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.

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.

The service is free and if members interact with the ads, the site could do very well. The weight loss category pays well – my hope is that they won’t display ads for crappy products and services that don’t actually help with reaching your fitness goals.

Check out our comprehensive review of Web 2.0 weight loss tools. Here’s Kenny explaining how WatchMeMelt works:

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!

Over my days at the Techcrunch50 conference, several people noted to me that the startups on stage had major funding and the demo pit companies were the real startups. At the brunch I mentioned putting together a chart of the presenting startups and how much funding they have taken. It looks like Jeff Wang heard me as he has created charts and graphs of the presenting companies and their respective funding.

Jeff found 42 companies of the 52 released their funding amounts and he charted the figures.

• 4 companies over $5 million
• 16 companies over $1 million
• 10 companies didn’t report their funding
• Techcrunch50 winner Yammer has funding for parent company Geni over $10 million including $1.5 million from TC50 sponsor Founders Fund (they have spun Yammer into a separate company but it was built under the Geni umbrella)
• the total funding amount of the 42 reporting companies is over $62 million

So nine months after my initial post I will ask again, how do you define "startup"? Here’s the raw data:

2Pad

Their business model consists of two pieces. First images can be printed into tshirts, hats, etc. and 2Pad gets a percentage of the sale. Second the larger your gallery, the more you pay for the hosting.

2Pad uses Amazon S3 and EC2 for storage and server processing. Here’s 2Pad cofounder Aaron Boublil explaining how 2Pad works:

Here’s Loic:

Out of the gate, Kidos has a business model. Within the gallery, you can buy entertainment and educational software to load into their Kidos. What a smart idea as it works just like iTunes. Here’s Kidos founder David Van Osdol explaining how the software works:

Iterasi

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:

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.

iamnews

– open newsroom platform
– allow publishers to collaborate with news posts
– creating an alternative to news agencies
– creating the future news agency
– allowing companies to create custom made newsrooms 

GoodGuide

– his daughter inspired him as he worked on checking her shampoo
– world’s largest research library for products
– a team of scientists
– helps you find safe, healthy and green products
– basically a product database with ratings and ability to purchase online
– offers a printable guide to take to the supermarket
– you can look at a product and the ingredients and find other products in the category that are safer
– they want you to learn, share and act and make better decisions
– shows news, scandals, etc
– there’s a community
– they allow data syndication to allow others to share and use the data 

GoPlanit

– "plan your trip and go"
– simplify your travel plans
– has a travel scheduler
– creates an automatic trip plan based on an algorithm and what your friends like
– allows you to edit the automatic trip plan to adjust your likes and dislikes
– allows you to book tickets and table reservations directly
– export the itin to other calendar apps
– the iphone version lets you find nearby locations using the gps in the device
– travel blogging lets you blog when you get back from your trip

Goodrec

– a short to the point recommendation that you can trust
– shows the iphone app and using the gps it knows what locations are nearby
– you select your friends and the type of business or eatery and it finds a place based on your friends recommendations
– no reviews – only recommendations
– you can take photos and put them up on a service recommendation
– presenter says you can use this tool to create a real-time travel guide
– goodrec has auto suggest technology
– you can leave recommendations using any mobile phone with a mobile browser

post concluded