Rather than rely on romantic intuition (which Messina all but admits horribly failed him in his last relationship with fellow conference-speaking professional Tara Hunt), the two are now trying to suss out behavioral patterns that might indicate a cooling of interest. How do they do it? With websites that just happen to be eager for publicity.

In tracking everything they do in sites like BaseCamp, BrightKite and Bedpost, the new couple cultivates an early-adopter mystique. Bedpost even allows them to quantitatively analyze the frequency, duration and quality of their naughty bits-mingling. How romantic!

The heart wants what it wants. And in Messina's case? Despite the news hook here being privacy, what his heart really wants is publicity.

(Photos by Jyri Engestrom and César Astudillo)

Leave aside having a fairly public former couple as the face of their business. It's not clear how Hookupdigits believes they'll turn a profit. One of the players behind the site contacted me offering me "rev share" if I "really loved it." A rev share of what? The Google AdSense ads overdecorating the site?

It's a shame that those who would most benefit from Hookupdigits — Internet sex workers and their clients — are exactly the people Hookupdigits can't overtly market to, maybe for fear of being heavily surveilled by law enforcement. What will shut them down won't be police involvement, but lack of a user base. There are still far more people meeting through online dating sites who want to swap real phone numbers before they share anything else — as a sign of mutual trust. Call it old-fashioned. At least if you share your real cell number, you can text your good time, too.

With openness comes vulnerability. Vulnerability in the sense of: ‘I’ve ripped my ribcage open for you to see my heart and if you reject it, I think I’ll die.’ And with that level of vulnerability I didn’t notice it happen, but a great deal of defensiveness set in. And it’s really effected many of my relationships.

It plays itself out in really destructive ways such as:

* Setting unattainably high expectations and then being highly critical when not met.
* Instead of listening and having a normal discussion, shutting down completely in angry defensiveness.
* Walking away from several professional opportunities because I didn’t think they ‘appreciated’ me.
* General paranoia in the form of, “Everyone thinks I’m a space case” kind of garbage.

Tara Hunt, Citizen Space’s 35-year-old cofounder and de facto camp counselor. Chris Messina. Blond, bespectacled, and borderline brilliant, the 27-year-old exudes a nerdy charisma. In a world not known for its epic romances, ChrisandTara = Web 2.0’s Brangelina. No one ever said living an open-source life would be easy. Hunt and Messina: open not in a exhibitionist way—posts weren’t sexually explicit —but to make a philosophical point. In their work-obsessed world, the business partnership Hunt and Messina built seemed especially romantic. Messina/Hunt’s blog. “And even after working at it for some time, we finally decided today to end our romantic relationship.” “Breakup 2.0." Most common reaction: “*hugs*." The devastated Hunt: "i want / to be touched again / really touched / not poked or messaged or emailed / touched." The need to disentangle their personal and professional relationships had become obvious. Messina: “Information should be open and free and available. Some things should be private.” A glorious reminder.

(Photo by Adactio/Flickr)

First up, Stirr, the monthly show-and-tell for startups (photos by Hot From Silicon Valley):

"Hey, you know the organizer Sean Ness? I hear he isn't wearing any panties."

"Guys, I know the party around us is loud, but if we keep our heads down, we can still finish this business proposal tonight."

Caught in the holy light, this man converted to the Holy Church of Web 2.0. He was later seen handing out poppies at the Oakland Airport.

"Please God, just one more button."

"Hmm, who on the balcony looks pitchable?"

"Look at me, I'm a woman at Stirr! How did I even get in here?"

Meanwhile, at San Francisco's Mighty club, blogger Om Malik held the second re-launch party for his blog GigaOM, sponsored by Sharpcast. Four people asked me that night, "What does Sharpcast do?" Who knows, and who cares? They bought the drinks, and they were hiring. They supplied the band too, for which we hate them. Zooomr evangelist Thomas Hawk snapped shots:

In the center, Thor Muller of Rubyred Labs and Valleyschwag, the man who will one day make millions selling elixir from a brightly painted wagon.

GigaOM blogger Jackson West eschewed collar and sleeves, instantly becoming the best-dressed gent at the party.

Note the white rabbit, a nod to the party's Alice in Wonderland theme. The heavy references to a magical world where things grow big when they shouldn't, words mean whatever one wants them to mean, and impossible creatures give drug-induced speeches while celebrating nonexistent holidays, made a better point about the tech boom than I ever could.

