Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher

Google hosts an annual party for the media in December. And I popped along, as always. It was nice, small, comfortable, lots of familiar faces, and much of the Silicon Valley press corp was in attendance.

The event is off-the-record, which is a good thing because it relaxes everybody. It is a social occasion, and not a press conference or a publicity event. You don't have to be on your guard. It is a pause in the normal workflow, a chance for the media, the communications teams, and top execs to mingle and get to know each other.

It is also a rare chance to catch up with colleagues at various publications--there are few such events that bring us together. Yes, there were a few missing faces, a few casualties of the media sector disruption.

Which got me thinking about the event itself and the irony of it all:

Here were the remains of the professional media, enjoying the hospitality of a company leading the disruption of the media sector; and potentially endangering their ability to earn a living in the frugal manner of their profession.

There was no Luddite rage expressed against Google. There was no attempt at a rallying cry for a massed storming of the Googleplex data center. Most were content with picking out all the good sushi, drinking cocktails, and chatting politely.