The BlogOn Social Media Summit comes to New York in mid-October. The event is the place to meet for anyone working in the world of blogs, social networking, or RSS. With a month yet to go, a number of big names have already signed up to give presentations at the conference - including Jeff Jarvis, Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion and Seth Godin.

OK, now ignore the boilerplate for a moment and focus on the essentials: the conference will take place at the Copacabana in New York City. (time to cue the Barry Manilow music) The Copa. The Copa-ca-ba-na... It's gonna be a mad hot blogroom once those bloggers show up at the Copa:

"Forget stuffy hotel ballrooms and conference centers! BlogOn 2005 will be held in style at the legendary Copacabana in New York City, on October 17-18, 2005. We’re transforming the upscale supper club – complete with palm trees – into a social media hub for two days of keynotes, conversations, panel discussions and networking that will be as entertaining as it is informative. All conference sessions and activities will take place at the Copacabana."

Corante is a media sponsor of the event, so look for upcoming announcements about cool things planned before and during the two-day event. Oh, and if Barry Manilow decides to make an appearance, we'll let you know.

(graphic: IMDB)

An eavesdropper at the Internet Garage in Williamsburg posted this item at OverheardInNewYork:

Guy: Your copy machine is out of cards.
Store dude: Yes, I'm sorry.
Guy: Can I just pay you to make copies?
Store dude: It's out of cards, I have no way to make it work.
Guy: Can I use this one?
Store dude: That one's just for color copies. Sorry, I don't make the rules.
Guy: You sound like a real loser.
Store dude: And yet, I'm about to complete my objective--which is to tell you to f*** off--while you still don't have your copies.

NYU is hosting a day-long conference (Impact '05) on "the dramatic transformation of traditional media and the emergence of non-traditional media channels" on September 15. Already, the conference has assembled an all-star speaker lineup, including the Wall Street Journal's Ron Alsop, NYTimes.com editor-in-chief Len Apcar, AOL editor Lewis D'Vorkin, Yahoo! general manager Patrick Houston, Salon editor-in-chief Joan Walsh and Technology Review editor-in-chief Jason Pontin. It'll cost about 500 bucks, though, to get this close to these leading media luminaries.

What do you get when you combine pret-a-porter fashion and the Sony PSP? The Pret a PSP Fashion Show in New York City:

"Following the success of the first Pret a PSP in March, Sony today announced that they will be hosting another Pret a PSP fashion show in New York on September 10. The show will be held at Skylight Studios in West Village and feature PSP accessories designed by Tommy Hilfiger, J. Mendel, Earnest Sewn, Lulu Guinness, adidas Respect M.E. by Missy Elliott, and more."

A Sony marketing honcho comments on what it all means for the PlayStation Portable crowd, "We are pleased to be working with these elite designers as they showcase the true portability of PSP and establish it as a must-have accessory for today's mobile lifestyle where fashion and technology go hand-in-hand."

Anyone remember the 1997 thriller with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn called The Game? In the movie, a wealthy investment banker leads a boring, routine life until his kid brother involves him in a real-life game that takes a sudden turn for the unexpected... Just to refresh your memory, here's the plot synopsis from Internet Movie Database:

"Nicholas Van Orton is a very wealthy San Francisco banker, but he is an absolute loner, even spending his birthday alone. In the year of his 48th birthday (the age his father committed suicide) his brother Conrad, who has gone long ago and surrendered to addictions of all kinds, suddenly returns and gives Nicholas a card giving him entry to unusual entertainment provided by something called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Giving up to curiosity, Nicholas visits CRS and all kinds of weird and bad things start to happen to him."

Anyway, apparently there's a company that recently launched in Manhattan that sounds at least remotely similar to CRS: area/code. Decide for yourself if this sounds like CRS or not... Here's a blurb from the company's Web site:

"Big Games are large-scale, real-world games. A Big Game might involve transforming an entire city into the world's largest board game, or hundreds of players scouring the streets looking for invisible treasure, or a TV show reaching out to interact with real-time audiences nationwide. These games have been commissioned and sponsored by advertising agencies, media firms, universities, and large consumer brands." Taking an example from Sean Penn, maybe it's time to commission one of these games for your favorite Wall Street investment banker...

