In my best Rock voice…finally the free live feed has come back to DEMO.  A year ago I wrote about how infomercial conferences (including DEMO) should always be streamed live. For the fall 2010 DEMO conference, a stream was offered for $250. Other competing conferences (TC50, Disrupt and now Launch), which don’t charge a presentation fee, have always offered a free livestream.

The key with an infomercial conference is to keep the buzz high for the entire event and get potential customers excited about the products and services. This is the reason I push so hard for a free live stream. The DEMO companies are paying $20k (money which could easily be spent elsewhere) and should expect that attendees and livestream viewers can chat and comment about their products and services. The ability to watch and immediately comment on the social media services provides a compounding effect for the on-stage companies. It will be interesting to see if this class of companies sees a stronger media return than the last two classes at DEMO.

Side note, I have received several emails, smses, skypes, facebooks, twitters, etc. wondering if I had anything to do with getting the free live feed going at DEMO. One thing you learn quick growing up in Brooklyn is to not talk about what one does or does not do. But if you have a problem and no one else can help and if you could locate me, you could hire the A-Team.

In all seriousness, good luck to all of the presenting companies – get some good rest tonight, eat your Wheaties and remember to make your presentation memorable.

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO

It’s been interesting to watch the DEMO conference evolve since Techcrunch50 began. First there were the wars of words between the two conferences, then it got quiet, this year Techcrunch50 has been replaced by two individual conferences while DEMO continues on in the same format as before the Techcrunch50 conference began operations.

During the spring version of DEMO, I wrote a column that infomercial conferences (those where companies pay to present) should always be streamed live. In today’s search market, it’s critical that companies can gain the bonus exposure of a potential trending topic on the different social networks or on Google’s new realtime search. By posting the videos a day later, that buzz will have already evaporated.

It also makes it hard when people at the conference share how excited they are about one of the companies because those on the receiving end of the message, can’t easily jump into the presentation to watch for themselves.

This season DEMO has moved the event to San Francisco. Over 60 companies will present their products and services. It appears DEMO generates their revenue several ways:

• They charge each company that presents on stage $18,500
• They charge “alpha” companies that want to present their idea for 90 seconds a fee of $5,000
• Attendees pay $3,000 to attend
• They have a large list of sponsors (somewhere around 50)
• This season of DEMO, you can now watch the live stream for $299 ($250 if you register before the conference) for both days.

For reference, Techcrunch50 never charged companies a fee to present. Their revenue came from ticket sales and from corporate sponsors.

I received an email this afternoon from Fora.tv who are apparently handling the online ticketing and viewing for the DEMO conference. I can’t tell from the email whether you will be able to watch the company demos the next day as in the past or if you will be required to pay to watch the demos at all. It does appear that the panel discussions (those with the CEOs of companies including Twitter and Groupon) will only be available if you pay.

I will attempt to contact DEMO to further clarify how the live streaming will work although their contact page is not working currently.

My hope is that the DEMO organizers will read this post and reconsider charging a fee to watch the event live. Or at a minimum, allow the demos to be broadcast live and cut the video when the panel discussions are on stage. It’s one thing to charge a PPV fee to watch a wrestling event or a Katy Perry concert, it’s another thing to charge a substantial fee to watch a conference where the participants are paying for exposure.

Lastly, if you are one of the companies presenting, good luck, come out and kick major butt and remember to make sure your presentation is memorable.

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, online video

Yesterday I wrote about the need for live video streaming at “infomercial conferences“. On my content ideas pad I wrote, “spend $20k” — this is the amount that it costs to present on stage at the DEMO conference which was held earlier this week.

Francine Hardaway wrote a column yesterday on Fast Company asking if a big launch event (like DEMO) is worth it for a small company. The column is a must read as Francine goes over the list of pros and cons for spending $20k (more like $30k all-in) for 6 minutes on stage at DEMO. The net comes down to something I very much agree with – if your product or service is in the social media space, it’s not the place to be. I would add that if your p/s needs early adopters, it’s also not the place to launch. If your product or service is enterprise-related or is a gadget, it might be worth looking at DEMO as part of a launch package.

Robert Scoble wrote one of his best posts this year yesterday where he asked, “where oh where did the great startup launch go?” Robert goes into detail about how Bug Labs launched their gadget versus using a large conference to launch a startup. Robert wonders if his readers can name one of the companies that launched this week at DEMO. I watched every single presentation (some live with a “press-only feed”) and I think I can only name a couple of them. I don’t fully agree with all of the steps Robert suggests, but overall his list is strong.

