Last Saturday was the second annual TECHmunch NYC. It was so amazing with the space, the food sponsors and the panels and presentations. Everyone who attended left with the full belly and full of ideas of how to make their blog bigger and better. Thanks to Babette of Bakespace.

Here are some of the blog posts recapping the event:

Danielle Gould from Food And Tech Connect,  Jackie Gordon of The Diva That Ate New York, Shoshi of Modern Courtesan, Constance Koral of  Two Grape Nuts,  Chelsea Grant of  The Food Buff,  Tricia Okin of PapercutNY and Chobani.

Thanks to all the sponsors at TECHmunch NYC 2011.

• Chobani Yogurt (also smoothies and dips) – @chobani
• KitchenAid – @kitchenaidusa
• The Harvard Common Press – @hcpdishes
• Driscoll’s – @driscollsberry
• Four Roses Bourbon – @4rosesbourbon
• Wichcraft -  @wichcraft
• Brooklyn Brewery  – @brooklynbrewery
• Brooklyn Gin – @brooklyngin
• Robicellis – @robicellis
• Jacques Torres Chocolates – @jacquestorres
• Tasty Morsels Bakery – @tasty_morsels
• Danny Macaroons – @dannymacaroons

Also thanks to Brian Quinn for bartending and to all the volunteers for helping out during to make it a success. See you next year!

Social Media Week is like a week-long Hallmark holiday.  Coincidentally it is around Valentine’s Day. You don’t need “Social Media Week” to use social media just like you don’t need Valentine’s Day to tell someone you love them.

I remember reading a blog post a few years ago that touted the value of post-conference recaps. Now that twitter is used so much to provide real-time commentary, doing a recap can feel a little stale.  However this week, I heard some great discussions, met some cool people, and learned some stuff. I wanted to take note of them, so I am blogging it here.

The Monday afternoon panel, Beyond Blogspot, at Hachette was really good.  Gretchen Rubin and Margaret Roach are very generous with advice. “Ubiquity is the new exclusivity”.  “Admire to Acquire”.

Monday night, I spoke at a panel, Blogging While Black, in Brooklyn.  It was sparsely attended, but my fellow panelists were great. We each talked about our “unique selling proposition”, which should be discussed more often.  Let’s be real. Everyone HUSTLES, just like everyone POOPS. If you are not hustling, you are sitting at home wondering why no one knows how cool you are.

Tuesday morning, I attended the Health Tech Food event hosted by Luminary Labs.  I got there a little late, but I did see Marc Koska speak about his crusade to end the use of dirty syringes. Then the audience broke into groups to come up with ideas to solve real-world problems. It was so exhilarating to work with the group and good to see Suzanne Xie who I first met years ago.

Tuesday evening, I attended the Eats and Apps event at 4Food. Almost every NYC food blogger that I chat with regularly on twitter was there. There were founder/representatives from Food Apps, Gojee, FoodSpotting, Snooth, Gourmet Live, Ratio, Dinevore, Food Network who showcased how their apps work. Thanks Emily, Danielle and Brian for putting on this event.

Wednesday I attended Tina Shoulder’s panel: “Social Media, The New Weight Watcher / Supporting and Building Athletes” held at Jack Rabbit Sports.  It was great to hear how using social media is connecting runners.  I hate running, but hearing about Black Girls Run is making me want to reconsider—when springtime comes.

Friday afternoon I attended two food-related panels. The first one was at lunchtime and was aptly named, “It’s Lunchtime; Now What.”  Two local sites that are new to me were on the panel, NearSay (local news) and Signpost (local deals). Other panelists were from Bizzy, Yelp, Foodspotting, Luke’s Lobster and Disco Sushi.

The second afternoon panel was held at Edelman’s offices which has a great view of the sunset in New Jersey.  The panel included FourSquare, Zagat, Foodspotting, Mermaid Inn and Schnitzel and Things.  Since I had my laptop out for this panel, I tweeted more. Here are my notes:

Mobile payments are the near future. Square and Venmo were mentioned.  I would add PopMoney and Quickbooks.

Jake’s advice to restaurants on foursquare: Be creative, doesn’t always need to be money deals (discounts/freebies).

There’s a challenge in balancing the operational and social media aspects. Both are equally important.” -Oleg of @schnitznthings

“All media is becoming social.” – @sorayadarabi

Social Media Week has grown a lot since it started three years ago. Meeting lots of people and learning new things is fun but exhausting. Next month, I get to do it again when I go to Austin.

The beauty and fashion site for women of color, Coco and Creme

Style blasts from the past. Vintage Black Glamour.

Food and musicians, what’s not to like?! Food Is The New Rock.

