Interview with Adam Ostrow at Mashable NextUp in New York City
Last night, Mashable NextUp in New York City was dedicated to teaching “Lessons from the Local Internet Startup Community”, featuring an interesting variety of New York-based web startups: Snooth, Savvy Auntie, Aviary and Behance. Read my full write-up of the event on AltSearchEngines.
I snagged an interview with Mashable editor in chief Adam Ostrow before the presentations began:
Termeh Mazhari: This is the second of a series of NextUps hosted by Mashable, at the same venue, 92Y Tribeca…
Adam Ostrow: Yeah, we did our last one at this venue and tonight as well, and we’re doing a third one later this year.
Termeh Mazhari: And all the proceeds are going to the venue’s non-profit programs?
Adam Ostrow: Yes. It’s a great place. Tonight we’re going to be doing a bunch of presentations from a couple of startups here in New York and I’ll be moderating a panel asking them some questions about New York and the social media scene afterwards. And as you can see in there it’s a great set up for it. It should be good.
Termeh Mazhari: And how did you pick the presenters?
Adam Ostrow: They’re startups we’ve had different relationships with for a long time. Adam Hirsch is based in New York, so he has a good relationship with the startup community and these are four of the best.
Termeh Mazhari: Which one are you most looking forward to hearing?
Adam Ostrow: Ha! I’m most looking forward to chatting with Snooth. (who ended up totally stealing the show thanks to comic duo Philip James and Mark Angelillo’s disarmingly charming presentation)
Termeh Mazhari: How long have you been on Twitter?
Adam Ostrow: A little bit over two years.
Termeh Mazhari: Do you think Twitter has staying power?
Adam Ostrow: Definitely, I think it has staying power. Earlier today, actually, I did some numbers. There’s something around 6 million users currently, it’s going to double next year to 12 million and 18 million by 2011. But it’s almost bigger than that. It’s almost like the next blogging thing, like everyone’s doing it. Even if you don’t have an account…You know, my dad is reading my updates and people are tuning in to celebrities and watching their updates and stuff like that. So it’s really kind of just the evolution of blogging and something that’s just so much easier….it’s just answering “What’s on your mind” and you’ve got 140 characters and you just put it out there!
Termeh Mazhari: Anything we should look forward to with Mashable?
Adam Ostrow: Lots of good stories! And more events. We’re going to Atlanta next month and Adam Hirsch is planning a big charity event this summer. And we’re hopefully going to have a lot of other cities. We just talking about Boulder maybe, and we have some stuff on the West coast again.

www.mashable.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 7:50 am and is filed under Interview, New York City Events, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.