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Dana Gardner

Arrington and Calacanis seek to reboot the demos conference -- but what about the oldies but goodies?

By Dana Gardner | February 1, 2007, 4:59am PST

Summary: Still, does this un-promo-demo meritocracy benefit thing need to be confined to just new companies, start-ups and VC-funded projects? Don’t consumers and businesses want super solutions regardless of their origins and the corporate status of the innovators? Most CIOs I know want solutions at low risk, anything else is minutiae.

The announcement of the TechCrunch20 takes some jabs at the DEMO conference that may hit be a tad below the money belt — and any company that can't come up with $15K for a major rollout may not be ready for a major rollout.

But in this era of openness and social media, more conferences that thoughtfully introduce great new products and services is a good thing. The podcasters and bloggers in attendance can give the true prize of highlighting to the world the worthy pitchers and innovators. It's the buzz that's trusted that counts.

Still, does this un-promo-demo meritocracy benefit thing need to be confined to just new companies, start-ups and VC-funded projects? Don't consumers and businesses want super solutions regardless of their origins and the corporate status of the innovators? Most CIOs I know want solutions at low risk, anything else is minutiae.

So perhaps Mike and Jason ought to either include "old" companies too, or create two conferences. The non-start-ups (from HP to SpikeSource) deserve their own TechCrunch20 — Silverback Edition. Two conferences, twice a year, two types of company. All innovation.

You be the judge.

Poll

Should non-startups get a chance to strut their new stuff at such conferences, too?

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Dana Gardner is president and principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions, an enterprise IT analysis, market research, and consulting firm.

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Dana Gardner

Dana Gardner is president and principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions, LLC, a New Hampshire-based IT analysis and new media content production and consultancy firm that he founded in 2005. He produces a series of podcast/videocast/transcript/blog content shows, called BriefingsDirect[tm/sm], some of which are sponsored and which he blogs on. Such sponsored shows are declared individually as such and by what organization or company. When Dana blogs on ZDNet on companies that he does have, or has had, consulting and/or sponsorship relationships, he declares that in each blog entry. There is no connection between the negotiation of such sponsorships and the opinions expressed by Dana here on ZDNet. To date, the following organizations/companies have sponsored, or do sponsor, some BriefingsDirect content, or have consulting relationships with Dana: Active Endpoints Akamai Technologies Aster Data Systems BP Logix Business Technology Quarterly CA Compuware Electric Cloud Genuitec Gerson Lehrman Group Greenplum Hewlett-Packard iTKO JustSystems North America, Inc. Kapow Technologies LogLogic Nexaweb Technologies, Inc. The Open Group Paglo Panda Security Platform Computing Progress Software rPath Sailpoint Splunk TIBCO Software Weblayers Workday WSO2 ZDNet As a matter of CNET Networks and Interarbor Solutions policies, when Dana covers an organization that is also a sponsor of a BriefingsDirect-produced podcast, videocast or any other content, a disclosure will be included with the coverage. Updated (1/4/2010): Instead of providing a disclosure on just those editorials (blog posts, etc.) that intersect the above listed companies, we have changed the policy to include a link to this full disclosure at the end of every one of Dana's blog posts. In the case of audio or video-based coverage, such disclosures will be provided within the editorial content itself.