I will be in Fort Greene this Saturday hosting a twitter scavenger hunt from 12-3PM with BlackAtlas.com. If you find the van, then you can win passes for dinner at Chef Marcus Samuelsson new restaurant in Harlem, Red Rooster on Monday, November 15. Follow me (Niche) and (Black_ Atlas) for clues.

Update: Saturday was a lovely day, and I had fun hanging at the Brooklyn Flea and Greene Grape Provisions with Kiratiana, the editor of Black Atlas.

I don’t know what is bigger news—Martha Stewart launching a cookie iPad app or her show will start having a regular twitter section for some of her live shows. Sixteen food/baking twitterers were invited to come tweet the show for Martha Stewart and leverage our followers’ engagement. It was an exciting show because the cookie iPad app is supercool, so tweeting using the hashtag #marthastweets was fun. Event television is great for live-tweeting, but it only works when the event is exciting and/or newsworthy. I hope #MarthasTweets will be used judiciously. To paraphase [clumsily] Jon Stewart–”If we hashtag everything, we hear nothing”.

I got into Las Vegas around noon yesterday. it’s been nine years since I was in this town. I forgot how it looks. It is an excess of architecture and neon, but I can really see the appeal of the place. It looks magical!

I saw this graffiti tag on a trash can in the 15th Street/Prospect Park subway in Park Slope. It seems appropiate since money (Keeping Nickels) and cupcake (Cupcakes Take The Cake) are two of the things that I blog about.

Recently, I changed my twitter bio to say: “Cupcake Enthusiast, Editor, Connector. Tweets about food,conferences and Mad Men.” I added conferences because I go to lots of them. In the past week, I have spoken at Pod Camp Philly and attended Finovate. Next week, I will be speaking at Blog World Expo as part of TechMunch.

This year, I have been to about 10 conferences. At PodCamp Philly, one of the speakers said something that resonated with me. People go to conferences mainly for two reasons: networking and education. I would also add to deal-making and branding yourself as an expert. I like speaking at conferences, and hope to get paid to speak one of these day.

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Post BlogHer, I am cleaning out my purse of all the business cards I collected and want to share links of some great women. Check these out.

Owning Pink, a wonderful site for women.

Make and Takes, a craft/food/fun blog with projects for kids.

168hours, blog and book by Laura Vanderkam.

Momotics, where motherhood meets the politics of parenthood. Danielle loves cupcakes.

WLB Consultants, a blog about work life balance by Chrysula Winegar.

Mighty Girl,  lots of mighty stuff from Maggie Mason.

Carley Knobloch, life and career coach, productivity expert.

Mocha Momma, the funniest card I got at BlogHer.  It says “Mocha Momma will cut a bitch”.

Angela Haynes, mixed media artist

I’m remembering, a pop culture nostalgia blog. Hillary Buckholtz is someone I have know online via emails and Facebook for years and we finally met at BlogHer.  Yay!

Cheryl Contee of Jack and Jill Politics took the picture of me.

BlogHer has evolved tremendously since I attended the first conference back in August of 2005 in San Jose. There were only 300 attendees then, but it was a remarkable feat because blogging was still “new”. Blogging was not considered mainstream, and also not considered “women’s work”. Blogging then was equal parts confessional, conversational and confrontational. Most of the influential bloggers were men back then but Lisa, Elisa and Jory knew differently. They created a community where women can blog and now there is more content that is more informational and inspirational as well as being confessional, conversational and confrontational. The totality of voices is what Blogher has facilitated and that is great.

I didn’t attend any of BlogHer parties this year, mainly to stave off even more information overload. Part of me still feels like I am still recovering from SXSW back in March. Attending conferences is actually hard work mentally with so much information absorbed in a short amount of time. It is hard to remember anyone’s names or what they blog about, what twitter handle to start following or what URL to bookmark.

Instead, I enjoyed learning about how to run for office and how to increase traffic to my blogs. I ran into friends I met at SXSW, Foodbuzz, Blogging While Brown, Techmunch as well as fellow New York City bloggers. It was great to see them all.

Last night, I hosted the inaugural Blogging While Brown NYC Meetup at Houndstooth Pub in Midtown. It was so much fun meeting new people. There are a lot new bloggers on the scene who are doing cool stuff.

Here’s a list of the attendees’ twitter handles:
@gcam @cavaughn @makeupkimporter @kittybradshaw @TempleofGlam @brettandthecity @mypolaropposite @funkybrownchick @artdeal @laidbackchick @shy2del @thefabchick @misssmith11 @streetforce1 @hergoodybag @osochic @jonesmag

See more pictures from meetup.