Robert also looks at how Google launched Buzz and how much better of a launch they could have had if they pulled in some outside people to have a look before going live.

My issue with DEMO is the lack of coverage. Robert notes that many of the startups were covered only on VentureBeat which is the official blog of the conference. From my perspective, it seems like there are less media posts for each startup as the DEMO conferences have moved on each year. When I attended two years ago, it seemed like there was a lot more media in the audience (which I’ve heard from multiple sources was less than about 500, way down from when I attended two years ago).

DEMO will be moving from San Diego to San Francisco this fall. Perhaps that will get the excitement going as many of the startup bloggers and journalists call SF home and could attract more media to the event. I will look at what DEMO needs to do to improve and attract startups in a future post.

So, here’s my question to you. How would you spend $20k? If I gave you $20k today for your startup, how would you spend it? (this is an exercise, I don’t really have $20k to give you) The money has to be used for launch or promotional activities – not for hiring additional employees.

Some ideas include:

• buying a DEMO slot
• buying Google AdWords or other online advertising
• buying print advertising
• renting a booth at a conference in the expo hall
• buying paid posts with a company like Izea
• renting a “social media expert” to write content and get that content promoted on some of the social media services including Digg or Reddit
• paying a PR firm to get posts and/or stories written about your startup
• creating print materials and handing them out at popular locations with your potential customers

Your turn…how would you use $20k to support your product or service launch?

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, money, startups

I’ve written before about “live” at conferences and why I prefer that speakers, panelists and attendees focus on the room and the learnings rather than spending time posting on social networks during a session.

There is one type of conference that should always be streamed live…the infomercial conference. This type of conference includes DEMO and Techcrunch50. What I mean by “infomercial conference” is that the event is setup for startups to present their products and services in an infomercial format.

Last year (and in previous years) both DEMO and Techcrunch50 were streamed live. I believe TC used Ustream and DEMO used Bitgravity for the streaming. If I remember, both streams worked very well and both acted as great promotions for the streaming providers.  Yet this year at DEMO, there is no live streaming of the presentations. The presentations are available the following day — i.e. yesterday’s presentations are available now.

Why do I think this is a bad idea? First, the companies at DEMO are paying $20k for their infomercials and should expect that people worldwide can watch the demos while the team is on stage. Second, with the chatter on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks from people at DEMO, it causes for odd interactions. The people at home can’t jump into the live stream to watch presentations that those chatting find interesting.  Lastly, no live stream means that buzz will be lowered overall because it requires that you load the DEMO website the next day (or later) to watch the demos. The key with an infomercial conference is to keep the buzz high for the entire event and get potential customers excited about the products and services.

If the videos were delayed because they had to be edited (e.g. add more material, background tracks, etc.) it would be a different story. From what I can tell watching yesterday’s presentations this morning, it appears the videos are just the exact presentation with no editing.

There is a livestream available for press and I was granted access last night. I plan to watch the presentations from our NYC office today. Here’s hoping DEMO will reconsider their no-stream policy for the fall DEMO event later this year.

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, livestream

This morning we noted that DEMO was now offering some amount of money in advertising to the two winners at their startup-infomercial. As I noted in an update on that article, I am no longer sure if the total amount is $1 or $2 million.

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“.

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, TechCrunch, TechCrunch50

Last month I discussed presenting at the DEMO and TC50 conferences later this year. In the comments, Techcrunch50 founder Jason Calacanis noted that one of the big differences between the two startup-infomercial conferences is that his Techcrunch50 offers $50,000 to the winner.

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.

Find more stories about: Calacanis, Conferences, DEMO, Michael Arrington, TechCrunch, TechCrunch50

The title of this column is a question I am asked a couple of times a week…”should I present/apply to the DEMO or TC50 conference?” Both conferences require applications to be turned in by June 30th so I thought this was a great time to share my thoughts and feedback I’ve received about the conferences.

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.

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, startups, TechCrunch, Techcrunch40

If you are an American Idol viewer, you know that when the singer finishes their performance Simon Cowell provides his analysis. Many times he says things like "that was forgettable" or "you didn’t do anything to stand out from the rest". As I watch hundreds of startups present their products and services, I am often thinking the same thing. And you should be too.

