After watching John Maeda's surprisingly complicated keynote about keeping it simple, and watching the endearing Amanda Koster from Salem Garage spread awareness about the usage of social media for social good, we enjoyed a surprisingly abundant assortment of dried fruit and cheese at the official Palm reception. After receiving a random text that just said “Annabelles,” we walked across the street and got ushered into the modest Chi.mp party and munched on prosciutto and asparagus while Chief Marketing Officer Rob Farrow showed us his “branded toast.” Despite it's refreshing lack of hype, the Chi.mp party warmed it's way into our hearts as we mingled with the speakers from many of the panels including Chris Messina and SixApart's Dave Recordon.

While everybody else left Chi.mp to go directly to Ignite, we went to Kinkos to print out a massive L.A. Weekly sign, and as if carrying a big sign down the streets of SF wasn't ridiculous enough, some aspiring rockstar saw the enormous logo, approached us and gave us his demo.

Branded Toast

Branded Toast

Now accepting music demos. No jam bands, please.

Now accepting music demos. No jam bands, please.

LAWeekly.com and SFWeekly.com joined forces with infamous duck9 founder Larry Chiang and the ever present GirlGamers Mike Prasad and Alexandra Moch to throw the un-official Web 2.0 after-after party. We brought the cupcakes (in the form of very awesome and beautiful Doro) from Sweetie Cups who baked 300 (!) mini-cakes in such delectable flavors as Banana Nutella and Chocolate Chocolate. We knew it was a real party when photographer notable Wm. Marc Salsburry showed up, having previously been at Ignite. Full disclosure: Yes we are a bit biased as it was our party, but there was such a fascinating range of people there, including New York Times writer Paul Boutin and Lalawag's own Sean Percival.

#awesome

#awesome

The after-after-after party took place at the W Hotel where we met blogger Stowe Boyd whose hash tagged #awesome shirt was the very model of truth in advertising. We also met The Facebook Era author Clara Shih who's book we're excited to read — after all it isn't everyday our reading material offers us a “Free $25 Facebook credit.” The night was made even more #awesome when Larry Chiang arranged a random flash pizza delivery and we got to #nom until the early hours of the morning. We even got to keep the sign.

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