From The New York Times
New York Isn’t Silicon Valley. That’s Why They Like It.
By Jenna Wortham
THE two dozen or so people arranged around wooden tables, warming their hands and bellies with steaming mugs of coffee and plates of homemade biscuits, looked like just another Sunday brunch set in New York. But members of this group had braved knee-deep snow to gab about cutting-edge ideas and as they introduced themselves the roll call sounded like a Who’s Who of digital start-ups: Foursquare, Hot Potato, Six Apart, Flickr, Flavorpill, Trust Art, Vimeo.
“There’s a lot happening right here in our ZIP code,” said Dorothy McGivney, a former Google employee who is a co-coordinator of this group, the North Brooklyn Breakfast Club, and runs Jauntsetter, a travel site for women. Like the others, she had come to the brunch to help foster the growth of her little local community of entrepreneurs....
Of course, services can be developed anywhere. But because so many industries now grappling with the Internet are based in New York, the city is finding surer footing among its peers as a thriving tech hub.
“Book publishing, advertising, media and even the fashion industry are all located in New York. These are the main industries that are being reshaped and redefined by technology and the Internet,” says AnnaLee Saxenian, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, [and dean of the School of Information] who studies regional economics and technology entrepreneurship....
To be sure, New York is not unseating its West Coast counterpart, notes Ms. Saxenian. “Silicon Valley is always leading the cluster, but it goes through booms and busts like everywhere else.” Nevertheless, she adds, “this is a moment where New York really has the chance to shine.”