PRNewser was present at this morning's BusinessWire event, "A Social Media Conversation: How PR, IR & Marketing Professionals Can Engage and Participate in the Social Web."

Publicity Club of New York President and Flatiron Communications Founder Peter Himler moderated a panel that included Rob Key, CEO & Founder, Converseon, Jim Neil, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer, TNS/Cymfony, Ryan Block, Editor-in-Chief, Engadget, Josh Cohen, Senior Business Product Manager, Google News, Peter Hershberg, Managing Partner, Reprise Media and Melissa Bauer, Senior Public Relations Manager, The Knot.

As usual with "new media" events, there was the irony of no wi-fi available, despite being smack in the middle of Manhattan. Nonetheless, we welcomed the hospitality and ambience present at the 3 West Club.

When room for questions appeared, we asked Block what he thought about news aggregators such as Techmeme posting direct links to press releases and company blogs.

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The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is hosting their International Conference in New York beginning this Sunday.

Speakers include markeging guru Seth Godin, Marriott Chairman & CEO J.W. Marriott, Jr., Nicholas Negroponte of One Laptop Per Child and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi.

Much of the conference is sold-out, however you can multi-day passes here. They've even launched a conference blog, InSession. Unfortunately, we don't think it's doing our city justice. From a recent post: "...if you were to pick one word to describe New York - you would have to say 'food.'"

PRSA is hosting "The Digital Impact" Conference in New York today and tomorrow. Unfortunately, PRNewser can't be there, however we've been following the Twitter posts from Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, who is there.

Here are some highlights:

Stephen Baker of the New York Post HATES corporate websites and says corporate communities as reliable info sources are "crap." Dumbass.

Basically, these mainstream media folks are telling this crowd that PR folks are liars. Wonder if it's time for us to change? Hmmm.

TV producer - Wikipedia, UGC, press release services and corporate news rooms -- NONE are good sources of info for stories. WOW

Old media telling PR crowd they don't really read their spammy emails either. (There's no reason to separate new and old media, folks.)

Jason mistakenly credited Steve Baker as NY Post (he writes for BusinessWeek) but besides that we find his updates informative and amusing. Are you there too? Drop us a line.

(New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman addresses attendees)

The Public Relations Society of America's New York chapter held their 21st annual Big Apple Awards last night at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan.

mediabistro.com and FishbowlNY associate editor Noah Davis was on hand, and wrote in a recap post today, "Zuckerman, who plugged the Daily News as the only paper to support Mayor Bloomberg during his first election bid and asked the audience to buy a subscription, began his keynote address with a joke: 'Howard Rubinstein asked me if I believed in the Constitution. I said yes. He asked me if I believed in free speech. I said yes. He said, 'Good, cuz you're gonna give one.'"

The complete list of winners, after the jump.

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(Nichey, Arcane and Geeky; mediabistro.com Circus keynote speaker Chris Anderson, via Robert Scoble's Flickr)

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of WIRED, Long Tail blogger, is facing a full house of media execs at mediabistro.com's Circus event.

What he has to say often puts PR agencies in a panic, because he admittedly doesn't have all the answers when it comes to the changing nature of the media, and the explosion--yet very niche-oriented--of consumer-generated content.

"By day I"m a magazine editor with all the resources. By night--I don't know what I am--I'm a coach. I'm teaching teenagers, teaching geeks, and teaching non-English speakers how to tell their stories."

He made the point that social networking pre-dates behemoths like Facebook in the form of sites like Slashdot and Wikipedia, and that publishers such a WIRED (the recipient of some extremely good publicity this week in the Times) have the opportunity to take interested people out of those places and bring them "in to our sites, in our own way."

Anderson talked about the power of Ning to aggregate very niche content, as they do with over 250,000 micro-social networks. "I think this is the future. There are more niche and narrow opportunities than there are mass ones. In those interests, we want to go as deep as we can possibly go."

