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Party correspondent confronts ghosts of Yelp parties past [Party Report]December 6th, 2007 at 9:48 pmSource:Valleywag
We love a challenge. Supposedly Digg, Kevin Rose’s news-discussion site, is having a party in San Francisco tonight. But we haven’t pinned down the location. What is this, some top-secret rave? If you find out where it is, or just want to send in a report from the scene afterwards, drop us a line.
The insular crowd, however, all but ensured I’d meet up with Ghosts of Valleywag Past. No, not a spectral Nick Douglas or a scary Nick Denton — but other people I’ve read about, or written about. That vaguely familiar girl chatting with Jeremy Stoppelman? Oh! It’s his ex-girlfriend Liza, reportedly the center of love triangle involving Valley good-time-guy Sean Parker. There’s Steve Chen, the YouTube founder, with spiky hair and glasses, holding hands with his girlfriend while bidding Stoppelman adieu. Over there, by the bar, is Ooma CEO Andrew Frame, wearing a form-fitting leather jacket and sporting bangs. Bangs? Really? And Keith Rabois, the ex-PayPaler now at Slide, with the controversial Stanford history. Then I met Snocap founder Jordan Mendelson, whose appearance with a bevy of beauties at last year’s Yelp party lead us to crown him the Valley’s newest bad boy. Boy did we peg him wrong. My first thought, after taking in his supreme untallness, was that he seemed like such a nice guy. And so unassuming. The expression of smug self-satisfaction in last year’s pictures was missing. As was, apparently, his job. I asked about Snocap, the troubled music startup he founded with Shawn Fanning, whom he worked with at Napster. Mendelson confirmed our rumor that he had left for another project. So, was he going to indulge his Valleywag-created persona and party hearty all night? Sadly, no. Mendelson begged off early during the afterparty at Mr. Smith’s, in order to prepare for a venture meeting today. The bad boys are growing up — or at least learning when they need to put on appearances.
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Yelp, the local-reviews site, is as infamous in San Francisco as it is nonfamous anywhere else in the country. Its parties, always hedonistic rampages of drunken conversations, burlesque troops, and makeout sessions in the photobooth, helped establish its local reputation and cement the loyalty of hardcore users. (
