I’ve always loved DEMO-style conferences (like the one going on in Palm Desert today) where entrepreneurs show off their creations for the first time to an audience of their peers, the press, and investors. In fact, in 1997 I did my first conference called “Meet the Alley” where entrepreneurs did 10 minutes presentations in the “demo-or-die” format (I gotta find the video tapes). We called it “Ready, Set, PITCH!” and it was a huge hit. The New York Times wrote it up… I gotta find that clip too!

Getting a presentation slot at a demo conference can really help launch a company, but the fact is that demo-style conferences have turned into cash cows for big conference companies and the small entrepreneur is now being forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to buy their space.

It’s wrong on so many levels (as a lot of folks have pointed out).

First, the best companies would never be able to afford that fee. This means the most prommissing companies who need the exposure the most–and who the audience would most want to see–never make it to the stage. When Kevin Rose started digg he was broke–he could NEVER have afforded demo. When I started Weblogs, Inc. with Brian we were really broke (in fact Brian had taken a second mortgage to build the company!)–we could never have afforded demo. I suspect that most of the great and up-and-coming Web 2.0 companies wouldn’t have been able to cut that $20,000 check (or $12,000 as the case may be). I don’t think a YouTube, TechMeme, Blogger, StumbleUpon, or CastFire could afford the ticket when they were starting up.

Second, even the good companies that make it to the stage have to spend around $20,000 to pay for their six minutes! What a rip-off.

Back in December I was kicking it on Sand Hill road trying to get my groove back after leaving AOL. After a day of meeting with VCs I called my friends Steve Gillmor and Mike Arrington to see if they were up for a steak dinner.

Over dinner Mike and I talked about our equal disdain of the payola model, and I encouraged Mike to start a conference series. I explained to him the things I’d learned about doing conference from back in my Silicon Alley Reporter days. Our biggest conference did $2.6M and cost $600,000 to run–and we never asked anyone to pay to get their speaking slot. Of course, those numbers were during the crazy boom years.

After dinner we went for a long walk and smoked some amazing (NOT) Cuban cigars :-). Mike asked me if I would help with the conference and I figured what the heck–I loved running conferences, I love Mike, and our industry needs a conference that isn’t in on the take.

So, it’s with great pride that I announce that Mike and I are partnering on a conference series called “The TechCrunch 20.” The concept is simple: 20 companies will present over two days to their peers, the press, VCs, and the industry.

All companies will be selected by a committee of expert entrepreneurs, journalists and analysts on THE QUALITY OF THEIR PRODUCT not their ability to write a check.

If two guys in school show us the next digg, stumbleupon, or YouTube they’re getting a slot and their going to pay $0 for it.

If the folks over at StumbleUpon, digg, PodShow, or Odeo show us some amazing new product they’re planning on launching they get a slot–and they pay us $0 for it.

We really want the audience to get 20 presentations that are just amazing. No duds is the goal. To ensure that we have no duds the selected companies are going to show us their final products and presentations 10 days
before the event, and in the case that their demo is not ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT we are going to replace them (we’ll have 2-3 alternates waiting in the wings for this purpose).

How will we make money off the event? Well, frankly we don’t need to make too much money, and we think the ticket sales and a couple of top level sponsors (i.e. one law firm, one tech firm, one VC firm, and one accounting firm) will cover things.

The details are being worked out as we speak. Here is what we know so far:

1. It will be in the San Francisco area.
2. We will have around 250 people at the event.
3. 20 companies will present over two days.
4. The event will take place in the fall.
5. We are looking for a location that can fit 250-500 people. We arehoping we can find a a University that would host the event, or an affordable conference center. Any ideas please let me know.
6. We hope to put together an advisory board of people we really respect to suggest companies.

How can you help?

a) We need a great location.
b) We need top level sponsors who believe in giving the little companies a chance to shine.
c) We need suggestions for companies who will want to break big news in the fall.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about getting back into the conference business, and I really honored to be doing it with Mike and his team at TechCrunch.

If you want to email the “20 conference” team the email is 20 at techcrunch.com.

all the best,

Jason

As part of the consolidation of niche blogs at AOL they are shuttering PVRWire. This one I don’t agree with because PVRWire is clearly on the road to hitting 1M pages a month as you can see below.

Based on that trend they should hit 1M by the 3rd quarter, and 1M pages a monh is when a blog becomes worth managing at a big companies like AOL.

I’ve offered AOL to take over these blogs and give them the ad slots for a period of time… I’m waiting to hear back. I’m doubtful.

Update: Robert responds saying “I just took a couple of hours away from the computer flying down to Demo and spent most of that time thinking about this and I have to admit that the past four days have not been my best professionally.” Robert, for the record we all love you and think you’re great. Let’s all get back to doing good work.

Robert,

I’m very disappointed that you are riding “my team” at Engadget. They are classy guys who work very hard and treat everyone with respect. They’ve been at this for a long time and they are pro-indie bloggers and have been since day one.

At this point you’re basically slandering them and spreading lies. You’re acting like a spoiled jerk and as your friend I feel the need to tell you that.

I’m really disappointed in you. I’m your friend, Ryan’s your friend, and Peter’s your friend. If you have a great story you know you can send it to us, IM us, or pick up the fracking phone and tell us (we used to talk on the phone–remember that?!). You have more access to us than anyone on the planet!

What if I started calling you out on my blog and spreading lies about you? How would you feel??!?! This is not how friends treat each other.

You really need think about how you treat your friends if you want to keep them. At this point I’m really disgusted with you.

If this is some linkbait concept it worked–I’m linking to you. However, the reputation damage you’re suffering by lashing out at your friends is much greater than the value of a couple of links.

Your friend who’s really had it with you,

Jason

Just read a post on Divester (a site I named and started when I was running Weblogs, Inc.) about their closing at the end of the month. It makes sense for AOL, hyper niche sites like divester are never going to get to 1M pages a month which makes them impossible to scale like Autoblog, Engadget, and Joystiq.

I asked the folks at AOL if they would sell it to me. Haven’t heard back yet.

More here…

This is brilliant… Karina and the teams at Netscape and Cinematical are doing exit interviews at Sundance this year. For the past two years we talked about doing surveys on the way out of films and decided not to do that because a) it would take a lot of time and b) it might not be taken well by the folks running/participating/going to the festival (i.e. they might not like putting a number on a film).

Karina did something even better–she tapped what people said!

Way to go!!! The first one is for Hounddog.

I just read about Genarlow Wilson on Mark’s blog... absurd. Go see for yourself, and read the NYT editorial.

Update: In the comments someone says Cuban should forfeit their next game against the Hawks in protest. I’m not sure if that’s fair to his players, but I wouldn’t put it past Mark to do it if his team agreed. I think they could make a similar statement by wearing an armband or uniform during the game in support.

Update2: If you have a blog you really should mention Genarlow’s case and link to the various sites. There are few things worse than a person going to jail unjustly. If everyone in the blogosphere blogged about this over the next 48 hours it would have an impact.

Robert flew off the handle today thinking that there was some grand conspiracy to keep him off Gizmodo and Engadget. I spoke to him immediately after reading his insane post claiming that the gadget blogs don’t link to bloggers (something you can tell is untrue by just scanning the last 20 posts on either site!). He was frustrated, he lashed out at his friends, and he realized he was wrong.

It happens. Truth be told Engadget is the life-blood of many small sites which have a symbiotic relationship with Engadget because Engadget can’t survive without a flow of high-quality, insider news coming in, and these niche sites can’t survive without getting the regular spike of traffic from Engadget (it’s not like the New York Times or WSJ are sending niche blogs traffic!).

Fight the real enemy Robert: the New York Times and Yahoo. Whens the las time they linked out on the top level of their site!?!?!?

Note: AOL links to other bloggers–not just Weblogs Inc. ones–on the TOP LEVEL of their site. AOL is a friend to the bloggers, Yahoo and NYT are stingy!

Given the amazing production values of VentureCast, and my own technical stumbling with CalacanisCast Beta (I’m sitting on one video show and one audio show as we speak) I think I’m gonna hire a half-time engineer/producer type and try and make the show more frequent.

I need someone in LA with a lot of passion for podcasting, common sense, tech ability, and hustle. If this is you, send me note.

Basically I need my own Craig Syverson.

Well, sort of. I went for my daily hourly walk around Brentwood (part of my “get back to marathon weight”* campaign) and I listened to the last episode of the most excellent VentureCast.

* Note: For 11 years I ran the New York City Marathon and weighed in at 165-170, which for my then scrawny build was just right. Fastfoward six years and I tipped the scales at–gulp–207 pounds. I’m at 192 now and I’m trying to get down to 180, which given the muscle I’ve added weight lifting over the past five years would make me the geek version of Daniel Craig (in my dreams!).

I was on This Week in Law back in November and the show was just released… we had a great debate over RSS, implied licenses, and RSS reader companies like Newsgator, Bloglines, Yahoo, Google Reader, etc.

Important Note: I talk about working at AOL on this show, but obviously I left AOL shortly after taping this show in November.

http://www.twit.tv/twil3