TechCrunch20 is now TechCrunch40 – Is There Enough Time?

The TechCrunch20 blog is reporting that the startup launch conference is now the TechCrunch40. From the blog, "After reviewing the 700+ applications that we received from 26 different countries, and after personally interviewing 175+ businesses, we decided that there were just too many strong start-ups to limit the conference format to 20 company presentations. So we revisited our agenda, cut out a number of content panels and determined that we could successfully break 40 companies at the conference and still leave room for interesting discussion and debate about new business models and verticals with our expert advisory panel."

The agenda shows 2 days at over 12 hours per day with a very agressive schedule which might make for some exhausted participants. The 90-minute lunchbreak should help. Each launch session is 1 hr 20 minutes split between 5 startups which means about 12 minutes per startup which includes the demo plus the expert feedback from their 17-member panel. And I am not including any time for questions from the audience. Seems a bit tight but if anyone can make it work, it's Jason. Jason did mention that not each expert will provide feedback on each demo.

The only other change I noticed today is ProfileBuilder is now a sponsor. Nick wrote a very positive write-up about ProfileBuilder on TechCrunch yesterday. They help you manage your online identity.

CN will be covering the conference and I am looking to schedule a breakfast meetup on Saturday or Sunday. If you have any ideas, please let me know! If you are in SF, it would be great to meet the west coasties.