Techcrunch August Capital Event Wrapup
by Michael Arrington on July 26, 2008

Thank you to the nearly 1,100 people who flowed through the Quadras Conference Center for our Mobile Web Wars event and the party at August Capital immediately afterwards. We were able to donate $7,500 to Malaria No More, which will protect at least 750 children from Malaria for five years.

This was our third annual party held at August Capital, who continue to graciously co-host the event with us at their offices, which includes a huge outdoor deck. Here are our wrap ups of the 2007 and 2006 parties at the same location. Thanks in particular to David Hornik, who continues to convince his partners that it is a good idea to have a thousand or so over caffeinated, slightly intoxicated entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and press roaming their hallways.

If you weren’t able to attend the event, you can see the official photo stream here and more here and here - some are also included below.

As I said in my brief moment on stage at the event, real world events are a really important part of the Silicon Valley community. We meet and interact with so many people over the Internet and by phone and never have a chance to meet them in person. To have the chance to spend a few minutes talking in person over a beer makes those relationships real. Small, intimate events are always best, but sometimes it’s fun to get a ton of geeky people together, too, and just see what happens.

One thing that really makes the party special: Hugh MacLeod has made a lithograph illustration for each of the three events, and personally signs and numbers each one for attendees. This year’s lithograph is below. Thank you so much for doing these, Hugh. We’ve framed each one and hang them proudly in our office.

There were also 20 product demos around the event. Webware’s Rafe Needleman crowns Plista the most interesting, and we’ll likely see more articles about them soon.

If you’ve written about your experience at the event please leave a link in the comments below and we’ll add it here: Mobile platform tug-of-war, TechCrunch Mobile Web Wars Roundtable, TechCrunch August 2008: Defining a Culture, Techcrunch Party: For the win, At the TechCrunch party, TechCrunch 3rd Summer Meetup, My new white iPhone is now property of TechCrunch (plus this), Post TechCrunch Party!, NYC Crashes Techcrunch Party, TechCrunch August Capital 3, TechCrunched for Time, and TechCrunch August Capital 2008 — serious fun (and more to come).

Thank you to our sponsors, who pay for all the food and drinks and other expenses. We couldn’t do this without you:

Affinity Circles is the leading provider of exclusive social networks for established, professional organizations seeking to promote career advancement opportunities among their members.

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them.

Cannonball Wine Company is one of our favorite wine providers that makes great wine at a great price.

Center’d helps people plan any event or activity, simple or complex, and discover new places to go and things to do based on the opinions of trusted friends.

Engine Yard focuses on Ruby on Rails application deployments and operations support, so you can focus on developing your application and business. Customers have started during development and grown to millions of users without stress along the way.

Etchstar.com provides turnkey on-demand product customization solutions, working with leading OEMs and retailers to offer online shoppers premium products featuring custom art and text via engraving and direct-to-garment printing. Etchstar’s massive but tightly curated licensed art library includes Pink Floyd, Wu Tang Clan, The God Father, Family Guy, the CIA, SpongeBob, UCLA and only the best user uploaded art and logos.

EventBrite is the world’s largest online event management and self-service ticketing site. Distinguished by its ease-of-use and cost-effectiveness, EventBrite has helped tens of thousands of companies, organizations and non-profits take advantage of the Internet to promote and sell-out their events.

Future Works and the Future Works Studios are joining us as the official August Capital media sponsor. Thanks guys!

Helpstream is a brand new customer service application built for the Web using innovative SaaS technology to provide engaging service-driven communities for organizations who are dedicated to exceptional customer support.

Hugh MacLeod, the man behind Gapingvoid.com, is well known for what he modestly calls, “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards”. When Hugh is not doing his pithy cartoons, he works closely with some Fortune 100 businesses, finding new ways to better tell their stories.

IDrive.com is an online backup service for consumers and small businesses provided by Pro Softnet Corp. IBackup.com is another variation with additional emphasis on SMB market with Exchange, SQL Server and Disaster Recovery capabilities. With over 250,000 user base between these two services, we are a leading player in the online backup space.

Jaduka enables companies to harness communications to create more effective operations. With Jaduka’s Web Services APIs, applications can trigger individual or group calls; provide automated alerts; manage surveys; activate digital content; and administer account and transaction information for a variety of solutions.

Kaboodle is the #1 social shopping website where people discover, recommend and share products. With over 8 million monthly unique visitors, at the heart of Kaboodle is a fun and engaging community of people who love to shop.

Kontagent is an application that integrates tightly with platforms such as Facebook to offer widget and application developers a high level of analytics data. Developers can use the tool to track the application’s usage and adoption rate, and a number of other details that more basic analytics programs can’t offer.

Kosmix scours the Web to automatically generate home pages for any topic from Le Corbusier to Burning Man, and connects consumers to the information that makes a difference in their lives. Spend less time searching and more time exploring, discovering and learning at www.kosmix.com.