Habana Outpost: Brooklyn is billing itself as "New York City's first solar-powered restaurant and market." The notion was so intriguing that we checked out the Habana Outpost Web site, where we learned the full story:

"Open from May 21, 2005 until Halloween there will be an outdoor market with local up-and-coming and underground designers, artists and merchants selling their wares, DJ's, carwashes, great food, movies and more."

(Photo and link courtesy of Satan's Laundromat)

A case study in how to annoy New York bloggers: a bunch of Williamsburg hipsters (all of them white) are throwing "kill whitey" mock hip-hop parties on a monthly basis. The kids dance around "raunchily" while yelling "kill the whiteness inside" and acting like hip-hop thugs. The party impresario is The Pumpsta, who recently revealed to the Washington Post why he held these parties:

"I'm throwing this party, and it's obvious that I'm white and I'm kind of appropriating this culture but in an ironic way... I'm trying to kill the whiteness inside."

Needless to say, the blogosphere has been buzzing about the hipster DJs. Go to Technorati and type in "kill whitey pumpsta" and there are already about 25 posts this week. I Wish I Was an Urban Hipster weighs in with a post called "Kill anybody at these parties for the good of humanity":

"So a couple of people sent me a link to this story. Deejay's Appeal: "Kill The Whiteness Inside". I had read this article that day and honestly couldn't even get through it. It was just that awful. I mean the concept of this party just pissed me off. Dancing up like black people did in the 80's and dancing to remixes done by a guy called The Pumpsta. Who by the way I want to beat the crap out of just based upon his picture."

Ben Curtis, aka "The Dell Dude," is starring in the off-Broadway romantic comedy "Joy" at the Actors Playhouse in the West Village:

"Ben Curtis, that slacker computer spokesman, will appear as a good-time party boy in "Joy," a comedy by John Fisher about seven friends and their romantic entanglements. The play, which is set over the course of a year in San Francisco, opens Aug. 14..."

(photo credit: BBC News)

At the New York International Fringe Festival, "The Rude Pundit in the Year of Living Rudely" is noteworthy for at least one reason: the stage actor in the one-man show is also a 30-something blogger who started to make waves with his Rude Pundit blog over two years ago. The line between political theater and Internet discourse about politics, it appears, is blurring. As the New York Times asks:

"Who knew that the Internet would turn out to be a new frontier for theater; a stage that lets us choose our exits and entrances while playing any part we please? Everyone with a blog is a solo performer. And all theatrical forms are blogworthy, from diarylike realism to explosive satire."

Certainly, it's worth checking out any actor-blogger described by Times theater critic Margo Jefferson as a cross between Lenny Bruce, Hunter S. Thompson and Richard Pryor.

(photo credit: New York Times)

Get ready for New York Mega Tech Day on September 29 at the New York Institute of Technology in Manhattan. The one-day event will attempt to answer a number of questions related to the converging worlds of PR and technology, including the one question on the mind of any self-respecting blogger or other media do-it-yourselfer: "Whither blogs, logs, podcasts, RSS and other web-based technologies for media, marketing and public relations purposes in the U.S. and around the world?" Among the participants on the panel: BL Ochman and Steve Rubel of Micropersuasion fame.

Just a reminder: this Tuesday at 6:30 is the monthly New York Tech Meetup. The Meetup is "informal and open to anyone - geeks, investors, entrepreneurs, hackers, anyone that wants to see or show something interesting." Kinda like a show-and-tell for the New York tech community, with a high likelihood of a drop-in appearance by the CEO of Meetup.com, Scott Heiferman.

