When Crave Party approached us about using Pathable for their August event, the fit felt great. It’s an “exclusive, festive, glam-gal gathering of fun, entertainment, personal pampering, specialty shopping, sippin’ and noshin’”, or, in simpler terms, a chance for girls to get together and hang out. Sounds like fun, but even modern women can use some help getting to know each other, and that’s just what Pathable is about.

We had one hitch: as part of our profiles, we like to ask attendees to sort themselves into “categories”. Usually, these have to do with the industry or job role they’re in (e.g., “developer”, “designer”, “business development”). But the point of Crave Party’s are to hang out without having to talk business. So what question do we ask to help people sort themselves out?

Well, it’s obvious if you think about it…What do you Crave?

If you’re a woman in the Seattle area, head on over to the Crave Party web site, sign up and decide.

Pathable was very honored to serve as the social network for O’Reilly Media’s Foo Camp this past weekend, and from all the kind words we heard from the attendees, it was a great success. Foo Camp is an invitation-only unconference, a fun, casual and yet intensely enriching coming together of the digerati. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has a great write-up (and Kathy Sierra provides some more insight in the comments) as does Scott Berkun, if you want some more background.

Highlights for me included a spirited discussion of the Future of News with Steven Levy, John Markoff, Monica Guzman, Tim O’Reilly, Nick Bilton, (who knew The New York Times has an R&D department?) and more brilliant people on every side of the issue than ought by any rights have been in the same room at the same time, an equally lively debate on Mobile 2.0 led by Brian Fling with Gary Wolf and others and a master class on running a board meeting by Howard Morgan (with great peanut gallery advice from Joi Ito, Esther Dyson, Saul Griffith and others).

Most sobering fact learned: where do high-quality investigative journalists go when they can’t make a living in the traditional news industry? Hedge funds. Save the Gray Lady!

And what I heard from a number of attendees is that with so many smart people in one place for such a short period of time, it’s really hard to connect with everyone you want to. As a result, they were very grateful that Pathable provided a forum for conversation and meeting (and a way to learn names and faces) before the event, as well as a means to follow up with those people you didn’t get a business card off of after the event (because, ya know, it feels weird asking for a business card when you’re sitting around a fire pit comparing scotch at 3 a.m.)

So thank you, Foo and now, hello Search Marketing Expo Local / Mobile! We’re very pleased to welcome SMX to the fold of Pathable-powered events. It’s two-day conference coming up next week focused on driving off-line conversations with on-line marketing. As a big believer in getting people out from behind their computers and interacting in the “real world” (both at conferences and in everyday life), I know SMX Local & Mobile is a great fit for Pathable and we’re pleased to be able to help the attendees meet one another.

Take one look at the New Media Expo and you’ll see why we’re so pleased to add them to the fold of Pathable-enabled events.

In their fourth year, NME is a convention for podcasters, online video creators and bloggers that’s filled with useful sessions on producing high-quality online audio and video content, growing a loyal audience, and even on how to “make a few bucks” while you’re at it. But of course, like so many events, attendees are coming not only for the great content, but to meet and share ideas with the thousands of other attendees. Pathable is happy to help.

If you’re already registered for the event, shoot on over to New Media Expo’s Pathable community site, and if you’re not…go register!