communitynext and l.a. show me a great time, open bar, and put me on a panel with some lovely people

There I was, flanked by Paul Cloutier of JPG Magazine (I finally got a subscription today) and Veronica Belmont of Mahalo Daily, who's as charming as she is talented, with the Big Brother-like face of Brian Sugar of Sugar, Inc. ominously projected on a giant screen behind us. Patricia Handschiegel moderated the panel entitled “Print: Are Newspapers Becoming Extinct?”

Fortunately, it wasn't just a short "Yes" answer from the 3.5 of us. (Skip ahead to video #4 below to view the panel discussion)

Stickam was broadcasting the entire event live (Justin.tv, where were you guys?) and grabbed me before I left for a quick interview (below) that was frankly one of the best I've ever done. For no other reason than the dude asking the questions was a hardcore redditor. We didn't have any Barbara Walters moments, but I think it turned out OK despite how guilty I was feeling about holding my friends up before dinner.

(Embedded player removed because it kept auto-starting and making people sad - here's the link)

It was a good trip out to LA, a city with an unsettling dependence on automobiles and tanning beds. The CommunityNext folks did a great job putting the event together, open bar and all. Only in LA would the conference itself take place in a night club. During the event, I even got to praise auctomatic and take a jab at Mike Arrington all in one breath. Bonus points!

There should be another (slightly more inebriated) interview with the folks at TechZulu going online once they get through their hangovers, no doubt...

city of angels drankkit

Coming shortly after Valleywag kindly published the free beer = traffic chart (hopefully bringing us all one drink closer to the implosion of Web 2.0) we were keeping the beer (and traffic) flowing with an LA meetup. There were no celebrity sightings, but we did get to meet many more redditors and hand out some drankkit pins.

After one jagerbomb too many, I found myself offering to take the above group photo of those who'd soldiered on well past the 9pm "closing" of the open bar and turn it into today's header. Here's the result:

Thanks to all of you who came out and apologies to those of you who didn't make it into the logo. You'd only be a few pixels anyway, if that's any consolation.

Now with more pictures!