The man of the hour, getting some affection from Citizen Agency consultant Tara Hunt. Further photo series analysis reveals: Om only posed with women (who were, as all women, gorgeous).

Technorati engineer Kevin Marks makes a "help me" face.

Little known fact: Laughing Squid founder Scott Beale is rarely seen in photos not because he is usually behind the camera, but because he stands at a 60-degree angle.

STIRR Mixer 5 [Hot From Silicon Valley on Flickr]
Go GigaOm Go [Thomas Hawk]

MashPit III: Tuesday 10-5
Made by: "Pinko Marketing" evangelist Tara Hunt; designer Chris Messina; Technorati coder Tantek Celik
Gist: Coders make mashups of their favorite Internet tools
Attendance: About 22 people as of 11 AM, room for more
People to meet: Tantek Celik, Chief Technologist for blog-tracking startup Technorati and king of Microformats (meet him again at Supernova)
People to avoid: Kevin Burton, because he's not allowed to talk until he sells his startup.
Fringe benefit: Free Starbucks and pastries, unless you'd rather watch the live video feed.

Supernova 2006: Wednesday to Friday
Gist: Speakers like Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Technorati founder Dave Sifry, and Yahoo Senior VP Usama Fayyad speak about the business of technology. But you're here for the networking.
Attendance: Several hundred geeks and wonks hailing from Wired Magazine, Microsoft, Plaxo, and other places you want to get hired
People to meet: Kyle Brinkman, co-founder of MySpace, to ask if he's grown up and joined Facebook yet
People to avoid: The Ponytail (and Jon Schwartz, the interim Sun CEO attached to it)
Fringe benefit: Have fun drawing six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon maps connecting all the panelists — "So he's from Technorati, and she's on Technorati's board, but she also used to work for Sun, where this other guy works after leaving Microsoft...and these two are totally sleeping together."

Bloggercon IV: Thursday night to Saturday evening
Gist: Bloggers like RSS innovator Dave Winer and Gnomedex conference founder Chris Pirillo discuss blogging, how to make money from it, and how to win elections with it — things that bloggers currently suck at
Attendance: Capped at 125, with a long waiting list
People to meet: MAKE Magazine blogger Phil Torrone, man of many tech toys (jammers! robots! LEDs!)
People to avoid: Winer — which might be hard, since it's his conference
Fringe benefit: Winer declared the whole conference "on the record." Exploit this every time you overhear a whisper.

BarCamp: Friday to Sunday
Gist: Much bigger, funner version of MashPit — one of many BarCamp coding and collaboration events held around the world. Hosted by Microsoft, who really wants to prove how indie they are
Attendance: Room for 250, with 204 signed up so far
People to meet: Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera, if only to ask whether he and roommate Michael Arrington really have a "Tech-cave" and "Tech-mobile" in the basement
People to avoid: Anyone with a podcast microphone
Fringe benefit: Brag about getting invited to O'Reilly Media's Foo Camp, so "I just thought I'd drop by to see the little people."

As predicted here, Riya marketer Tara Hunt left the photo-sharing startup after nine months of aggravating the engineers and belittling their marketing attempts — a skill Valleywag commends her for. The exit is no surprise to those around her — Tara is worth watching not for her Riya job (has she ever told you about Riya?), but for her solo work promoting "Pinko Marketing" — her rebranded Cluetrain Manifesto school of marketing. That's the sort of stuff that gets a speaker on the conference gravy train for life.

But what happens to Tara now? After all, she's an alien with a work visa. Will a self-employed position as "consultant and marketing visionary" keep her from getting booted back to Canada?

Tara hasn't publicly blogged her exit yet (though this bio makes it pretty obvious), so who knows if she'll mention the other dirty secret — a few tipsters think she was fired. Chances are this was one of those shoulda-seen-it-coming mutual break-ups. Good luck to Tara, and wherever she takes Pinko Marketing, Valleywag looks forward to pettily mocking it.

UPDATE: Tara confirms at her blog.

HorsePigCow [Tara's blog]
Photo: In Tdot [Tara on Flickr]
Earlier: Is the Pinko Marketer leaving Riya? [Valleywag]
Update: Announcement #2 - Rogue on the loose [HorsePigCow]

Why to believe it: The Pinko Marketing pundit is clearly on her way to her own brand, seminar series, book club, and Pinko Diet Program.

Why not to believe it: She's still blogging about Riya as if she's on board for years to come.

