Here are a few of the events throughout the week:

• Wine 2.0 Expo – Nov. 18 – $45-125 – Webster Hall
• NY Entrepreneur Week - variety of events around Manhattan throughout the week – price varies based on startup stage or investor level
• Web 2.0 Expo – all week – Javits Center – prices vary depending on level of access from $845-1995 – Expo Pass is free
• Future of Web Design – Nov 17 – New World Stages – $395
• Drinks4Startups – November 18 – Free
• Interop – all week – Javits Center – prices vary depending on level of access from $845-2995 – Expo Pass is free
• Diggnation – watch the Diggnation show live – Nov 17 – free
• Brandhackers “Google AdPlanner for Social Media Presentation” - November 16 – free
• Social Media Mixologists Holiday Kickoff Mixer - Nov 17 – free
• WordCamp NYC – Baruch College, CUNY - Nov 13 – free

Send me any events you would like to add to the above list. I expect all of you to get out there – at a minimum take all the free expo passes and mingle. If you would like to meet – drop me a line. We can chat about your startup, my startup, the industry, the subway, etc.

Please note that CN is listed as a media sponsor of some of the events throughout the week.

TC50 founder Michael Arrington has doubled the amount of advertising. He says whatever DEMO offers, he will double it.

Arrington notes, “Our ads will be on our various TechCrunch networks sites and via our terrific sponsors, who are going to be adding their own inventory as well. We’ll give half to the top two winners, and half to everyone else who launches.”

It seems the silly wars appear to be on yet again this year. 

I think it’s great that both DEMO and Techcrunch50 are offering bigger prizes – anything to help the startups that present past the initial buzz is a good thing. Let’s just hope Jason, Heather, Mike and Matt remember the end goal and don’t get back to last years “TC50: 1 – Demo: 1 – Startup: 0“.

Now it appears DEMO has stepped up the prize pool bigtime by offering two $1 million dollar prizes. The prizes will be awarded to the best enterprise startup and the best consumer startup. The prizes are basically ad buys over the six month period following the conference.

Update 5:30PM: It appears that the total prize is $1 million, not two million as I previously noted. I am not sure if I got it wrong or if they changed it. I thought it read that two winners (one consumer, one enterprise) would each receive $1m.

Conference organizer Matt Marshall notes regarding the prize, “The campaign will include print advertisements, web banner placements, text link promotions, email newsletter promotions, and video ads. The package includes the development of creative content that is to be featured on IDG media properties – another huge value proposition to the winning companies.”

I assume the ads will be priced at the rack rate so the $1m is probably worth less had you bought the ads yourself and negotiated a better rate (probably 30% at best). No matter what, it’s good to see the winners get some publicity past the few posts they will get from the conference buzz.

How many of the companies that presented at either conference last year can you name? Can you name 10 of the 50 that presented at TC50? This huge ad buy should help two companies stay top of mind for at least six months and could give them a lift to build from.

Let’s get the logistics out of the way – DEMO will be held on September 21-23, 2009 and Techcrunch50 will be held on September 14-15, 2009. Depending on the date of registration, attendees pay $2,000-3,000 for DEMO and $1,500-3,000 for Techcrunch50. (as a side note, I’ve seen tc50 producer Jason Calacanis giving away bunches of free tickets on his podcast, so you might try that road to avoid the high costs).

Last year I was one of the few people who attended both pitch events. You can read all of my coverage and an in-person comparison between both events. Overall DEMO was a better run show logistics-wise.

My thoughts are based on web/Internet businesses. If you have a physical product or other IT-related service, DEMO is basically the only choice.

DEMO

DEMO requires companies that present on stage to pay $18,500. Presenting companies are also provided with space in the expo hall over the three days of the conference. They have launched a new “alpha pitch” program this year which offers companies 90-seconds on stage, two conference passes and expo hall space for $5,000. To present at DEMO, the product must make it’s public debut on stage at the conference.

