My time in New York was a good nine lives ago, but my adventures in both Los Angeles and San Francisco are fresh and ripe for dissecting. So when Sean Percival, the prince of all things juicy in online fodder, asked me to write a LA Tech versus SF Tech themed article, who was I to say no?

First off, it goes without saying that tech professionals in San Francisco are automatically acknowledged for their intellect and tech savviness because of their location, and because they’re pretty damn smart.  LA techies have to work harder to be taken seriously because Los Angeles is the entertainment mecca of the world, not the tech capital. In due time, the convergence between the two industries is going to be so tightly knit that it will be difficult to distinguish between them.  But in the meantime, the biggest ostensible distinction is that SF has all the brains, and LA holds all the beauty.

Right out of the gate, both communities are deliciously warm and inviting, and they don’t seem to care if you have anything to do with tech so long as you’re on Twitter. However, while both crowds love to love the city of San Francisco, San Franciscans love to loathe Los Angeles, which is understandable in some regards. Traffic here is tragic, and this IS where buttock implants were invented.

With all the intertwining between both clubs, combined social circles, trading of tech employees, partnerships, conference shenanigans, and occasional grab-ass, there is quite a bit of cross over. But let’s be honest. Bay Area techies think us Los Angelenos are hung up on image and money, and LA geeks think SF-ers need to dress better.
I hadn’t thought much about whether or not people in LA Tech were unhealthily consumed with image until a friend of mine, who is not a Los Angeles resident, offered that disparity while I was in Vegas covering CES last month. At that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right.  So I tapped into my memory bank and chronicled my initial and lasting impressions of both ecosystems thus far.

SF Tech is All Tech All the Time
My introduction to SF Tech stems back to my TechTV days when Leo LaPorte was saving screens and Kevin Rose was a production assistant. Raconteur Cathy Brooks was rounding up top tech experts around the clock, and Jim Louderback was radiating with gadget guru enthusiasm.

Fast forward through a series of dark New York minutes and four years in Hollywood to a fortuitous rainy San Francisco night in May 2009, and I’m crashing Los Angeles transplant Drew Olanoff’s departure party, where I met former Gawker gossip king Owen Thomas, now of NBCBayArea.com. I vividly remember our conversation about the web video scene in LA.

“Oh, online video producers in Los Angeles are so cute,” said Owen. “They love making their little movies for the Internet.”
“Well, yes,” I said. “People move to Los Angeles for a reason – to be in entertainment. If they end up in tech, their work is generally tied to entertainment in some way.”
“They’re just very cute,” said Owen with that mega-watt smile that only he can don all day long.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the kitchen, the lovely and whip-smart Maya Baratz and Eric Eldon chatted about blogging and the latest social gaming coverage, as Drew and MG Siegler showed off their newest iPhone apps.  Anyone at that party who didn’t work in tech other than myself stayed in the living room and played Rock Band.

As I met more people dialed into the SF Tech community, I began attending conferences and tweetups. My good friend Karen Hartline, who I’m convinced knows every influencer in social media, as well as the lyrics to every top 40 single, made it a point to get me out there.

Of course, I felt a tad out of place at first. People couldn’t have cared less that up until that point, my career revolved around hanging out with celebrities. The new friends I made were particularly dumbfounded when I didn’t know who Scobleizer was, and when I had to ask what Brian Solis did for a living. The truth is that the people of Silicon Valley do care about celebrities – their own.

Most of the events I attended involved listening to people geek out over Google Analytics, SEO and Twitter. In short, the tech community in SF, lives, eats, and breathes technology. Can we really expect anything less?

You Can Take the Tech out of LA, but You Can’t Take LA out of the Tech
My introduction to the LA Tech scene took place in October during a 140 Characters conference after-party at the Roosevelt. After hours of listening to panelists abuse the word “engage” and expound on how to get more Twitter followers, I ventured toward party host extraordinaire Paige Craig’s hotel room – the designated end-up spot for all the little Tweeters to go after the bar closed.