Why to believe it: The fame, baby, the fame!

Why not to believe it: Wouldn't her boyfriend Chris just get all the credit?

This past weekend, Chris and I (as well as a huge number of other people) were behind a very successful WineCamp, yet, when reported by the media, Chris was the only one mentioned as being behind it.

Funny, Tara, that sounds familiar. Kinda like Fost's note before heading to Winecamp:

The event is part of Chris Messina's Bar Camp un-conferences.

Oh really, Dan? So Barcamp's founding fathers —

Andy Smith (back left), Ryan King (back right), Tantek Celik (front left), Matt Mullenweg (front right), and the Eris Stassi (founding mother, not pictured) — Chris (center, squinting) didn't mention them when you fact-checked with him?

You...you did fact-check about Barcamp, right? I hear fact-checking separates real journalists from unreliable blogs like Valleywag.

Sometimes, being a PiC really sucks [Tara Hunt]
TECH CHRONICLES [Dan Fost at SF Chronicle]
Photo: BarCampPlanners, where are you now? [Ryan King on Flickr via the ryan king]

Just because a conference has no organized agenda and no featured speakers doesn't mean it will devolve into chaos. Instead, groups formed instantly with verve and enthusiasm, and discussions ranged from highly geeky topics like the Drupal open source software to how to help nonprofits use technology.

Maybe I'm lowbrow, but normal people don't call that a successful conference. They call it a lousy camping trip.

Survivor: Winecamp [Dan Fost at SF Gate]
Photo: Wine Camp Calaveras [Tara Hunt on Flickr]

Someone's been playing with Comic Life. A Flickr user named "Privateye" 'shopped up the shirtless shot of Naked Conversations authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. (That's JD Lasica's photo, first covered back here.)

After the jump, a comic made entirely of Riya Photo Search in-jokes.

Privateye's photos [Flickr]

For everyone who doesn't get it, Riya evangelist Tara Hunt is dating Flock evangelist Chris Messina. Apparently they're going all-raw-food. Riya's a pre-release person-recognition photo tool; Flock's a pre-release social browser. Marc Canter is the founder of Macromedia (and a strawberry).

Update: "Privateye" cracks a Larry Page hair joke.

Demo 2006 - The Only Honest Report on the Web

Gahhhh, sick and tired of all the blogheads yapping up every nuthead Demo presentation. So did my own research.

You know there is something downright CRIMINAL about a PC World Editor in Chief saying

"I haven't tried Riya myself yet, but it demos extremely well." - Harry McCracken, PC World

———————-

Vizrea - YouarenotgoingtobelievethisbutyetanotherdeadtiredFlickrcopycat. What's different? Microsoft droning retirees, playing patty-cake software games, Mike Toutonghi (eHome crash and burner) and the Brad Three's (Brad Silverberg, Brad Chase, and Brad Schick). And the Silverberg loyalist, Ben Slivka. Using and abusing the press and analysts, getting Gartenberg to gurbble-up the buzzwordy "contextual flow". Maybe they can sell it back to Ray Ozzie, as a Live offering. Pretty death-valley dry UI and search. Nokia inclusion something, won't get much pingback. What no Microsoft SmartPhone?

vSee - Yeah? P2P Video? Hard to make sense of just how to use this. Academics doing Video Conferencing all over again. Only they, in their supreme wisdom, have the smarts to make it actually work, why they helped found Google and Pixar. Seems only something Clay Shirky could use or understand. Have Clay get his students to do tons of research and then have him write up a paper, stealing that very research, on the "Emerging Worldwide Changing Impact of Peeeeer 2 Peeerrr Videeeoo Conferencing". As an aside, why does all this PhD smarty tech make for such horrible unmanageable code?

MooBella - IT Scream Machine, HEY it RUNS Linux. Network that Rocky Road, Butter Pecan has it's own IP. Telnet to Mint Choc Chip, FTP in some Orange Sherbet, but rm the Coffee Fudge. Homebrewish Ice Cream Machine running Linux, remote management of, I guess? Real factory tech is all embedded and seriously mission critical. This is a joke.

Ugobe [photo is Ugobe Pleo] - Ok, now this rocks. Total novelty, total fluff, but totally cool. Furby as a Dinosaur. Not sure why at Demo? Just marketing I guess. Still thumbs-up by me.

