SNS Second New York Dinner

Last night we held the second annual SNS New York Dinner, at the Waldorf=Astoria, with a really terrific list of guests. (See https://www.tapsns.com/newyork/2006/participants.php for a partial listing of attendees.)

I now use this evening as a chance to gather my thoughts about the coming year, and this is the first exposure I give to my top ten predictions for 2007. I won’t include them all here, but I’ll mention the first one: 2007 will be the year when we see the first e-phone market acceptance in the U.S. (An e-phone allows you to make payments with your phone.) This will have Huge ramifications for carriers, handset makers, credit card issuers, the visa / mc / amex group, and for consumers (ready to get rid of that bulging wallet?).

I met with some of my friends from Fortune this morning who weren’t able to attend (Eric Pooley, from parent Time, Inc. was indeed there), including David Kirkpatrick and Julie Schlosser, and it looks like some or all of these predictions will show up in Fortune’s next issue.

Everyone had a great time, as far as I could tell, with a few folks saying it was our best dinner yet. I find these evenings a great way to informally talk with really smart, top execs at technology companies, and to learn what they are finding exciting. It’s also a great way to get the word out about all we are doing at SNS to the top global business press, most of whom attended.

My thanks to our stalwart team of Sharon, Sally and Scott, for putting on another great evening. Our next dinner will be in London, at Home House, on March 15th.

BTW, my apologies if you tried to use our site in the last few hours: it seems that someone tried to take down this blog after my last posting. We caught them in the act, and took the rest of the site offline while dealing with them. We had already encrypted all customer data, which remains secure, and we think we now have blocked further similar attacks on the blog.

As I was saying – we have to be free to discuss these issues, without fear of intimidation. Which I will now continue to do.

Update: Watch the wideo “Ten Predictions for 2007“
Recorded at the Waldorf=Astoria, NY, December 12, 2006