This week I watched about a dozen startup pitches at the DEMO conference via the live stream (which was fabulous btw). Most of the demos were, unfortunately, forgettable. The products might be awesome but nearly none of the presenters got me excited about their product or service. This issue isn’t just about the companies I watched at DEMO – it happens all the time at nearly every pitch event I attend. I will use DEMO as the example for the rest of this discussion but know that you can insert any pitch conference in its place.

What makes a pitch memorable? That’s simple (yes, it really is simple). It’s about showing your passion for your product.

When you are on stage, you want every single person watching your presentation to feel your passion about your product. Only one of the DEMO companies I watched brought some passion to their presentation. That company was Skout. The founder showed their dating jukebox and looked like he was humping it (in a good way). It was hot because you could feel the energy level in the room go up. The other presentations I viewed were all monotonous and almost seemed like it was the same presenter on all of them. No pitch or tone change, no excitement, just a boring, "here’s what it does". If you aren’t excited about your product, why should I be?

Compounding the problem was that nearly every presenter was wearing the same outfit. While I am not suggesting you dress up like you just came in from a fishing trip or color your hair orange, it also doesn’t mean you need to wear a blue shirt. We’ve seen the pale blue shirt crowd many times before. Even another shade of blue is fine — the pale blue screams forgettable.

UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said, "Make everyday your masterpiece". I would modify the line a little, "Make every pitch your masterpiece". I know it can be very hard, scary and nerve-wracking to be able to stand in front of 10, 100 or 1,000 people and talk. It’s certainly not easy for anyone, no matter how many times a person has done it. One of the things that always helps me is to remember that the people watching me speak are there to support me. In the case of DEMO, all of the people in the audience and watching from home want to cheer you on and want to see you succeed (I know I do). So instead of thinking that you are going out to pitch to a group of people you don’t know, think of the people in the audience as family. Change the way you look at the people you are pitching to and you will see how much stronger your presentations become instantly (even if they aren’t pitches).

I am going to share more tips on how to make your startup pitches memorable each and every time over the coming week. And I’d be happy to critique your pitch at SXSW.

As a sidenote, when I mentioned in the DEMO chat that I thought the presentations were forgettable, organizer Chris Shipley told me that it was easy to critique from the 3rd row. I’d be more than happy to bring my startup to DEMOfall but as I told Chris I can’t afford $20k.

The bottom line is simple – when you are pitching your product or service, bring passion, bring excitement and get the crowd enthused. Make your pitch memorable each and every time!

Find more stories about: DEMO, Quick News, startups

Last night I read a hit-job post like I haven’t seen since my days on the G in Brooklyn during the 70s. The hit-job I am referring to is Erick Schonfeld’s piece about Matt Marshall joining the DEMO conference team. Apparently because one person (Chris Shipley) decides to change her focus after running the conference for 13 years, they must be "desperate". Erick also makes the following observations, "He is going to have to reinvigorate a dying brand." and "It is fine by us if DEMO sticks to its model of extorting startups". I can’t believe we are still talking about this tc50 vs. demo crap.

Erick uses the post to explain that his conference, Techcrunch50, is the much better model and that now he will have to "crush" VentureBeat. He notes that techcrunch50 companies get in on merit (oh is that how they do it!). Erick also displays a chart displaying the very little traffic that demo.com receives but leaves the techcrunch50.com site out of the chart – the comparison chart is available below for reference.

I wrote an in-person review of both Demo and TC50 from last year as I was one of three people to attend both events. It was great to meet so many CN readers at both events. After the unprofessional treatment I received at TC50, I won’t be attending this year. I am not going to go into the behavior here but suffice to say that even the event staffers thought the behavior was unprofessional.

The truth is that the numerous stories I heard from the entrepreneurs of the demo pit startups, the ones that pay $3k/day, were not good. But, as one might guess, no one wants to speak on-the-record because they are afraid.

It’s totally understandable that the Techcrunch team is probably a little upset because Time magazine ranked their top competitor Mashable as a top blog for 2009 while Techcrunch was listed as "overrated". Might these be some additional reasons why Techcrunch might be the desperate one in this conversation?

• They’ve added a "javascript page refresh" – this means that if you leave the site open in a tab, it will refresh every once in a while – extra pageviews for the site
• They continue to increase the page views required to read the comments – first it was 100 on a page and a link to "view all comments" – now that link is gone and less comments are viewable on each page
• They have decided to break embargoes when it suits them to make sure they appear first
• Even with their reportedly strong-arm tactics, startups are starting to provide news to everyone but Techcrunch and as I’ve said since the early days the best route is to provide the news to all of the sites you trust to honor the posting time and get the most coverage and feedback you can.

