Viscount
Is there anything like this in London? Surely they must be, but I'm just not on the circular.
Outside a nondescript warehouse under a San Francisco freeway was a roach coach serving free tacos to an assembled mass of geeks, entrepreneurs, and dressed-down corporate types, all of whom were hoping that in the next few hours they'd witness the unveiling of the next Facebook or Google or Skype. This is SF New Tech, billed …
Apparently this thing started in the bar round the corner.
Now I am sure that in London there are plenty of techie types meeting up in pubs to discuss new shit. The difference is that if one of them ever suggests that they might want to move the event to a hall with a stage, video screens, dweebs spouting sheer bollocks into mics and loads of nerds going "yeah, like that's so cooool" while high-fiving, the rest look at him like he's gone mad.
Couldn't help it. I still have fresh memories of twelve, thirteen years ago, turning on the Today Show and seeing the 7:30 interview segment taken up by some 22-year-old newly-minted MBA up to his ears in venture capital babbling about how his new Web site was going to change the way the world bought its widgets, or some shit.
Every time I read one of the New Tech pitches I thought "Dude, 1998 called, etc..."