I attend a lot of conferences. A ton of conferences. I actually started reporting on tech conferences in 1997, would you believe? Heck, I can’t even count how many I’ve attended, how many reports I’ve filed, for how many media outlets, how many endless thousands of words I’ve tapped out, at all hours of the day and night, from meeting rooms, lobbies, and bad hotel rooms all over God’s green earth (not to speak of planes flying above it). I think that gives me some perspective on what makes for a good conference. 
So, then, I suppose you guys would like to hear my take on the events I attended in California this past week, huh? I guess this is as good a time as any, as I drink wine on the plane home and finally get some think time, to start tapping this one out on the keyboard. Seems like my chance to wax on about my thoughts on these two opposing/overlapping events… 
Now, the way I figure it, there are two ways I could do this: a really long blog post (trust me, I have tons I could say), or really short. I can’t see something in between. Since the flight is only another hour and a half, I’m thinking shorter has to be the way to go. Thus, here’s my analysis in sound-bite form.
Two Conferences for Startups: Similar, But World’s Apart
You know how the two events were similar, I suspect. I’ve blogged previously on this topic (scroll back if you want). I’ll focus here on how they were different. So, here goes some thoughts off the top of my head:
– DEMO was for a more experienced, mature crowd. TC50 was for the "cool kids." (Cool kids by definition are not all that experienced, and frankly can be a real pain in the ass.)
– DEMO was extremely well run. TC50 wasn’t.
– DEMO was held in a resort location. TC50 was held…south of Market.
– DEMO was friendly. TC50 wasn’t.
– DEMO networking was excellent, as usual. TC50’s was…meh.
– DEMO had great social media tools set up for attendees. Never saw anything like that at TC50.
– DEMO had some great parties. TC50’s…weren’t.
– DEMO had everything on site. TC50 required riding cabs (hotel, evening events), which sucks.
– DEMO’s food was flat-out excellent. TC50’s was ho-hum.
– DEMO’s production values were top-flight. TC50…has some things to learn.
– DEMO had great bump music. Never heard much at TC50.
– DEMO’s on-stage presenters were well prepared. TC50’s varied…widely.
– DEMO’s logistics were impeccable, as usual. TC50’s were…challenged.
– DEMO’s support of press attendees is flat-out the best. TC50’s was…some emails.
But enough equivocating! How do I really feel? 🙂 I’m just telling it like it is based on my own conference experience. Do with it what you will. Now, in defense of TC50, I was only there for one day (the last). Maybe the first two days were better (God, I hope). Because I wasn’t there for all of TC-50, I can’t attempt to give you a list of my top-10 favorite startups that launched there. But, since I did take in the entire DEMOfall conference, I will do my normal best picks from that event — out of the 72 startups that presented.
My Top-Ten DEMOfall Picks
Here are the ones that lit me up, presented here in no particular priority order (just alphabetically). And, to give you the gist of each, I’m including part of what I tweeted about each right as they were on stage:
• Best Buy (Giftag.com) – of course! my hometown boys – "universal gift registry"…Firefox plug-in…just highlight product at any ecommerce site, then click Giftag icon in your browser bar, and it’s saved
• BizEquity.com – provides valuations of small businesses, at no cost to the business…small biz in U.S.=$5.8 trillion, a couple trillion more than all Nasdaq cos!
• BlueLava Technologies (iLovePhotos.com) – has desktop software (Mac now, Win later) that examines your photos and sends ’em to the people in the photos…ooooo!
• DialDirections (SayWhere) – no more typing on your iPhone, just SAY it, dude! mapping, directions, reviews… (coming soon)
• Fusion-io – announced ioDrive last yr, now ioSAN…shared solid-state storage…1.5Gb/sec – doubling perf from last yr…can transfer 5 DVDs in seconds
• MixMatchMusic – a community for musicians and consumers alike, to mash it up…and the musicians even make money!
• PaidInterviews – disrupting the traditional recruiting model…once candidate’s selected, they’re paid their "ask price" to go on interview…turns recruiting world upside down
• Plastic Logic – been developing new display technology for 10 yrs, reader coming ’09…no glass, very light, long battery life….woooo!
• PhoTrade – a visual marketplace connecting photogs, advertisers, web publishers…upload, set price, share…when you’re on deadline, you gotta find and buy a photo fast
• SpinSpotter – out to bring transparency to news reporting…lets user put on "Spinoculars," highlight unsubstantiated words, submit objections…gad, maybe keep media honest?
Read My Play-by-Play Twitter Account of Both Events
By the way, speaking of tweets, I thought I’d give you the links to my entire Twitter archive on each of these events. The only way I can capture or save all my tweets for later blogging — at least until somebody creates a better way — is to scroll back in Twitter and shoot a screen capture of a page at a time. So, that’s what I did, and I then posted those images (PNG files) to my web site. The trouble with this approach, of course, is that everything is arranged most recent first — so you don’t get the logical, chronological order of the event, unless you somehow go to the bottom screen capture first and read up. Anyway, here’s my index of tweets for DEMOfall (#1 most recent, #18 oldest), and my index of tweets for TechCrunch50 (#1 most recent, #8 oldest).
Let me know what you think. Did you attend either event? Or did you try to follow them online? Do you even care? What were your favorite startups at either one?
I said the same thing in my coverage of last year’s event. Except, this year, the local crowd brought new meaning to the word noise, owing to the fact that — unlike last year — they now seem to have fully embraced social media. Yessirree, can you say… Twitter, Twitter, Twitter?! Matt Wilson, current/outgoing president of MIMA, said from stage soon after the event was underway, “You know we’ve made it when our Twitter hashtag has already been flagged as spam.” 
And that wasn’t even the only hashtag — there were other variations being used, too, by what had to be a large majority of attendees pecking away on Twitter apps all day long, most from their mobile devices. (You could spit from any spot in the Hilton and hit an iPhone.)
It was sponsored by, you guessed it, 
We talked about a number of topics, including recent confabs in the Twin Cities, the economic times, social media (of course), and, hey, even wine. 
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