Limbo is the largest mobile community in the US with over 2.5 million members. All of our services are free to our members. Limbo amplifies your social life – giving you quick and easy access to more activities, people and places. Limbo is headquartered in Burlingame, Calif., and backed by Azure Capital, DFJ, and NEA.

Loopt, based in Silicon Valley, uses location technology to improve the way people connect, share and explore in the real world. Loopt’s interoperable and accessible social-mapping service is available across multiple carrier networks and supported on over 80 mobile devices.

Malaria No More’s mission is simple: to end deaths due to malaria. The world has known how to beat this disease for more than a century, yet it remains the number one killer of children under five in Africa, claiming more than 1 million lives a year.

Media Temple is an industry leading, inc. 500, privately held, profitable web hosting and software application service provider in California. Since 1998, (mt) has provided businesses worldwide with professional-class network environments for web, email, applications, and rich media content.

Mixx is a branded social media site and active online community dedicated to connecting users and publishers through communities and tags. Launched in October 2007, Mixx has more than 2 million users and is the social media platform of choice for major publishers such as CNN, Los Angeles Times, USATODAY, New York Times and thousands of blogs.

Mobissimo simultaneously searches more than 200 different travel sites in 30 countries and five continents, including major global airlines, low-cost carriers, consolidators, and hotel/car rental sites, to find the best fares and rates online.

Mo’Jiva’s flexible mobile-web advertising platform allows agencies, publishers, advertisers and sales-reps to leverage and add-value to existing relationships and content partnerships by providing an extension to fully manage mobile marketing strategy.

Pandora is a personalized radio service, available anytime and anywhere on the PC, in the home and on mobile devices, including the Apple iPhone. By simply entering a favorite song or artist, a listener is instantly launched into a personalized listening experience, full of discovery as Pandora explores their favorite part of the music universe.

Plista is a user-centric real-time personalization and recommendation network based on collaborative filtering. It allows for enhancing end-user experience by recommending more relevant content, products and ads. It works with any item and via various channels: as a widget, per API, or browser plug-in.

ScanDigital converts old photos to digital format. Customers send in their loose snapshots or albums, and the company scans and color-corrects them. The photos are given a permanent online home on the company’s photo sharing site, to which customers can upload additional images.

SezWho provides a universal distributed profile allowing site visitors to discover quality content based on people. Additionally SezWho provides the capability to rate content from which we derive context specific author reputations.

Snap is a distributed media network, reaching 10% of the US audience and 35 million unique global users each month in 48 languages (June 2008). Snap’s product is called Snap Shots and is used on over 2,000,000 websites and blogs, to improve user experience by revealing the content that users want and delivering it to them right where they are, without forcing them to click links or conduct searches.

Socialmedia.com is the largest independent social advertising network. Over 5,000 applications from Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Hi5 participate in socialmedia.com’s network, attracting a global audience of over 30 million monthly unique users.

Stormhoek is a little South African Winery that has built global awareness through the use of social software. Located in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Stormhoek thinks that wine is about Love, Passion, Spontaneity, Dreaming Big, Celebrating, and Changing The World.

Tapulous is building a family of fun and social applications for iPhone. The company’s first release, Tap Tap Revenge, is currently the #1 download on the App Store

TokBox is a first-of-its-kind, video communication service that makes it effortless for anyone to make video calls, send video mails or embed video communication into any website – for free! TokBox is located in San Francisco, California and is privately held.

Topix is the leading news community on the Web, connecting people to information and discussions that matter to them in every U.S. town and city. Topix also helps media companies to engage their online audiences through syndicated forums, hyper-local platforms, RSS feeds, and more.

vSNAX Videos is a free application that delivers mobile video clips to iPhone and iPod touch users from more than 35 premium media partners including AccuWeather.com, CBS, Ford Models, Ripe TV, and MTV Networks’ VH1, Spike and GameTrailers.

Zivity provides subscription-based reality entertainment and social networking for an 18 and over audience. Zivity’s initial focus is a community-powered showcase of professional-quality photography promoting female beauty and expression.

Responses (Trackback URL)

Comments

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Totally awesome event, thank you again for fitting me in last minute. Writing my blog post now.

 
 
 

Don’t tell me chamillionaire is trying to build a start-up. I couldn’t believe he was there. COOL! For the tech geeks. He’s a rapper.

 
 

There are some really pretty girls there

 

Posted about the event on CNReviews.com. Submitted comment with link but got spam filtered or moderated.

 

$7500 from 1100 guests??? You guys should able to do better than that!

As I said before, I’d pay $25 to attend this sort of thing. It would A) mean tickets wouldn’t sell out as quickly and B) raise more money.

It really sucked when I was 10 minutes late to one of the posts announcing ticket sales and they were already sold out. I know TC is popular as hell so make the tickets more. They’ll still sell out just not as quickly.

 
 

great event. congrats and thanks to the whole TC team.

