospital, it definitely could have been more accommodating which would have decreased my stress and might have prevented my seizure on the following Monday, if not my infection.
BEFORE
AFTER
You do the math.
Alexia Tsotsis in Mike Judge’ s Extract Trailer, 20 Seconds in.

I blog hard. But does that mean I’m a citizen journalist?
This and more answered at today’s Social Media Club panel at Mahalo. which I will be moderating.
If you’re one of those people that likes to do their homework before the event, check out Social Media Club coordinator Geoff Brown’s compilation of citizen journalism related links.
See you tonight!


