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Heyyyyy, ConFonz! Valleywag's go-to man for conferences smells Oprah-style freebies at Office 2.0.

The Office 2.0 Conference at the St. Regis Hotel was more of a young-executive spa and pampering than it was an actual conference. A mix of serious suits, marketing mavens, and stinkin' startups stood around the first four floors of the fabulous St. Regis. You could recognize them because they were staring into their brand new 2 GB iPod Nanos, free to everyone who attended.

You read that right. Free iPod.

The press room had free laptops.

The conference rooms had free food and exquisite coffee all day long.

*Ahem* Everyone out there looking for a way to attract and keep the press: mimic the Office 2.0 conference. The press loves free food all day long. The press loves free iPods. The press loves free laptops/press kits. And when you give these sorts of things to the press, they are far more likely to feel that inborn guilt welling up. Hell, it may even drive them to check out the booths in the halls.

Obviously, Apple was here to play ball. So was that crazy European red-head who kept hogging the mic.

It's comforting to see this many people using Linux on their laptops. Frightening, but exciting. And, you should see the Conference Fonzie's Ethereal logs! Linux users don't encrypt their mail passwords either. Who knew that Disney was going to buy Yahoo?

Anyway, the Office 2.0 conference had good competition from Salesforce.com, which took over the fabulous Moscone West. Scratch that fabulous. Salesforce.com is all about the class act. They rent the Palace, they buy the good bags for attendees, they serve the best food the Moscone has to offer. They book Colin Powell to come and do his G W impersonation (He has the accent down, but the poor man has a bum right knee. Scoots himself around on a little rolling platform.) But going against this St. Regis affair, Salesforce.com looks like a buncha doofuses. Woulda been much cooler if they had been showing off actual production stuff instead of announcing what they intended to do next year. And who the fuck wants to rent a cubicle at their headquarters?

So then, the DNA Lounge, the MOMA, the Thirsty Bear. Everywhere there's crazy parties. Oh, and Dorkbot tonight! What's not to like?! A great week for the Fonzerelli.