no, really

Last night I attended nextNY’s November event… MatchupCamp.  I haven’t been to an all out event with them for a little while, so I was uncertain what to expect.  I spoke to Neil, and he was attending as part of a new capacity in some new venture (again), so at least I’d know someone there.

We arrived to a small crowd of about 45 people in a large photo studio loft with a few posters on the walls describing ventures and ideas seeking labor.  As the night progressed, that number allegedly reached over 130.  Neil made the observation that when nextNY started, it was about 15 people around a table in a bar, and now it’s grown to this.

In so many ways, it’s a great thing, and pretty much the purpose of nextNY.  What I’m starting to notice, though, is that the quantity vs. quality debate is coming up now.  What we had in the beginning were a select few… the hard core, tuned in, excited tech industrialists looking to make a difference in their industry and in the city.  Now, it’s hard to say what the description of the group is.

I met a lot of different people last night.  Some were splendidly hard working people who have been plugging away at their ideas and their work for years.  Some have all the background and a great idea, and are really looking to push it to the next step.  Some… seem to just be tagging along.  I spoke to a couple people that have “ideas” that can not only be summed up in a few words, but that are so inane, they’re all buzz words.

I do hate to be negative about these kinds of things, but I calls em as I sees em.  There is still a healthy, vibrant, exciting tech scene in New York.  But like the temples of the Inca… it’s going to take a machete to cut through all the weeds to find it.

At Money-Media, I remember the relentless repetition that we, the tech staff, kept pounding to editorial: “just because someone clicked a link on a snazzy headline doesn’t mean they liked the story. therefore, calculating “most popular” based on hits is invalid.” We referred them to the NYTimes site, where they calculate the top stories based on e-mail forwards and blog references. Clearly, those are better metrics of popular stories.

I actually read that list, too. When I click and read an article, I take a look at that list and see if there’s anything else good to read. Today was an interesting day in that list. It contained news from the last few days, mostly on a specific theme: economic turmoil.

I realize that just because people forward articles a lot doesn’t make their content true. However, it makes it clear that it’s on peoples’ minds, which is something that the fed and the media are denying. Just see for yourself:

It’s that time of year. November 8th. AKA “Christmastime at Starbucks”

I’m not a huge coffee drinker, but occasionally I need a good cup.  Starbucks has its place, but sometimes you need *real* coffee.  The kind you get at a place like Tarllucci e Vino.

The area around Bryant Park is totally lacking in java goodness.  I’ve hunted and hunted.  Once we found a place… Crestanello Cafe on 5th ave, but now it’s closed.

Having some faith in technology, I decided to turn to my friend, the Internets.

First stop, Yelp.   Nothing useful.  It works nice, but the user generated content is sorely lacking.  Plus, it turned up results when something had the term “coffee table” which just isn’t useful.

Second stop, Citysearch.  Once upon a time, it was useful.  It was quick.  It was the new yellow pages, with some great additional features.  Then it got old and stale looking, so the owners decided to do a redesign.  This was probably one of the worst executions of a redesign *ever*.  It looks better, for sure.  But now, it’s totally useless.

Sidebar: New York has so many extra layers of geographical taxonomy, that in order to find that needle in a haystack, you need to be very discriminating when it comes to neighborhood.  The selection of neighborhood has to be better than the taxi map, which would have confused tourists believe that Manhattan is made up of six areas: up, down, left, right, Harlem and Wall Street.  Citysearch once did a passable job of letting you pick from the ever growing list of neighborhoods, including those absurd real estate gimmicks (e.g. “west chelsea” or “east williamsburg”).  Results were limited to those neighborhoods, and you could even see a map of the resulting locations.

I dare you.  Try to search for “coffee” in “Murray Hill”. Unless you do things in a very specific way, it is useless.  Next I tried something different:  Midtown.  Surely there is no place in the world other than the one Midtown I know of.  Nope. At what point was my search at “newyork.citysearch.com” confused with “northcarolina.citysearch.com” or “tennessee.citysearch.com”?

There are so many truly wonderful web products out there that work so cleanly and elegantly, producing the results you hope to see.  Why can’t a cash laden site like Citysearch get it right?

It’s probably run by a dinosaurl.

I know that it’s no coincidence I feel this way after a NY Tech Meetup, but I’m so far behind in getting things done.  There are so many things I’ve wanted to do in the past year that have ended up being done by someone else and done well.  I don’t feel bitter or jealous, I think it’s great!  I just wish it were me showing off the fruits of my brain labor.

The good effect that this has on me is it makes me focus more on my ideas… streamline what I’ve got, and make sure that the work I’m currently doing is as focused as it can be.

I need to find a quiet corner and apply all this focus now before it wears off