I survived TechCrunch

And all I got were a few crappy t-shirts.

Seriously though -- The event was well done - drinks, hors d'oeuvres, plenty of rain-soaked New York tech types, and lots of energy (well, as much energy as rain soaked tech types can muster.)  I saw an old friend or two (it doesn't seem like many of us who survived Web 1.0 are still around) and finally had the opportunity to meet Valorie Luther from Creative Concepts - a woman I've been chatting with by phone and email for close to a year, and who helped coordinate and promote the event.

I had the opportunity to chat briefly with Mike Arrington before the event kicked into gear, and that was cool.  Even cooler, as I was checking out demos a stranger recognized me (from my blog of all things) and introduced himself.  Turns out he works for Compete, a company I profiled a couple of weeks ago, and he wanted to thank me for writing about their new search offering.  He brought me up to speed on some new things they have coming - so stay tuned for that...

Last but certainly not least, I got to meet lots of folks from the sponsor companies, and learn about what they are working on.  Some were old hands - Doubleclick and Right Media - while others were literally weeks out of the lab.  Some interesting new plays in social media, video and even one really cool company focused on helping Web 2.0 technologies get marketing traction and grow audience.  On the other hand, there were couple of companies that had me sratching my head, wondering if they remembered the burst of the dot com bubble.  Even so, it was great to see so many start ups giving it a shot. 

Over the next week or so I will feature profiles on the companies that I found most interesting.