Jason Calacanis is all over the Blogosphere today because he wrote a post about Link Bait that is being considered one of his best blog posts ever. In the spirit of reciprocation, I'll throw my link in with the rest.  By the way, I did meet Jason and wrote about it in Friday night with Jason Calacanis's party at the Magician; it happened about six months ago - so I have a real story to tell.

I think it had something to do with a bunch of Pizzas he ordered that did not show up (many were starving and ready to eat anything in sight), we had about 20+ people, it was raining hard and a guy shows up with 2 mini pizzas with anchovies on them.  I said I did not want any …. Jason pulls out money from his own pocket (Gawker Media was going to pay for the Pizzas but only a couple of bloggers showed up) and I think, about half an hour later - the Six Pizza Pies arrived - say guy delivering - all wet (but the Pizzas were dry).  OK, that's my story.  No big deal - I was just there listening and saying hello.

Getting back to all the buzz about Calacanis - I first saw Danny Sullivan's post on Daggle which asks Is Jason Calacanis Great Or The Greatest?  At the end of his long post, that praises Jason Calacanis (according to Jason's rules on Link Bait), he says:

"…Nah, Jason, I don't want the link. Dude — what, Search Engine Land isn't on your daily read list? C'mon, shove it up there and call it Danny. I want that link, baby! "

Then Michael Gray gets in the act and follows the LINK BAIT rules and writes a homage to the guy - I'm assuming Jason Calacanis will definitely link back to Michael Gray after reading his post.

 "…In addition to having nerves of steal he’s not afraid to be brazen and go where no man has gone before. Did you know that almost exactly 2 years ago Jason was the first person to do a live webcam videocast from inside of an airplane to Judith who was responsible for day to day operations at weblogs inc. Sadly Judith has now left weblogs inc since they were absorbed by AOL (see I really do read)."

My only question…..Jason's still alive right?  Michael Gray's reminds me of the kind of stuff you write for someone after they have passed over and you want to remember their exploits (together).  Sure… Michael Gray will get a link back.

And then there's John Evans who hails from Syntagma Network Magazines writing about The Calacanis Link-bait Machine:

".. You just gotta give it to the guy. Genius isn’t in it. Jason Calacanis has just written not only the funniest post I’ve read in a while, but also the smartest traffic-hoovering machine in years. I’d call it the industrialization of backlink aggregation. Google watch out — Professor Moriarty is on the case. "

John Evans is the editor responsible for my own Art Blog - ArtNewYorkCity and John earned a link back from Jason Calacanis too.

But what about me … I read Jason's blog regularly and think he's ahead of the curve on a lot of things (not sure that will get me the link or not) but I said those things before he mentioned Link-Baiting - so they're genuine.  

And what Jason says about SEO is fine with me - I'm don't think Search is all that's it's crapped cracked out to be and opt more towards Branding and Usability and have been saying that here for some time.

At least, I can say that I did meet Jason Calacanis and hung out with him (for about 2 hours) .. nothing to make up.