Marketing Begins At Home

Is New York’s tech scene on the verge of a major upswing? Can we say the phrase “Silicon Alley” out loud without having to run and hide?

As the magic eight ball would say… All signs point to yes.

I’ve spent a considerable part of the past two years flying to or from the Bay Area. Now, for the first time since I’ve started this thing, my entire client base is located in the North East; everyone is within a half day’s drive from where I sit now. And I probably won’t be out to San Francisco until Macworld.

New York, while down from the recession and the attacks of 9/11, is roaring back. In the last year, countless groups have sprung up, meet-ups are happening and we even have our own media outlet, chronicling the rise of a new tech era. We’re the capital of the world’s media and financial empire as well as home to countless artists, musicians, writers and actors who come to the city where if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. With such a brew of money and talent, New York can never stay down for long.

Last night I attended the NewTeeVee Pier Screening. There I ran into Mike Hudack and Dina Kaplan of blip.tv, Andy Plesser of beet.tv, Steve Rosenbaum of magnify.net, Allen Stern of CenterNetworks, Peter Hirshberg of Technorati and The Conversation Group, David Berkowitz of 360i, Caroline McCarthy of CNET (who covered the event here) as well as Liz Gannes and the rest of the GigaOm folks. Later I headed over to a party thrown by ADOTAS, coinciding with Advertising Week. There, in a room packed with advertising and publishing types, I held onto a tiny corner of the bar with Greg Snyder of BackBeat Media (a client) and Colleen Ryan and the gang from Raw Digital (also a client).

Yes, I’m name dropping. But I have a point. There’s a buzz in the air. There’s optimism that we can weather the next storm. We’ve learned from the past, learned from what our geek brethern in the Valley are doing and we’re going to be just fine over here, thank you very much.