The Gong Show

I attended the New York Tech Meetup last night. I attended one in the Bay Area when I lived there, so it wasn’t my first meetup experience, but it was my first time seeing Scott Heifernan in action, which was entertaining. The line-up was generally weak, but nonetheless, I was entertained by Ether (Click-to-dial paid phone service, it’s like web 2.0ized 1-900 numbers) and KinJunction (a genealogy social network).

Ether is nothing new; Pete Cashmore has been tinkering with it and writing about it while awhile now, but it was cool to see the Ether guy defend some tough crowd questions.

I had not previously heard of KinJunction (which I’m not surprised because it goes live today), but I struck me as interesting based on the way the social network develops. The KinJunction guys completely removed the concept of “friending” someone, like in Myspace or Facebook. Instead, the social ties that make up your network are your blood (and marriage) lines. Your social network is your family tree… It was an instant “Aha!” moment for me. There’s pretty much no way to monetize this idea on a large scale, but that’s not the developers’ goal (at this time). They’re just doing it for fun.

They demoed some nice features: users’ (ie your family) locations can be plotted on a map (obviously a Google Maps mashup). They also have flashy widgets to visualize your family tree and a timeline history of the events surrounding your family. They’re not in it for the money (for now), and they’re looking to trade beer for skilled developers (if only it was so easy). I like their attitude, and their design is pretty slick for such a young company.
The best quote from the KinJunction talk was in response to the question “Why are Myspace and Facebook so popular?” to which entrepreneur, Sam Lessin, responded “Social Validation.” It’s a jaded outlook. Only a real pessimist could say he’s 100% right, but I think anyone would agree there’s SOME truth to his answer.

The meetup itself was pretty wild because it was crushingly large. Meetup estimated there were 333 people in attendance. Apparently, the meetup has now topped 2000 members. The intimacy is gone at that scale, but in its absence I got the sense that I was a part of something big. Paul Graham said at startup school that when good entrepreneurs see a parade they jump in front of it. Well, at the Tech Meetup it sure felt like a parade is forming…