Patricio Robles from eConsultancy has a good post reviewing the same post. He talks about why positivity sells; I guess he doesn’t read the aformentioned blog often. Let’s hope that Erick thinks about all the negative feedback on his post and offers up an apology to Matt and Chris, even if it’s handled privately.

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, Michael Arrington, Quick News, TechCrunch, TechCrunch50

It looks like the legal battle between RealNetworks and the movie studios over the RealDVD product continues.  Chris Albrecht at NewTeeVee is reporting that the RealDVD site has been temporarily taken down until at least Tuesday when a judge will review the matter. The idea behind RealDVD is to allow consumers to make backup copies of their DVD movies and watch them in a jukebox fashion. RealDVD keeps all of the copy protection and other systems when the DVD movies are copied so I am not sure what the huge gripe is. Computers must be "authorized" to view the videos that are listed in the RealDVD software. 

RealDVD was one of the products that launched at DEMO last month. There was a lot of chatter that the movie studios wouldn’t be happy with the product.

Albrecht notes, "Yesterday, Real scored a small legal victory by having the case moved from a Central District Court of California in Los Angeles (the studios’ home turf) to a Northern District court, where the company hopes to find a more favorable setting."

Find more stories about: DEMO, Quick News, RealDVD

The DEMOfall08 and Techcrunch50 conferences have concluded. Thanks to everyone who said hello, grabbed a sticker, discussed their startup and just made the week special. Over the coming weeks we will take a detailed look at several of the startups from both events.

A special thanks to Francois Bochatay from Sobees, Adolfo Foronda from Nerdstalker, Stephanie Quilao from Noshtopia and Clay Fisher/Daniel Lee from Briteclick for attending the CN brunch. Briteclick is one of the NY-based companies I met this week and will be conducting interviews with all of the NY-based companies over the next month.

Here’s all of the CN coverage from both DEMO and Techcrunch50:

Video Interviews and Demos

• Video Interview With MixMatchMusic CEO Charles Feinn
• HeyCosmo Blaster – Voice SMS (video)
• SuggestionBox – Community Feedback Management (video)
• Wixi – Online Storage Using a Desktop Interface
• Iterasi Launches Bookmark Importer
• FiveSprockets Helps You Make Better Media – Video Demo
• Kidos – Education and Entertainment Platform for Kids
• 2Pad Creates a Gallery From Photos and Videos in Your Email (video)
• Video Interview with Seesmic CEO Loic LeMeur

Live Coverage

• DEMO Welcome Reception Photos
• DEMO Session I – Moving the Chains
• DEMO Session II – Television Meets the Web
• DEMO Session III – Words, Pictures and Music
• DEMO Session IV – Your Mobile, Your Life
• DEMO Session V – Open Studios
• Techcrunch50 – Mobile
• Techcrunch50 – Language and Communication Tools
• Techcrunch50 – Rich Media
• Techcrunch50 – Games
• Techcrunch50 – Social Networking
• Techcrunch50 – Research and Recommendations
• Techcrunch50 – People’s Choice – iamnews

General

• Kara Swisher on Demo vs. Techcrunch50
• An In-Person DEMO and Techcrunch50 Comparison
• Loic LeMeur Discusses Techcrunch50
• TC50: The Funded Startups

Schwag Bag Videos

• DEMO Schwag Bag Video
• Techcrunch50 Schwag Bag Video

Next week is a busy one in NYC – should be exciting!

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, Quick News, TechCrunch50

Iterasi launched at DEMO earlier this year and are back with a brand new feature this week. From my initial review of the Iterasi service: The idea of the service is simple: save pages in their exact state for later use. The example is easy: you do a search on a site with an embedded Google map. You want to save the state of the Google map but currently if you favorite the page, you lose the actual map locations in the results. Iterasi saves the exact state of the page making it easy to come back to. It’s not saving the live page, rather the current page at the time of the save.

The new feature is called Import Bookmarks and is an easy way to take your Internet Explorer Favorites, Firefox Bookmarks or links saved in Delicious and save them as Iterasi pages. Here’s CEO Pete Grillo to explain how it works:

Find more stories about: DEMO, Iterasi, Quick News, TechCrunch50, Video

I think I am the only person to attend both DEMO and TC50 this year. I’d like to share my thoughts on both events. This is only a logistics comparison — not a startup comparison. My thoughts on all of the startups will come later this week. Overall both conferences were full of attendees which is awesome. Hats off to both events as I know these type of massive events take an amazing level of preparation and staffing.