 

one good party. not a meeting of the minds. bubble love fest. jealous? you damn well better believe it.

 

Looks like it was a great time. I had a ticket but couldn’t make the trip down from Seattle. It would be great to organize something like that up here in the PNW. Any takers?

 

Dude, I hope you are not serious… If true, it really sucks :(

 

from the photo i thought you were one of the luckiest men on the planet. bummer dude.

 
 

It looked like a fun time and plenty of networking opportunities.

 

Vinvin, that’s so odd. Is everybody at Seesmic from France?

Mangrove sent a bunch of Americans to Paris to create Jooce, and Arrington sent a bunch of French people to Silicon Valley to create Seesmic.

The irony. Nice pic though. That lady is pretty hot looking.

 

Great event. Thanks to the TC team for the hard work to make it happen.

 

Great party! Next year, though one suggestion: An iPhone charging station table! Thanks to the EtchStar people, too, for successfully etching our new iPhone 3G’s even if they weren’t quite sure yet of the settings…

Beautiful women in attendance and this guy wants to hang out at an iPhone charging table.

 
 

Thanks so much for having us, guys!

 
 

Looks like nice turnout wish I had attended.

 

Thanks for the great party!

 

Sounds like an awesome event… what were the most promising new startups there? Check out this killler tech blog I found…

http://www.gothamtechminute.blogspot.com

 

The Mobile OS panel was fun. The party was packed with the ghotta of the Tech World plus beautiful people. Thanks Mike and the team for this great moment.

 

How’s it going Blinky? No money for you.

 

P.S. Seesmic sucks.

 

yeah I agree they can definitely charge more, even if its $250 bucks a pop, lets face it most people who show up at events like that can afford that

 

It is so sad that these events are not more multicultural and diverse. Also, looking at the group photos, few women seem attracted to these events.

Perhaps the goal of the next capital event should be the attract a more diverse attendance

Shut up, nobody cares. This ain’t about diversity. What did you do? Look through the photos counting race and gender? That’s called obsession.

 
 

Who is that beautiful lady in the second pic?? I must know.

 
 
 
 

Michael,

Thanks again for everything last night. I had a great time. You are a wonderful host.

Here is my wrap up:

http://www.andrewmager.com/200.....ital-2008/

 

I like apples…

 
 

damn, i wish i was there.

dan
daniel_j_wong@yahoo.com

 

Good wrap up Andrew….sweet blog

 

Michael-Do you ever find it ironic/interesting that your success depends on the written word, a transmission channel 6K yrs old? just askin…

humility, character and trust are carried within people not on a scripture.

 
 

Thanks for an awesome evening, Mike!

Great people, great atmosphere, all-around awesome time.

Your party is the epitome of what it means to be Silicon Valley. Cheers!

 

M.Arrington standing next to Om Malik = bad remake of movie twins

 

Some lookers in those pictures!

 

Jeah was a nice event.. though i must leave early because of work :(

Thanks the team for the german beer ;)

i love techcrunch, i want to eat it…
http://www.kaboodle.com/groups.....unway-2008

(for those people, who had fun at the photo place, too and couldn’t find the photos.)

 

Did anyone take any of those demos seriously?

One after another, pictching, and pitching…must have been like a bunch of annoying informercials

 

Isn’t it TechCrunch, not Techcrunch?

 

Thanks TC and interns. I had a blast, everyone was friendly and out for a good time. Here’s what I took from the event -

http://mondaymorningblogger.wo.....tal-event/

 

Joe and I had a great time. :) Thank you!

 

The Top 10 Things You Missed at the TechCrunch August Capital Event

10.) Mike Moritiz from Sequia Capital Mistaking Camillionariee for the Valet and Handing Him His Keys

9.) The number one pompous response of the night “I don’t do anything”

8.) Every VC in Attendance Getting Head from Adeo Ressi and Rating Him on a Scale of 1 to 5

8.) Raj Kapour’s Confession that He was Secretly In Love with Heather Harde Since HBS, but couldn’t date her because his parents said she wasn’t Brown Enough

7.) Dani Dudeck getting caught privately twittering that she prefers facebook because she gets randomly friended by more “hot white fraternity jocks”

6.) Jason Nazar taking the hottest Girl at the Party Back to his hotel and Getting as Much Action as Gabe Riviera did that Night

5.) Shira Lazar snukered to signing some fat guys hand because he said he put her on his video blog that’s seen by 50 people a month

4.) Realizing she had peaked, Julia Allison promising to sign the same fat guys cock, if she could have the spot instead

3. )Valleywag crashing the wrong party and ending up at at a men’s spa in the gayest section of san francisco

2.) Michael Arrington Obsessively Driving to the Location Valleywag Accidentally Crashed to Kick Him Out of There as Well

1.) Camillionairee driving home in Mike Moritz’s car

 
 
 

@anon from LA

Wow, interesting wrap up!

 
 
 

Looks like we missed a great event…

 

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