Hot off the presses: The NYPD will begin conducting random searches of packages and backpacks carried by people entering city subways. In the wake of the terrorist bombings in London, it's easy to see why these measures have been enacted by Mayor Bloomberg. Foreign tourists probably won't have a problem with the new policy, but it's easy to see why some New Yorkers may object. The NYPD, acknowledging these concerns, says it won't engage in racial profiling, but let's face facts: that sweet-looking grandmother hobbling down the steps to the subway probably doesn't pose the same threat as a twenty- or thirty-something male from a non-European ethnic background.

Anyway, plan to add 10-15 minutes to the commute. Oh- and leave the bulky gym bags and bulging backpacks at home.

The Union Square Metronome has been the source of endless speculation in the New York blogosphere, regularly appearing on the pages of Gothamist and Curbed. in the wake of New York's failed 2012 Olympics bid, Curbed wonders whether the metronome is "counting up toward an unknown—perhaps unquantifiable—destination. An attempt to reverse the planet's polarity? To slip us into an infinite wormhole? To turn back time and change the inevitable crushing outcome?"

Nobody really knows, not even Stephen Hawking.

Joi Ito points out that Eyebeam R&D is looking for new fellows:

"Eyebeam R&D seeks inaugural fellows to work on creative technology projects in the Eyebeam Open Lab. The fellowship is a unique opportunity to participate in a new kind of research environment and contribute to the public domain. The Open Lab is dedicated to public domain R&D. We are seeking artists, hackers, designers and engineers to come to Eyebeam for a year to develop pioneering work. The ideal fellow has experience creating innovative creative technology projects, a love of collaborative development, and a desire to distribute his or her work as widely as possible."

For anyone who's interested, applications are due by August 15th.

BrandWeek has a cool story about Ford Motor's creative use of flash mobs to promote its new $18,000 Fusion compact car:

"Ford's effort will use text messaging to give last-minute locales and times for a series of unannounced multi-city concerts featuring emerging artists like Jermaine Dupri, Yellowcard and Fat Joe. The effort, Fusion Flash Concerts, a collaboration with Sony Pictures Digital and JWT, features ten artists doing concerts in ten markets starting next week in New York City followed by Atlanta mid-month... Ads in New York City subways and in phone booths as well as national and local alternative papers will promote."

The Ford Fusion Web site is also building buzz with a collaborative photo-sharing page and a viral e-mail marketing campaign.

The Online News Association has opened up early bird registration for its annual conference and awards banquet, to be held October 28-29 at the Hilton New York. The ONA also released some initial information about the speakers and panelists at this year's conference. There will be panel discussions on Web analytics and ethics for personal publishers, as well as a blogging "how-to" and a closer look at changes afoot in the world of participatory journalism.

The folks at Fortune tipped us off about their upcoming Fortune Innovation Forum in New York City at the end of the year. Sounds like it could be interesting:

"How do you put innovation at the heart of your business strategy and culture? Neutralize the obstacles in your organization? Encourage your people to take risks on new ideas? Tune your antenna to spot the next Palm Pilot, iPod, or $7 latte? Find the opportunities in change and the lessons in failure? Incorporate customers in the innovation process?"

Andrew Rasiej, candidate for New York City Public Advocate, is holding a beer & Wi-Fi bash this evening at the new Biergarten in Battery Park. The event is co-sponsored by the Wi-Fi Salon:

"Come re-charge your battery after a long week! We will be celebrating a new generation of public Wi-Fi in Battery Park. In addition to FREE Wi-Fi, there will be music and drinks, featuring a new Biergarten that will surely beat the heat. It will be a community event featuring community leaders and a speech from New York City Public Advocate candidate Andrew Rasiej. Come out and show your support for Andrew and New York as it becomes a leading digital city, and don't forget to bring your latest Wi-Fi enabled gear!"

If you missed the Tony Awards this weekend ("Spamalot" won for Best Musical, "Doubt" for Best Play), there's still time to catch the 2005 Stevie Awards tonight in New York. The Stevie Awards have been called the "business world's own Oscar Awards" by the New York Post. We hear that Donald Trump is scheduled to receive the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Stevie Award at tonight's ceremony.

The 2005 New York Minute Film Festival announces a call for entries:

"Got a minute? Make a movie. The 2005 New York Minute Film Festival wants your 60-second masterpiece. A new online film festival will offer cash prizes, cool gear, and a NYC gala to celebrate the art of rapid-fire storytelling."

Entries are due October 1, with winners announced November 17.

Improv Everywhere details how they staged a U2 concert on May 21 that was even better than the real thing. The rooftop U2 concert across from Madison Square Garden had it all -- press, security, sound crew, cameramen, you name it. That is, everything except the actual U2 band members.

Another reason to head down to Atlantic City for the weekend: Crain's New York points out that high-end jeweler Tiffany & Co. plans to open a 3,000 square-foot store in Atlantic City next year in an effort to reach a "burgeoning luxury market" at the seaside gambling resort. The new store will be located in The Pier at Caesars, a luxury retail center next to Caesars Atlantic City.

This came across my desk recently: on Thursday, there will be a news briefing in midtown in which the Carnegie Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation -- together with Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, UC Berkeley and USC -- will announce a new multi-year, multi-million dollar initiative to "revitalize and reform journalism education in the U.S." Among those scheduled to speak at the event: Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation and Hodding Carter, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Just browsing the Knight Foundation Web site, I stumbled across a pretty cool resource: News University, "an innovative Web site designed to help journalists improve their work." Looks like a number of e-learning modules and courses are available now.

Monday's Personal Democracy Forum at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York featured a number of high-profile bloggers, political activists, and other supporters of citizen participation in the democratic process.

Andrew Rasiej spoke on how the Internet can be used to change the political landscape.

Media Post covered the future of political advertising online

Jeff Jarvis participated in a panel discussion on religion and God online

Slant Point managed to get a pic of Arianna Huffington for commentary about liberal spell-casting

Hugh Hewitt provides observations and insights from various panel discussions

Remember Internet contagions like Hot or Not, Black People Love Us! and Dancing Baby? Well, the "Contagious Media" exhibit at the New Museum of Contemporary Art examines some of the most famous of these Internet contagions that have been transmitted to millions of online users worldwide via email, IM or Web sites.

Sarah Boxer's review in the New York Times called the exhibit "adolescent" and "male," but that's OK. However, there's a part of the review where Sarah sounds a bit sardonic that does bother us:

"Don't worry if you've never heard of these. It just means that you're not cool. And now that you've learned about them in the mainstream media (known as MSM on the Web), they're not all that cool, either."

After a successful gallery event at Marymount Manhattan College last year, Art Mobs ("Art" + "Smart Mobs" = "Art Mobs") will remix MoMA:

"We've produced (unofficial) audio guides for MoMA, and we're making them available as podcasts. We'd love for you to join in by sending us your own MoMA audio guides, which we'll gladly add to our podcast feed. Why should audio guides be proprietary? Help us hack the gallery experience, help us remix MoMA!"

(Hat tip: Kottke)

When you see the letters "PDF," you probably think of Adobe Acrobat. Well, there will be another PDF in town on May 16: Personal Democracy Forum 2005. The conference, to be held at the CUNY Graduate Center, considers itself the "premier event for political leaders, activists and operatives; technologists, journalists and futurists and anyone else looking for strategic understanding and market opportunities in the evolving world of technology-driven politics." Among the guest speakers: Craig Newmark of Craigslist and Dan Gillmor of Grassroots Media Inc.

If you believe that blogging is an art form and that markets are conversations, then check out the following event hosted by the New York Public Library: A Conversation About the Art of Conversation.

"What could be more necessary in democratic societies than conversation consisting of an exchange in which participants are considered equal, where the pursuit of truth is combined with respect for others' opinions, and whose ultimate goal is the pleasure of sharing knowledge?"

Ramon Ray of Smallbiztechnology.com has extensive video coverage of the "Geek Blogging Dinner" event at Grand Central Station this week that featured several notables of the blogosphere: Steve Rubel, Robert Scoble and Dave Winer. (If you're using Firefox, be sure to activate pop-ups if you want to see the video.)

Just a heads up: a 1/2-day blog event is ready to take over midtown Manhattan today. Blogging Goes Mainstream: Is Your Company Ready? kicks off at 2:00 with a keynote from Microsoft's Robert Scoble and winds down several hours later with a panel discussion on blogging moderated by Corante's Stowe Boyd. Attendees include Steve Hall of Adrants and Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion.

Grace Glueck of the New York Times reviews the exhibition of high-performance materials at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Some cool stuff, like the Vanguard Vector racing dinghy, protective gloves and suits for astronauts and firefighters, the WilliamsF1 BMW FW26 racing car and the Ursack bear-resistant food bag ("claw- and tooth-proofed by virtue of its impenetrable fabric of woven polyethylene filament.")

In response to recent insensitive remarks by Harvard's Lawrence Summers about the under-representation of women in the sciences and mathematics, the New York Academy of Sciences is sponsoring a panel discussion on the theme "Women in Science: Are They Being Held Back?" tonight at 7:00. The moderator of the panel will be the former science editor of The New York Times, Cornelia Dean. (Oh, and three of the five panelists will also be women)

As seen on GameSpy.com: Nintendo is opening a new superstore (the Nintendo World Store) in Rockefeller Center:

"The Nintendo World Store will be a two story complex showcasing Nintendo's latest and greatest. Nintendo World will also be the home of Pokemon Center, the headquarters of the world of Pokemon and will feature exclusive Pokemon products and will play host to special Pokemon Events."

New York's Trisha Brown Dance Company is in Arizona to participate in motion{+e}, an interdisciplinary, multimedia presentation that mixes dance and computers with living visual art:

"Dancers will be monitored by infrared cameras and their motion processed in computers and projected on a scrim in front of the stage, creating an interaction between the live motion of the dancers and the visual imagery created in the computers. The accompanying music will also be affected by the motion of the dancers."

After its premiere in Arizona, the show will be moving back to the East Coast for a Trisha Brown tribute event at Lincoln Center from April 13-16.

Jupitermedia's Alan Meckler takes a minute to gloat over the demise of the Comdex trade show:

"The Comdex folks today announced that the Comdex tradeshow is taking another 12 month vacation (making it 24 months) of rest cure, but that it will be back in 2006. I can only presume that the team that runs MediaLive (the owner of the dead Comdex show) must think we are all on Jim Jones' Kool-Aid if they think anyone in the world believes that Comdex will ever run again."

Even if Comdex somehow does manage a miraculous return in 2006, says Meckler, "it probably could fit into the lobby of the local Starbucks about two blocks away from the Las Vegas Convention Center."

The Village Voice reviews the new "Accumulations" exhibition by Emily Jacir at the Meatpacking District's Alexander and Bonin gallery. One of the works in the exhibition is "Inbox," a series of 40 paintings on wood that the Voice calls a "brave and beautiful tour through the artist's e-mail correspondence."

E-mail messages from the artist's inbox are hand-painted in oil on panels of wood in such a way as to "skewer the formality of digital correspondence via an unapologetically handwritten approximation of the typeface that exists when these works are on-screen." The details of the e-mail paintings include "wryly appropriate advertisements tacked on by Internet providers."

In this week's New Yorker, there's an amusing look at the slowest morning commutes into New York, as determined by the outcome of a race sponsored by Ford Motor Company. The three most congested early-morning routes were the L.I.E., the Holland Tunnel, and the George Washington Bridge. (Hat tip: Kottke)

Last week, the Online News Association launched Meetup groups in cities across the U.S., including New York, Seattle, Minneapolis and Washington, DC. The New York group is headed up by Vin Crosbie of Digital Deliverance.

