IBreakfast

The iBreakfast (formerly, the Silicon Alley Breakfast Club) is the only surviving entrepreneur's meeting group from the pioneering days of New York city's Internet industry.

Beginning in 1997 it first introduced David Wetherell, Chairman of then leading Internet incubator company, CMGI to NY entrepreneurs.

Since then it has hosted numerous internet industry luminaries including Esther Dyson, James Cramer, Jimmy Wales & Craig Newmark

The trend topics it has covered include the great movements of the industry including eCommerce, Search Marketing - often note with wry humor as in the paraphrasing of Lou Reed in, [http://www.ucla.cyberstuff.net/winter2004/classmaterials/Search%20Engine%20Marketing%20Jan.%202004%20iBreakfast%20Report.htm "money can't buy you customers but it can buy you a good search engine to go out looking for them."].

At its height, during the years before the internet bubble it opened in [http://www.matrixgroup.net/news/index.cfm?fa=view_MatrixNews&content_id=255">Washington, DC] and in Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA and Boston, MA.

Now according Crain's NY it is a mostly New York-focused event. However, as the Internet has become mainstream and collaborative Web 2.0 uses have boomed, what local business media like Crain's NY Business note that it is an "established event" that has soared.

Nevertheless, the iBreakfast continues to run Start-Up pitching contests that have helped numerous entrepreneurs raise capital. Many of these events are videotaped and available for public viewing. The most significant is Partsearch technologies, the company that enables big consumer electronics retailers locate spare parts and reached over $60 million in sales within 3 years of raising seed money at an iBreakfast.

From the Marcus letter a summary of ibreakfast and its programming ...

An inevitable step, as blogging audiences grew and content became more valuable, was the growth of advertising on blogs. At a recent iBreakfast meeting on The Business of Blogging, the subject was addressed by a group of blog advertising executives. The [http//:www.ibreakfast.com iBreakfast] meetings, run by the remarkable Alan Brody, bring the most significant names in all aspects of the internet world to discuss matters of most immediate concern in the field.

At the meeting, four executives in the field raised the question of whether money can be made by this new phenomenon. They noted that some pundits, like Joshua Micah Marshall, can pull in as much as $10,000 a month in ad revenue. The payout, when there is one, is more like the $18,000 annual salary that the Wonkette, Anna Marie Cox, makes from her popular BLEND of political commentary. “Generally,” the panelists noted, “what separates the money-making bloggers from the purported 2 million who also commit their thoughts to the Web, is a connection to other media, such as a newspaper column (Marshall) or a TV show (O'Reilly).”

Founded in 1997 the ibreakfast is New York's leading forum for technology business and marketing trends ... including its start up sessions the ibreakfast has help launch dozens of new businesses ... as well as hosting Craig of Craig's list, Wiki-guru Jimmy Wales, Steve Arnold, John Scully, Jack Powers, Alan Meckler and Esther Dyson.