Blurb - Self-publishing redux, make-your-own-book. Pluuuzzze. Zillions of these companies preying on wannabe authors hopes and dreams. Most all fizzled. Looks another kick of the tires. The eBook Print on Demand meme dead already?

Another 19 after the jump. Seriously, this man has the subtlety of a Mack truck.

Bones in Motion - Phone as a personal trainer. Ohdearme. Talk about demographic mismatch. Real runners have all sorts of cool toys. Geeks with SmartPhones doing Excerise? On what Planet? [Well, this one. — Ed.]

Street Deck - mp3's in car? Yeah? Heck you have been able to get mp3 car stereo's for years now at even Wallyworld-like places. But hooking up iPods more the kick, one that has even big luxury car makers jazzed.

Accomplice - Yetmoregroupware pie-in-sky over-promised software. Outlook killer this is not. Snooze. Sucky UI too. Reminds me of a bad bad Lotus Notes clone circa 1998.

Grassroots - Just what the world NEEDS, yet more presentation software. Groan. Works with Powerpoint TOO. Stop the world.

Digislide - Aussie group with "projection tech" and enough buzzwords on their website to kill an Army. Patent hoard or buy us out move. Established companies, like Sony, could eat this even before breakfast.

Network Streaming - Ok why are they at DEMO? They about dead and need more Venture money to stay afloat? Remote PC and Security stuff in the appliance-based form. Sorta a real biz, swimming with sharks in crowded waters however.

PolyVision - "The New Generation of Collaboration", translation, multi-screen video conferencing, whiteboards and presentation toolsets at triple the usual price. It's the New New Generation thing, doncha know?

Tiny Pictures - Phone Camera Tricks and Social Networking something De Jour. Geepers, how many zillions of these companies are there?

Zingee - Online sharing tool. Geeee, I don't think I have EVER seen one of these before. ((Rolls eyes)). Add them to the hundreds out there, and the thousands no longer with us.

GarageBand - Sometimes there is a reason why talent remains undiscovered. Supposedly up-and-coming artists doing digital music, yadda yadda yah. Just bubbling with flavor-bursting boredom.

RawSugar - Raw is right. Tagging Searching Directory something, yadda yadda. Still unclear on the concept, after trying real hard to grep. Create your own directory of tagged stuff? Help? DOA.

Multiverse - In case you want to WASTE even more time in virtual life worlds. Reach Out and Touch Faith, Your Own Personal MMOG Generator. Someone To Hear Your Prayers, Someone Who Cares. Just think if it as the Beth-Goza-Emulator.

Krugle - Google for code? Ummm, Sourceforge turned into a Search Engine? Ad Content forthcoming?

Plum - Mash-up after Google Searching? What? Idontgetthisanddontthinkanymarketneed. Hey, whatever happened to OnFolio, like no one talks about them anymore. They were all the mash-up research rage once.

TagWorld - Would you BELIEVE, yet more Social software, with pictures and tagging and a "marketplace"? They claim 700,000 users, but methinks early start on fuzzy accounting. One-stop-shop for Web 2.0 memes? Flame out. Anyone that funds this needs to see a shrink.

GuardID - Yetanothercheaposmartcardsecurity thingamajig. Riding the Identity Theft hysteria wave. SecurID and IBM Smart Card this is not.

Riya - The famed "We-Got-Googled-Oh-No-We-Didn't" school of Shel Israel "breaking-NDAs-and-using-blogs-as-hype-and-rumor-spreading" PR management. Photo reco tech, taking old-school face-reco to the new Web 2.0 brain-deadheads. Jazzing it up on a photo site and performing geek tricks. Limited use, if you can even find one.

Kosmix - Good location at least, Cosmic. Kosmix is such a 1999 name; Attention All Space Cadets, Report For Duty. Yet more search enginey tech, just taxonomy-based, sorta, more fauxonomy to me.

Sharpcast - Sync your PHOTOS wheeeeeeee. Sync to Phone, sync to PDA. It's a "connected applications platform", honest, yes, and blah blah blah. 20 zillion of these sync things in the PDA glory years. But this one is DIFFERENT, yesiree, they have "top-notch computer scientists and MBAs" with tons of start-up and flame-out experience. So very pre-crash 1998ish. DOA.

Gosh well that toy Dinosaur Robot Toy, Pleo is cool.

Gentler reviews at DEMO 06: Morning Report and DEMO 06: Tuesday Afternoon [Tara Hunt's HorsePigCow]