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Barry Diller and the Founders Club Go Digital at Internet Week Party
On Thursday night, June 4, media moguls Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch looked down from their perch atop a rooftop deck at Rockefeller Center on the crowd of more than 175 of the industry's rising stars, both young and old, who had gathered for a star-studded Internet Week party, hosted by the entrepreneurial Founders Club.
Late Night's Jimmy Fallon arrived with producer wife Nancy Juvonen on his arm. Heroes hunk Milo Ventimiglia mugged for the camera. NBC head Jeff Zucker, the Wall Street Journal's deputy managing editor Alan Murray, and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes huddled on the same patio, with light rain pattering their heads.
Many of New York's brightest young tech entreprenuers where sipping Patron cocktails or playing with little boats bobbing in a shallow pool. Wine Library TV's Gary Vaynerchuk provided the vino for a wine tasting and was showing off pictures of his new baby girl, Misha. Avner Ronen, creator of Boxee, was schmoozing with NBCUniversal executives, hoping to open up a conversation about their tiff with Hulu.com.
Mahalo.com's Jason Calacanis was there, too.
Mr. Diller was co-hosting the party, along with Founders Club, um, founders Dina Kaplan, Blip.tv's chief operating officer and a former NBC-TV reporter, and Bain Capital Venture's Dan Allen and Jason Rapp, formerly head of mergers and acquisitions at Mr. Diller's IAC/InterActive Corp.
The party was in honor of Tim Armstrong, AOL's new chief executive, and Jon Miller, the former AOL executive who took over as digital head at News Corp. in late March.
The Observer caught up with Mr. Armstrong, who recognized us from our last encounter at the Silicon Alley 100 party, also hosted by the Founders Club, when he was still working as head ad sals guy for Google.Did he hear about Mark Zuckerberg's recent interview, saying that his own coding experimentations with AOL were early inspirations for creating Facebook's application platform? "Oh, really? That would make sense," Mr. Armstrong said. "He's come to my office a few times, I've met him and obviously have a lot of respect for him."
Click on for more scenes from the party!
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My Hero!
Actor Milo Ventimiglia, standing with Blip.tv's Dina Kaplan, has a new digital project in the works, as he's set to star in and co-produce a new scripted Web series called Ultradome. The premise? Two film nerds debate about their favorite onscreen characters in a special effects thunderdome--say, who would win in a fight? Captain Kirk or Spock? Mr. Ventimiglia and his co-producer, Russ Cundiff, are set to appear in the premiere episode, in which Mr. Ventimiglia will pit Star Wars against Mr. Cundiff’s favorite, The Lord of the Rings, later this summer.
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Heeeere's Jimmy!
Late Night's Jimmy Fallon with his wife, producer Nancy Juvonen. Mr. Fallon will receive the Webby Person of the Year Award next Monday, June 8, at the Webby Awards gala for his special friendliness to the geeks. He announced on his Twitter this morning that next Wednesday, June 11, Microsoft reps will demo their new cool tool called Project Natal--a full-body motion sensing system for Xbox 360 that is set to revolutionize the gaming industry. Look, ma! No video game controller!
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Jeff Zucker Zing
Jeff Zucker, NBC's president and chief executive, with Jessica Schell, senior vice president of NBC Universal's digital media arm. Hey guys, what's on Hulu?
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Pillars of Media
WPP's Sir Martin Sorell (left) with Wall Street Journal's deputy managing editor Alan Murray and AOL's Tim Armstrong.
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Power Couple
Rupert and Wendy Murdoch getting cozy by the elevators.
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Brill's Buddies
Barry Diller (middle) and Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising and marketing giant WPP Group.
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The Boys Are Back in Town
Barry Diller (right) introduces Jon Miller (middle), the former AOL executive who took over as digital head at News Corp. in late March, and AOL's current chief executive Tim Armstrong.
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Hitting It Out Of the Park
John Borthwick (left), senior vice president of betaworks (and former senior vice president of technology at Time Warner); Justin Shaffer, vice president and chief architect of MLB.com, and ZelnickMedia's Strauss Zelnick, former president and chief executive BMG Entertainment.
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A Personal MySpace
Personal Democracy Forum's Andrew Rasiej with Jamie Kantrowitz, senior vice president of strategy and global marketing at MySpace Music.
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Bright Young Things
Their future is so bright... Unigo's Jordan Goldman (left) with Blip.tv's Mike Hudack and AnyClip's Nate Westheimer, in the shades.
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