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That’s right folks, “mama bistro” as our sister blog AgencySpy likes to call her, has decided to move us on over to the main site. Starting today, catch us at www.prnewser.com. Let us know what you think of the new feel.

Top shelf booze and tuna tartar flowed freely last night at the annual movable media feast that is the Ken Sunshine holiday party, or, the Ken Sunshine & Shawn Sachs party as this is the first year Ken is hosting with a partner.

With a last-minute change (jokingly pawned off as a smokescreen to keep Rudy Giuliani from crashing) the party landed at Meatpacking hotspot One Little West 12th.

I spoke to the gregarious Sachs about the ‘plan’ for a party that put Ben Affleck, Pat O’Brien, John Mayer, media elite including Page6’s Paula Froelich & Bill Hoffman, the News’ George Rush, and GMA’s Monica Escobedo in the same mix as clients 1199SEIU, America’s Second Harvest, New York Organ Donor Network, Do Something and the Transit Workers Union.

(Hoffman, incidentally was overheard talking about the great items publicists could be pitching from books and such but don’t, and that “a lot of flacks should be sent to flack school.”)

According to Sachs, “It’s simple really, we let the staff invite whoever they want from the different parts of the business. Some agency holiday parties are staff only, we open it up to everyone, including other PR people we know. Other agencies have staff-only parties. Who needs to spend more time with people from the office?”

The other benefit beyond plying the media with posh nightclub surroundings is putting like-minded clients together, Sachs continued. “The Second Harvest people talked to Do Something about the current food shortage. They’re meeting today to see how they can raise awareness together.”

Others confirmed on the scene were Access Hollywood producer Jennifer Zweben, Pete Shapiro, former owner of the Wetlands, and new owner of Brooklyn Bowl, GMA’s publicist Bridgette Maney, and of course our boss, mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby.

Itching to build your own Social Media News Release (SMNR) the way the Canadian Social Media Group did for the Ford Focus?

Then hurry up and click here to register for a very limited webinar on the basics of the SMNR hosted by Shannon Whitley next Wednesday. There are less than 20 spots available. We heard about this one through the New Media Release Google Group.

Shannon promises to “go over the fundamental structure of the SHIFT template, ending with a quick demo through PRX Builder.”

If you’re looking for a soup-to-nuts look at social media, check out the Horn Group’s overview webinar on Tuesday (Horn is my co-editor Joe’s employer)
The full description after the jump:

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The female half of AllThingsD, Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal was recently honored PRSA’s Silicon Valley Chapter.  While she was there, she shot a video featuring Brandee Barker, head of Facebook PR, who Kara reports, had a ”harrowing day handling Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes,” which is doing a piece on the social-networking site with an apparent focus on–also, of course–privacy); the impact of the possibly looming recession on tech; Apple’s iPhone (of course, of course); Google (triple of course); the resurgence of the enterprise space; and the fate of Yahoo.”

Brandee basically gave a gracious “no comment,” and we can’t say we blame her.   Kara goes on to say to Robert Scoble, “being honored by public relations officials is kinda like code word to annoy us all night with pitches, right?”  You are soooo on to us, Kara!

 
(image cred)

It’s barely 9am ET and a quick traffic check shows that you folks are up early today. On a Friday, nonetheless.  Keep at it, early birds! 

While we’ve received a few notes about PR and media related holiday parties this week, we’re looking for more.  Send us a tip about your party.  Where/when is it? How’d it go? Open bar not ”open” enough? You can always email us: prnewser at mediabistro dot com, or send anonymous tips here.  Happy holidays!

Ok, so we didn’t crash the party, we were invited.  Kelton Research threw a party Tuesday night to celebrate being named the nation’s “fastest growing market research consultancy,” as a result of their No. 861 placement on the influential Inc. 5000 list.

The company provides research and a lot more for PR agencies and clients including Whole Foods, IBM and Ticketmaster.  We caught up with founder Gareth Schweitzer and NY office principal Nathan Richter (who is also a mediabistro instructor). Pics and more after the jump.

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mediabistro.com managing editor Rebecca Fox is down in sunny Florida covering the American Magzine Conference. She reports from the panel, “Will Marketing Ever Be Integrated? An Agency/Client Perspective,” which was moderated by Ad Age editor-in-chief Jonah Bloom, and included Deirdre Bigley, VP of worldwide advertising and interactive at IBM; Brian Perkins, corporate VP of corporate affairs at Johnson & Johnson; and Scott Neslund, CEO, Mindshare America.

What did Brian Perkins, VP of Corporate Affairs at Johnson & Johnson, say about the state of integrated marketing and whether ad and pr agencies can get along?

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Somehow, this sort of got lost in the shuffle of the last few days, but you’re still interested, right?  The Daily Mail reports that millionaire PR pro, and former Burson exec Anthony Bailey is getting hitched to one of Tony Blair’s big fundraisers, Debonair Bailey, who also happens to be the 35-year-old descendant of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  No relation to the indie rock band. (sorry, we had to go there)

It’s gonna be a big one, too:

At least a dozen European princes and princesses will attend — not to mention the Saudi Arabian foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, plus two princes and one princess bearing the name Haile-Selassie of Ethiopia.

The British contingent includes former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, plus Labour luminaries Attorney General Baroness Scotland, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears and Labour peer Lord Alli.

The only worthy missing is former prime minister Blair, who is busy in his role as a Middle East peace envoy.

Poor Tony, so busy in the Middle East he can’t even see his buddy get hitched. We don’t feel too bad for him though, he did just get a $9 million advance for his memoir.

Brian Lewis, Irena Briganti and the FBN media relations department ran the FBN launch party well last night, beginning with a very long red carpet, with seemingly all the photo agencies present. PRNewser arrived just as The Regis took his turn through the gauntlet.

For those not indoctrinated in to this ritual, it works like this: PR hustles to get solid RVSP from people like Rege, some Trumps, a Weinstein or two. Then you contact the agencies with the details (some still prefer alerts by fax). Then wham bam, good coverage the AP, Observer, Intelligencer etc.

If the reporters aren’t interested–which was not the case last night–the photos can still get picked up in those round-up party pages. You’ll see more photos on old school places like Gotham later on. The valuable shots will get sold to someone.

The purple & yellow “step & repeat” backdrop ensures your logo is at least visually connected to your hard work.

Confirmed photographers included:

• Dave Allocca, New York Post
• Bryan Bedder, Getty Images
• Jimi Celeste, Patrick McMullan (photo right; pink shirt, sharkskin suit, shades)
• Louis Lanzano, AP
• Theo Wargo, Wire images
• And photographers from Twin Images, NY Living, DMBJ Photos, Polaris, TimesSquare.com, Glob, Retna, Ipol Images

We came, we saw, and we conquered? Well, at least we got the first two down. Your faithful PRNewser editors attended last night’s launch party for Fox Business News, held in the Temple of Dendur at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pics and details after the jump. TVNewser also has an excellent round up.

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