Recently opened in New York: an off-off-Broadway political drama based on the real-life blog of a 25-year-old woman in Baghdad. Check out "Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog From Iraq" at the West End Theater on the Upper West Side through March 27... "For better or worse, it inaugurates an entirely new (and seemingly inevitable) theatrical genre - the blog play," says Jason Zinoman of The New York Times.

If you haven't already checked out The Gates in Central Park, here's the next-best thing: a 360-degree, full-screen panoramic view of The Gates, courtesy of Danish photographer Hans Nyberg. The panoramic view is made possible by QTVR (QuickTime Virtual Reality).

The New York Academy of Sciences has a great "Science & the City" calendar of upcoming science-related events in NYC. On the 17th, for example, there's a discussion and demonstration of robot-based art at the Museum of Natural History as well as the 2005 "NYC Brain Bee" competition at the Rockefeller University, where high school kids test their knowledge of neuroscience (!). For those with more mainstream tastes in science, there's always the James Cameron IMAX show ("Aliens of the Deep") on the Upper West Side.

Photos of The Gates in Central Park have been popping up everywhere, but have you seen the satellite image? (Hat tip: Kottke)

The Gates @ Central Park blog mentioned in today's New York Times is "a free-for-all critique of Christo's Central Park art exhibit." Some of the language is a bit flowery ("The gates seem engaged in a stately dialogue with each other, and strangers stop and talk in wonder about the artful aliens in their midst"), but the photos are sure to be amazing.

Sometime during the summer -- just in time for the tourist hordes -- Nokia Theatre Times Square will open its doors in the Viacom/MTV building on Broadway. The new 2,100-seat theater will "attract the hottest names in entertainment, yet still provide an intimate experience for patrons." The Nokia Theatres in Los Angeles and New York are part of the "Nokia Unwired" marketing platform.

A Nokia marketing VP comments on the move: "Nokia Theatre Times Square will allow us to reach out to music fans among the lights and excitement found only in the crossroads of the world -- Times Square. In much the same way that music, gaming and video is becoming increasingly common on wireless devices, the Nokia Theatre concept is allowing us to further the goal of bringing the worlds of entertainment and mobility closer together."

Looking for those "rare and one-of-a-kind manuscripts, essays, and ephemera relating to the birth of the Internet"? Be sure to check out the upcoming "Origins of Cyberspace" auction at Christie's on February 23 (20 Rockefeller Plaza).

Auction highlights include Edmund C. Berkeley's Giant brains or machines that think, Karel Capek's R.U.R. Rossum's universal robots and Joseph Marie Jacquard's manuscript on the Jacquard loom. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, take time to browse through the Christie's auction catalogue.

(Hat tip: BoingBoing via NewYorkology)

Paid Content has exclusive audio clips from the SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) Summit in New York, including a 77-minute clip on “Strategies in the Age of Google, iPod and TiVo” and a 48-minute clip on how media companies and business sites view search engines.

The Web Services on Wall Street conference will take place on February 1-2 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. Among the companies or organizations presenting: JP Morgan Chase, IBM, W3C, CSFB, Intel, Oasis and Computer Associates.

Just a reminder: Vloggercon 2005 will be hosted by the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU (721 Broadway) on Saturday, January 22. A live Webcast will be available, starting at 9 AM. Conference sessions include "Masses' Media," "Content is King," and "Network of the Future."

McGraw-Hill and Digital Hollywood announced that one of the two headline speakers at the 2005 Media Summit New York will be Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio. That's another feather in the cap for Sirius. Ever since it agreed to terms with radio shock jock Howard Stern, it seems that Sirius has been in the news on a regular basis. Since the theme of the two-day event is "Global Media + Technology Innovation = Communications Revolution," is it extrapolating too much to say that Sirius is helping to lead the Communications Revolution?

Jupitermedia is hosting the Search Engine Strategies conference, February 28 - March 3, at the New York Hilton. Perhaps not surprisingly, Jupiter is billing the event as the "premier event for search engine marketing & optimization." If you're interested in getting a press pass for the event, there's still time.