Venue

DEMO is held at a traditional conference center, TC50 is held at an art house. I preferred the DEMO location as it was much larger and felt more spacious. People are basically sitting on top of each other at TC50. Last year there were many complaints of having to stand at TC50 and I’ve seen several people standing this year as well. TC50 has a number of round tables outside of the presentation room which is great for having casual conversations, something I didn’t see at DEMO.

Chairs

When you sit in a chair for over 10 hours, that chair better be comfortable. I found the DEMO chairs to be more comfortable and frankly the TC50 chairs hurt my ass (I’m not alone with this comment).

Entertainment

After speaking with many attendees, TC50 gets the nod here. Most feel like the experts bring some entertainment value to the event and break up the individual presentations. DEMO seemed like the presentations were never going to end.

Internet Access

Both conferences have excellent wired Internet access.

Stage Setup

TC50 has a one computer setup so each presenter has to swap out while the previous presenter speaks with the experts. The "mood" on the TC50 stage feels a bit warmer than the DEMO stage. DEMO had a two-level stadium style setup where each presenter had their own setup which was quite impressive. They also used a handheld camera which provided some interesting angles on the presenters and their products (especially the mobile products).

Schedule

Both schedules are way too packed. There needs to be more time for breaks and networking. The startup presentations at DEMO were in nearly four hour clips – I would have split them in half and provided a bio break in the middle. It’s also critical to follow the schedule when the day goes so long – DEMO was within one minute of the schedule while TC50 was quite a bit behind.

Food

Food seemed to be about the same at both, with DEMO winning by a small margin. I’d suggest to both conferences considering adding snacks, especially in the afternoon. Other attendees agreed. Actually, both conferences really need to kick up their overall food offering big time. For $3k a ticket, there better be food all day, this is non-negotiable.

Demopit/Pavillion

DEMO created an outdoor (covered), non-airconditioned pavillion where each of the 72 startups had a stand with a large uniform sign. The demopit has small tables with small personalized signs. The DEMO setup looked better although I like the setup at TC50 as you are forced to walk past the demopit companies to get to the presentation center. The DEMO pavillion had more energy – perhaps it was the very high ceiling of the tent.

Apparently there were no chairs provided to the demopit companies – this was an issue last year as well. Although this year the startups just took chairs from the sitting area.

Badges

DEMO has a huge badge but very small type for the name and company. This is one of my big frustrations with conferences in general. Make the name and company large enough so anyone can read it as they walk by. Also, DEMO had a small colored strip to note the type of attendee (press, exhibitor, sponsor, etc.) – this strip could have been larger as well. TC50 has color coded badges and the type is larger. Overall I like the TC50 badge.

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, Quick News, TechCrunch50

HeyCosmo is one of the presenting companies at the DEMO launch conference. You may remember HeyCosmo from our review last year. The company has relaunched with a new set of applications. I met with CEO James Im last week and he walked me through one of their applications, Blaster.

Blaster is voice sms for groups. It’s a pretty useful application. Let’s say you plan to have a party with 10 of your friends to celebrate the Giants winning the Superbowl. You want to know which bar your friends would like to meet at. You can setup a "blast" to your friends with your options. Blaster then calls each one of your friends, reads your text and offers suggestions. Your friends select their choice and that’s it. The Web application (also a Facebook app) monitors the replies in real-time so you can tell who has replied.

My example is very basic – Blaster can be used for surveys as well. It’s much easier to quickly poll your friends via voice about meeting than to setup an invitation with a service like Evite. I grabbed James for a quick demo of Blaster at DEMO today:

Find more stories about: DEMO, HeyCosmo, Quick News, TechCrunch50, Video

I was asked to videotape the contents of the schwag bag provided to attendees at the DEMO conference. Below is the video – the bag was pretty empty as schwag bags go – I would have thought all 72 companies would have some item in the bag. There are two attendee directories but there’s no contact information – seems a bit incomplete without an actual way to contact the people on the list!

In the press room, there were a ton of usb keys – I grabbed one of each – you can see them in the video. FFWD wins for the coolest looking one – a surfboard.

Find more stories about: Conferences, DEMO, Quick News, TechCrunch50