Please stop sending me messages thanking me for coming to your Summit. This was months ago. I did not go. If I'd gone, you would know by the inflated bar tab and a cleaning bill for Stanford's carpets.

Four times now, AlwaysOn organizers, you've asked me for opinions, or shown me an exciting new product, or whatever feedback you're begging for today.

Guys, if this is how you act when I don't come to your show, how clingy will you be when I do show up? This is like the guy who shows up to an afternoon coffee date with flowers.

Joe Schoendorf: [Mr. Schoendorf is a venture capitalist with Accel Partners.] ...So we have to ask ourselves, 'Who's the next Intel; who's the next Apple; who's the next Google?'

John Doerr: [Mr. Doerr is a venture capitalist with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.] If you're saying a new player is going to displace Microsoft or Google in the next five years, I just don't see it. I think Google will be the next Google.

Just so you know? Doerr was one of the VCs who took Google public.

Steve Jurvetson: [Mr. Jurvetson is a venture capitalist with Draper Fisher Jurvetson.] Will there ever be a new Google?

Doerr: I hope so, but it might not be in information. It might be in entirely new fields.

Ann Winblad: [Ms. Winblad is a venture capitalist with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.] Who's the new Sony?

Doerr: Samsung. It's already happened. Sony bought Samsung.

(Actually it didn't. Not even metaphorically.)

Winblad: So it's not Google?

Pardon, what? How does this even make...what?

After the jump, it just gets worse.

Moderator Tony Perkins speaks up:

Perkins: But Steve Jobs has been a pioneer in user interfaces. I project that in three to five years Apple's music distribution dominance via iTunes and the iPod will have faded; it will have become the fifth or sixth player.

Doerr: Uh, wait—because, because, because?

Perkins: You can make fun of me John—

Damn, I was supposed to get permission?

—but I say this because it's a closed, proprietary system, and what my kids want is to be able to download music and share it with friends. [boring stuff removed]

Doerr: But you're projecting that Steve and the team at Apple are not going to be smart enough over time to serve that market.

Perkins: Well, unless they adjust ...

Schoendorf: You're also assuming that everybody else is going to suddenly figure out that market, but there's no sign they've even started.

Perkins: Everybody's in the business.

It's then that Jurvetson requests a show of hands to counter Tony Perkins. Tony, ever the gentleman, tells his persecutors, "Okay, we'll see. We'll invite you guys back." That's right — those MC fees make all the abuse worth it, don't they, Tony?

Gluttons for punishment can hear ZDNet's podcast of the talk.

Finding the Next Google [AlwaysOn Network]

Most of you should just turn away right now.

Yes, that's Tom Green crawling from his hole and, Coke bottle in hand, blinking at the largest audience he's had in years. "I used to be big," thinks Tom as he prepares to speak. "I used to be a star. Eating roadkill, filming classics like Stealing Harvard. Ah, the good old days of classy gigs..."

AOL blogging exec Jason Calacanis says something smug.

More coverage after the jump.

VC Jeff Clavier stops the conversation: "Wait, I really need to trip to some slow jams right now."

Valley flack Renee Blodgett couldn't attend, but she kindly sent a life-size cardboard cutout in her stead.

"Clearly, the reversal of the publishing paradigm forces a reanalysis of the wisdom of crowds vis-a-vis the niche market, and if we monetize...you're sleeping while standing, aren't you."

For hints of what actually went on (or at least a spin other than sour grapes), read:
Tony Perkins's insight: The 13-30 demographic is worth watching. Who knew? Tony Perkins opens the show [Down the Avenue]
Hollywood didn't tell Stowe Boyd anything new, but at least they're "clueful." OnHollywood: The Suits Are Clueful [/Message]
A VP from EMI says the industry's done suing and is now "monetizing" the Net. Good to hear that EMI is almost up to date. (According to calculations, they're now up to 1998.) Is the Web the new Hollywood? [ZDNet]
If the Web is the new Hollywood, why was Hollywood so bad at the web? A sketchy wifi setup hurt livebloggers and demoers. OnHollywood [Marketing Begins At Home]

One last blind item: Which attendee ended up passed out poolside last night?

Photos: Set: OnHollywood [Dan Farber on Flickr, CC]

I love Tony Perkins to death, but you could a good smoking gun on how small the traffic to alwayson-network really is, and yet how much "advertisers" pay Tony. It's because it's a "client buy." In other words, Larry Ellison likes writing about himself and reading about his CEO and SV colleagues—and instructs his agencies to include alwayson in proposals. There's nothing illegal or even shady about it—but yet it's a little offputting. Tony has CEOs and VCs pay to write about themselves for a site that is largely read by other CEOs and VCs. It's not a "real media site," whatever that is.

For those of you who don't remember, Tony Perkins used to own Red Herring magazine, in its heyday, during the boom. The Herring was the soulmate of the New Yorker: impressive, as it sat on tables, but a duty rather than a pleasure, and more often bought than actually consumed. The appearance of influence was sufficient, nevertheless, to make the Red Herring, for a brief moment, a gloriously lucrative vehicle of corporate self-promotion. Ah, print.

Perkins' new venture, AlwaysOn, has much the same lumbering style, and business model, playing to the egos of its contributors more than the curiosity of its readers. The one flaw? On the web, everything is measured, including AlwaysOn's readership, which is miniscule, even for a site that calls itself an insiders' network. AlwaysOn: not any dog, but a chihuahua.