Latitude at Von.x

March 18, 2008
by Latitude

Cubic Telecom President Pat Phelan + Jackie Danicki

Latitude has landed in Silicon Valley!

That’s me, with Cubic Telecom president Pat Phelan at last night’s MAXRoam/Qik St. Patrick’s Day gathering. Partiers included Von.x organiser and all-around tech media legend Jeff Pulver, controversial former Yahoo exec Salim Ismail, Robert Scoble’s Naked Conversations co-author and FastCompany.tv personality Shel Israel, and notables from industry stalwarts like Adobe.

So what was the hot topic of the party? In a headline: Meebo raising round, valued up to $250 million. Bear Stearns sold for $236 million. Even with all of the enthusiasm for new technologies and online marketing tools evident here in Silicon Valley, it’s still all about the money! That’s no criticism: How else would all of these cool new companies come to exist and thrive?

I also had some pretty interesting conversations with a couple of CEOs about the future of online advertising and how it will mesh with social media to deliver a better deal for individual publishers than seen previously. I’ll be capturing some of these points on video and posting them here on the blog.

Right now California is seven hours behind you in the UK. My day is just starting, with a full day of Von.x ahead of me – including Jeff Pulver’s hot ticket party tonight. Watch this space for more posts and videos, including visits with Apple, Google, and Yahoo over the coming days.