He finished his talk with a call for organizers--or "curators"--of these networks to set standards for participants, and lead by example with great content. Using Gawker's policy of cutting off inappropriate commenters, he said, "sometimes you have to cut the heads off a few chickens."

When questioned about his original outting of PR people last Fall, he responded, "I executed them after years of abuse. If people continually violate the social norms of our site, we'll execute them too. Be nice, consider peoples' time and their needs."

Regarding the room of digital media moguls looking for a way in: "Our interns get it, all we have to do is give them permission to do it...let them be your curators."

STAY TUNED FOR AN EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS ANDERSON ON PRNEWSER

(Julia Allison, left, with pals Mary Rambin, and Meghan Asha)

No stranger to finding ways to drive traffic on the web, mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby recruited ubiquitous blogger-about-town and Tweeter Julia Allison to greet attendees this morning at the opening of the first Circus conference.

I chatted a bit with Julia about managing one's personal brand and how saying Yes to work leads to more traffic and more offers. To potentially misquote her, apparently Chris Anderson introduced her to the Publisher of Wired last night at their 15th anniversary party as the "foremost expert in self-promotion." Indeed.

You can find PRNewser's beautiful mugs with Julia and friends after the jump:

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First up on day 1 of the first ever mediabistro.com conference are presentations from multimedia publishers in the theme of "From Print to Digital".

Serial Editor-in-Chief James Daly. Daly founded Business 2.0 in 1997, and sold it in 2001 to AOL Time Warner. Daly is talking about his own "big tent of ideas" at Edutopia, a print and digital publishing entity funded by the George Lucas Foundation

To paraphrase: education--as well as publishing is a two-way conversation. In Daly's Powerpoint: "Community-building not a gimmick but a way to build audience involvement. We use a content management system called Droople. It's an open-source model.

The gist seems to be about building a publishing model to push content to educators, and pull back in user-generated content (in this case curriculum ideas) on the Edutopia platform. To answer the PR question: Can you pitch it? Yes, read the bylines and check out the masthead here.

PRNewser was present, camera and all, at PRSA's blogger social event in New York last night.

About 50 or so bloggers, agency folk and freelancers filled up Art Bar in the Village to talk shop about all things social media, PR and beyond, while enjoying the open bar and food.

Pics after the jump.

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(image: clipart.com)

Mediabistro is hosting a meet the bloggers party, next Monday, 5/19 in New York.

From the invite: Come meet the mediabistro.com bloggers! They're in town to attend the Mediabistro Circus, and we're having a cocktail party to welcome them to NYC and to allow you to see the faces (and brains) behind our blogs. Lurk with the GalleyCats, swim with the Fishbowlers, catch up with the TV & PRNewsers, and get colored UnBeige.

If you're in the area, we hope to see you there. Please RSVP here.

[Phish accepts the Lifetime Acheivement Award at the Jammys (image cred)]

PRNewser rocked out last night at the only event where you'll see Chevy Chase sing, "(You Made Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" - the Jammy Awards. What are the Jammys, you ask? Simple: jam bands + Grammys = Jammys. Chase was among a long list of performers and presenters, higlighted by a lifetime acheivement award and performances by members of the legendary jam band Phish.

While Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige played the arena upstairs, we arrived at the WAMU Theater at Madison Square Garden early for the awards show as guests of Big Hassle's Jim Walsh. Walsh headed up publicity for the event, and his agency represents both those in and out of the jam scene, including Weezer, moe., Government Mule, and the Bonnaroo music festival.

He told PRNewser, "Fortunately, I have worked as part of Ken Weinstein's team at Big Hassle on many weekend festivals like Bonnaroo, Vegoose and moe.down. One night of the Jammys is a breeze compared to four plus days of on-site press management!"

The show received coverage in both "traditonal" outlets and influential music blogs like BrooklynVegan. (The Phish reunion rumors sure didn't hurt.)

Judging by the results - a sold-out event - Big Hassle can certainly be pleased with their efforts.