It’s sort of odd to read about a TechCrunch Network party that I didn’t actually attend, but in any event CrunchGear’s first mixer was a success, with about 100 people attending and three sponsors: SoonR, Blast Media and Marketing Begins At Home.
I’m frankly stunned at the early success of CrunchGear. With twenty-something thousand RSS subscribers it is already 1/5 the size of TechCrunch. Congrats to John Biggs and his team for all of the hard work. Nicely done.
Oddly enough, i was asked to meet a friend of mine, a Ziff Davis Executive, at the meetiup, which he referred to and I believed to be in honor of TechCrunch until I arrived, asked if this was the place for the TechCrunch meetup and was told definitively no, but that I could stay on for the CrunchGear fete.
Long story short. I stayed around, met some unique individuals, learned that CrunchGear maintains a policy of discussing, publicizing, blogging about only those items which are actually available for purchase here in the United States.
Topping off the evening was the prize giveaway. We were all asked to pick a number from 1 to 50 and the person guessing it or closest to it, won the prize - a Roku Soundbridge Internet Radio. I guessed 23, and whether or not that was the actual number, I do not know, but I did win and walked off with a fond souvenir of a well spent evening.
Its a shame Michael Arrington could not have attended, but then what with TechCrunch making Page 6 of the tabloids, discretion is key.