The decision here is whether the $20k will provide a better return than if the $20k was spent elsewhere. If you bought ads, hired a temp dev/design/biz person to build out the product further, attended more conferences with the cash, would you receive more media impressions than dropping the $20k on DEMO? I’ve only heard from a few DEMO presenting companies but overall the feedback on the logistics were good.

Techcrunch50

Techcrunch does not charge a fee for companies who present and (at least last year) the companies were offered one day of space in the expo hall (referred to as demo pit). Other companies can pay to be part of the expo hall. Like DEMO, Techcrunch50 requires that your product not be accessible before the conference.

Since there is no “cost” to present at Techcrunch50, it makes it a bit more difficult to compare directly to DEMO. If your product is still a few months from going live, I’d say go ahead and apply, it can’t hurt to get onto the radar of some of the players that the conference has recruited. If your product is ready today, I am inclined to say launch now.

I put cost in quotes above because a number of stories I’ve heard from presenting companies is that if you do get to present, you will be required/pressured into providing all of your future news to Techcrunch. As for the demo pit/expo hall space, most of the stories I heard as I walked around were very negative. The majority of the negativity was logistics-based but there were also complaints of not enough time with the conference attendees. Of course many of those same companies said much more positive things in the press which I guess is required. I am sure there will be more drama this year so if you can’t deal with drama, then don’t apply.

Some additional final thoughts

Another consideration is where your product is in terms of development. If it’s ready to go now, ask yourself if you want to put it on the shelf for nearly 90 days waiting and wondering if another player will step into the arena before you hit the stage.

There are good opportunities at both conferences to meet with venture capital folks. If you are seeking vc funds, attending one of the conferences might be a good way to meet with multiple vc firms at once. On the flip side, the vc firm attendees will be overwhelmed with pitches so it might make sense to pitch as you normally would.

My top suggestion for anyone considering applying to either/both conferences is to pick 2-3 companies from last year’s events that are closely related to your company. Do the research to see what type of media impressions and reviews they received. And watch the media impressions after the conference-sizzle dies down (about 2 weeks out) – are the companies still seeing good media traction?

You might even try contacting the companies and offering lunch in return for some off-the-record discussion. The most important thing I’ve learned by attending these pitch conferences is that what’s said when the camera is on is typically very different when the camera is off.

If you do apply to present at one of the conferences, please make sure your presentation is memorable.

Whatever you decide, best of luck and success for your startup. Remember that no conference, no blog, no newspaper, no one anything can make your company be a success. You need to keep working to build the audience over time and continue to move the needle up and to the right.

I will leave my post-event thoughts for another day. I have posted the videos (~90 minutes) from the event below. I split it into four sections for easy viewing. Here are the speakers listed from left to right:

• Rose Gordon, News Editor, PR Week
• Gillian Reagan, Reporter, The New York Observer
• Adam Isserlis, Director of Digital Media, Rubenstein Communications
• Peter Himler, Founder/Principal at Flatiron Communications LLC
• Sabrina Horn, President, The Horn Group
• Chantelle Karl, PR Manager, East Coast, Yelp
• Mary Kathleen Flynn, Senior Editor, The Deal
• Jay Kolbe, Vice President, Weber Shandwick

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Unlike the others who make you register, tweet, friendfeed, sell your kids, mortgage your house to enter, ours is very easy. Just email me (”myfirstname” – at – centernetworks.com) with your details and on May 5th we will pick two winners.

Only send in your details if you are in NYC or plan to be. I hope to attend parts of the conference so if you plan to attend please come and say hi!

• Howard Greenstein
• Steve Rubel
• John Havens
• Peter Himler
• Ken Zamkow

They showed a bunch of videos that have gone viral including Will It Blend and Kobe Bryant jumping over a car. Howard setup a page with a variety of viral videos on Delicious. They talked about some videos from Celebrity Apprentice about ALL detergent that didn’t provide the expected results.