As I approached the party zone, the first thing I noticed was Sean Percival’s hair. The now-nicotine-free father-to-be was standing outside smoking a cigarette, looking quite cool and dapper with a full head of smoothly groomed locks. I wanted to poke one of my fingers through the strands, but security was nearby, so I walked inside the room.

To my left stood wordslinging temptress AV Flox, waxing poetic on epic sex. When I looked to my right, I met the wonderfully verbal Alana Joy, who admired my purse and asked if she could feature it on one of her multiple blogs. Next, young baller Mike Prasad introduced himself, promoted Kogi BBQ, and gave me his GirlGamer business card. Five minutes later, satirist Brooks Bayne tried to persuade me to talk politics and admit that I’m a closet conservative.

A few weeks later, I met Mark Jeffrey at a dinner party, where we talked literature and then discussed working together on a potential new online venture.  A couple of days after that I had brunch with Francisco Dao at Norm’s (shocking I know), and listened to him elaborate on Twiistup as a conference versus a party.

In short, everyone had their hustle on. Why? Because you can take the tech out of LA, but you can’t take LA out of tech. To make a name for yourself in LA, one must stand out, stand tall, and stand in a long line of hustlers who all want a taste of the good life. To stand out, one must have a persona, project an image, and make some noise. Whether they’re in film, TV, music, porn, real estate, restaurants, or tech, career-minded people in Los Angeles possess rapacious ambition. Can we really expect anything less?

Concluding Thoughts
For the most part, a great deal of esteem exists between LA Tech and SF Tech. Far too many friendships and business relationships exist among members of both clubs for there to be any significant lack of respect. That being said, SF Tech heads will continue saying LA Tech members party too much and LA Tech will keep saying SF techies need to pay more attention to their bottom line.

So do I agree with the aforementioned saying about three different magnificent cities I have lived in twice?  Yes, but I have my own variation.

If you are a genuine geek, you can thrive in San Francisco. If you are even a smidgen of a geek with hustle, you can play and thrive in Los Angeles. If you are a genuine geek with hustle, you can thrive and play anywhere with anyone. But stay on the West Coast, please. We can’t let New York get all the glory.

(Photo by (CC) Brian Solis. www.briansolis.com)

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Ok I admit it, these are sometimes fun to look back on. In a business where things can change so much from one year to the next let’s see how we did:

Hmm, I didn’t do so good huh? Maybe this is one tradition we can skip this year. If 2010 is going to be anything, let’s hope it’s not predictable.
(Banner photo by: Lucas Janin)

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Alexia Tsotsis

Amanda Coolong

AV Flox

Brian Solis

Brooks Bayne

Hailey Bright

Jackie Peters

Jason Nazar

Jessica Gottlieb

Julia Allison

Laurie Percival

Mark Jeffrey

Mike Prasad

Nicole Jordan

Nikole Zivalich

Paige Craig

Sarah Townsend

Sean Percival

Shira Lazar

Sloane Berrent

Stefanie Michaels Adventure Girl

Tony Adam

Previously on lalawag:

• Geeks Want To Rock And Roll All Night
• Welcoming Home Michael Arrington
• We Have the Last Twiistup Ticket in Town, Want It?

Enter tr.im, comfortably short, but unlike is.gd, which is also short, tr.im came with a very seductive extra: the ability to help you track your click-throughs. Sadly, after some attempts to monetize or sell, tr.im has bitten the dust.

So what equally short shorteners are left and what can they do?

And currently in private beta is LA tech’s own grf.me, a URL shortener that’s part of Brooks Bayne’s larger social mapping effort, The Graph:

What do you use and why do you like it?

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This on my part, is completely speculation as I have never actually attended a co-working, one would need a normal laptop first to be able to accomplish this.  That being said I was hesitant to join Brooks, Joe and A.V Flox on Friday afternoon for their post tea party co-working session.  One, I had no laptop and two, I had real work that I wanted to accomplish and didn’t know if I would be able to get it done.  We decided it would be best to have the session at, as A.V called it, Chez @LaLawag.  I had no idea at the time that the day would take on such a bohemian feel that carried into the evening and infused us with enough creative juice to make two videos, a painting, photo shoot and fireside chat regarding social media and the ever evolving future of it. The afternoon started off with the enigmatic a.v.flox blogging and tweeting with moi:

A.V Flox: At Chez @Lalawag co-working with @lauriepercival in our underwear. It’s a rule, you know: naked journalism.1:29 PM Feb 27th

A.V. Flox: @seanpercival, after much discussion, it’s been decided that @Lalawag needs a budget for lingerie. And possibly some more whips.2:08 PM Feb 27th

A.V. Flox: Chez @Lalawag is in full co-work mode: @jackiepeters, @seanpercival, @lauriepercival, @brooksbayne, @joesaid and @avflox, wired.3:06 PM Feb 27th

Simultaneously Andrew Warner was heating up the interwebz with a “twitter fight”. Sean decided a video spoof would be the perfect way to join in the fun and quickly brainstormed with the room to execute the video that was released on our site a few hours later. Definitely something that would have never manifested had we not already been co-working and sharing.

Sean Percival: @AndrewWarner hey buddy! we have the most epic video coming your way. its on @lalawag4:40 PM Feb 27th

A.V. Flox: We just shot a video wherein I wear a red plaid miniskirt and beat @seanpercival with an Agent Provocateur rhinestone-encrusted crop.6:00 PM Feb 27th

After a quick infusion of food, we moved the session over to a new location and added a few members to the group. We were focused on creating a video for SXSW. The room was filled with debate and discussion on how to approach the video and the tone it would have. Sitting fireside in that room listening to this inspiring group of people discuss something so passionately and intelligently was enlightening. Unfortunately we cannot share the video until a much later time but here are a few tweets that might give you a hint of what it entails and some of the silly-ness that accompanied it:

Nicole Jordan: About to film a video for #sxsw @jackiepeter’s. In attendance…10 people you all know. See you at sx!11:01 PM Feb 27th

Nicole Jordan: Am loving the filming of this video. I’m so lucky to know such smart, visionary people.11:10 PM Feb 27th

A.V. Flox: Observations. Three words: nitimur In vetitum.2:15 AM Feb 28th

Robyn Cohen: …we shot a video for #sxsw, drank wine, talked about twitter tweets & hairy snuggies w/ @tonyadam…fun times :)10:43 AM Feb 28th

Tony Adam: OH: Twitter tweets, its like the new scooby snacks for tweeple12:23 AM Feb 28th

We wrapped up the video and a photo shoot with the unparalleled a.v.flox began. There were short skirts, corsets, and garter belts with thigh high stockings, probably a usual thing for the muse that was posing.

Then the painting began.  As the supplies were brought out a whole series of I can haz cheeseburger shots were born from Jackie’s two kitties.  A.V. seized her canvas back and created this stunning piece:

If all co-working sessions were as productive, inspiring, creative, and ingenious as this one I would suggest having them much more often.

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Micheal Leahy, the head of TCOT, put the call out to his community and Brooks threw the question out on Twitter.  A conversation regarding setting up an LA event quickly unfolded and plans were set in motion. Tony Katz, the MC, and Gary Aminoff were also contacted and helped get the movement up and running.

@brooksbayne: @tonykatz why r we not having an l.a. teaparty? #tcot 7 days ago

@brooksbayne: @sugarjones @stephenkruiser @allapparel got a commitment from @tonykatz too. #tcot #teaparty #CAteaparty it’s on! 7 days ago

@brooksbayne: l.a. tea party confirmed. santa monica pier, 9 am friday. http://grf.me/w5ZCg #tcot #hhrs #dontgo #sgp #teaparty plz retweet 5 days ago

Around 200 people from various political backgrounds gathered around with signs of protest. Some in 1773 costumes, others with bags of tea, all wanting to make sure their voice is finally heard. The group that refers to themselves as the “silent majority” cheered together at the end of the Santa Monica pier “President Obama can you hear me”.

Check out our footage from the event, thanks again to A.V. Flox for providing some of the video.

Regardless of your political stance on this subject I think it’s important to notice how social media is constantly changing, integrating and improving our world. One of the first major changes we experienced was President Barack Obama using Twitter to gain not only online followers but real political followers. Conservatives have also found a place to unite through Facebook and Twitter by creating the Top Conservatives on Twitter community. Brooks Bayne, when asked about organized this event, stated that it absolutely would not have been as successful without the reach and the network of friends that had already been established on Twitter.

Justin Smith, who also helped organize, is passionate about reaching out to and promoting political leaders who are embracing twitter and other social media outlets. He feels, as many others do, that Senators and members of Congress need to get involved and have a presence in social media. Utilizing these tools is a whole new way to reach out to fellow Americans that are passionate about politics but have the restriction of a 9-5 job.

Imagine the level of connection and communication that would emerge from all people, all ages, all professions interacting together at the same time through social media. If you could log on and directly reach your senator, co workers, cable guy, professors ect. Could we ever be so connected that you could basically IM anyone you needed to talk with?  Could my hopes and dreams of having a constant twitter stream on a touch screen monitor in my car actually come true?

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Let’s take a look:

Photos by: Wm Marc Salsberry

Brooks call this the patriot act pat down.

Trouble makers, creators of various social graphs.

Girls, Girls, Girls.

The Show.

Brooks Bayne has a flavor.

CLICK FOR THE SET ON FLICKR

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1. Francisco Dao will be kicked out of at least 1 event for being too loud and or dressing inappropriately.
2. We get kicked out of even more events for various shennagians.
3. Mahalo is sold for 50-70 million, a respectable exit although much lower than Jason’s original goal of a 30 gazillion dollar sale.
4. Fox Interactive and Myspace move into their new office in Playa Vista, taking them further to the outskirts of LA and relevancy in the space.
5. Most of you continue to attend too many mixers and twitups.
6. Los Angeles fails to get a football team yet again, few in the tech space care.
7. Megan O’Brien comes close to surpassing Shira Lazar as the most desired lady in the LA Tech scene.
8. Desperate for rent money, Alaska moves to LA to write more for this site. At some point he starts actually returning emails too.
9. Spotrunner goes out of business.
10. Brooks Bayne continues to battle us liberal weirdos on Twitter, by years end he gathers more followers than Obama.

Have your own? Please let us know in the comments!

(Banner photo by: Lucas Janin)

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The two turned into captains for Team Black and Team Tequila and began recruiting the various Tweeple. Quick to answer the call of duty were Megan O’Brien (@megsmakup) — threatening to take out Paige with her “twin assassins” — and even two political Twitter archrivals, mommy-blogger Erin Vest (@queenofspain) has joined up with Team Black to take down Brooks Bayne (@brooksbayne).

Erin has also threw down the gauntlet to call out Mahalo boss Jason Calacanis (@jasoncalacanis) to man up and face her on the soon to be neon-colored killing fields.

“Get Calacanis in vs. me and I may just wear camo” says Erin.

So which team is going to dominate the other? Will Team Black be left black and purple? Will Team Tequilla show up drunk? Sign up on Facebook to participate in the first ever LA Tech Paintball event on February 8th to find out. And, oh, enjoy the bruises.

(Banner photo by Zac Wong)

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At last night’s Microsoft Bizspark Party, in the cover of darkness two Twitter-fiend @rchrivals faced off over — of all things — the auto bailout. In one corner is Brooks Bayne (@brooksbayne) — the only imperiled conservative in the LA tech scene — while in the other corner is Erin Vest (@queenofspain) — the queen of mommy bloggers.

Check the nerdfight video below — clearly Flip should introduce an infrared version of their ubiquitous handheld camcorders:

(Photo: (CC) Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com, bub.blicio.us.)

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