Here are my notes in bullet form…

• Ken Zamkow is going to be launching a new site called Fash911.com soon – he didn’t provide many details except that data analysis will be a big part of the site/service
• Rubel called Second Life – “Digital Vietnam”
• Rubel wonders where social ends and media begins
• Higgins believes the best way to go viral is to make the community the star
• Greenstein noted that companies should market on social networking sites where their customers are now and move with them as new networks and services come into play

At the end of the panel, Steve was asked his thoughts on mobile. He noted that utilities and productivity applications will be big winners this year. I completely agree with Steve on this – especially because more paid apps are launching so there’s no need to worry about monetization via advertising.

Overall it was a good panel. I would have liked to see more specific tactical discussion on seeding viral content but I am confident the students in the audience got a taste of online viral social media.

NYC Entrepreneur Week

A week’s worth of activities and events around the city and here’s the best part – everything is free! I will be speaking on Tuesday evening with a few other media people about the future of the media landscape. It looks like every facet of entrepreneurship will be covered from starting, funding, expanding, hiring, along with ways to leverage resources in NYC. There are also a few parties mixed into the agenda.

LaidOffCampNY

The NYC version of LaidOffCampNY will take place on May 1st and 2nd at Pace University. The offerings will help people with their careers and also help with entrepreneur training. The event is directed towards entry to mid-level digital media, advertising, publishing, technology and financial service professionals. This event is also free.

I was asked by a reporter if there was a breakout product or service this year and my answer was no. I also think Twitter was quieter this year than previous years. And thats a good thing.

Here’s the CN coverage from SXSW 2009:

• SXSW 2009 Schwag Bag Video
• SXSW: The Bats and the Birds
• SXSW Live Blogging: Facebook Connect Launched for iPhone
• Exclusive: Video With Loic LeMeur on Seesmic Facebook Client
• SXSW: Nutshell Mail Demo
• SXSW Photos
• Entrecard Launches Ad Network and Credit Buy Back Program
• SXSW – Cannybill Web Invoicing and Billing Service
• SXSW Demo Video – Pixton Comic Creation Tool
• SXSW Demo Video – Tatango Group SMS
• SXSW Video – Tactile CRM for Small Businesses
• SXSW Photos – Part II
• SXSW 2009: Mobile Trends Toward Futurism, Commerce, Laziness
• SXSW Video: Regator – Curated Blog Aggregator
• SXSW Video: 99designs – Design Contests
• SXSW Video: Lil’Grams – Twitter-Like Service for New Parents
• DandyID Demo Video – One Stop Data Collection and Data Portability

See you in 2010!

I was able to catch-up with Gregarious at SXSW this week and here’s the video from our chat:

The heavily international crowd (which included an estimated 25 percent non-American attendants) seemed to be, from a show of hands, a well-informed group with a good number of mobile developers in attendance.

Topics ranged from better device-charging solutions to developing for devices that come closer to standard Internet browsing every year. All in all, it was given that WAP technology is dead, fully Flash-enabled devices are the next step, image recognition capabilities and more detailed location-based information are crucial, and the idea that you’d have to actually plug a device into an outlet for any reason is becoming increasingly laughable.

What does this mean for marketers?

Read the rest of my article on Adrants.

Jolie O’Dell is a designer, writer, and consultant based in Richmond, Virginia.

Tactile just partnered with FreshBooks to integrate both systems together. Check out my 3-minute interview with Tactile CRM CEO Jake Stride:

You can check out all of my photos on Flickr.

I wonder what Marshall Kirkpatrick and Louis Gray are talking about…

Amanda Gravel

Here’s Matt Cutts from Google and Tamar Weinberg. Matt traded me the sticker for a pagerank 9 on CN!

Shama Hyder

Check out my 2 minute video with Derek where he discusses Tatango, why bloggers are using it and how they plan to make money. He also discusses Tatango.TV which is their new 24×7 live video stream from their office.

The comics can be created in over 40 languages and all of the elements are editable and you can move them around as well. The comics can be embedded in any site or blog. What’s really neat is that you can remix the comics with your friends to create the best possible comic.

They have also announced the upcoming launch of an animated comic creation tool which will officially launch in 1-2 months. There’s a neat demo of the animation tool on the Pixton website.

Check out my interview with Pixton co-founder Clive Goodinson: