Daniel Terdiman, over at CNET, is reporting that Demo and TC50 are potentially fragmenting their audiences.
Let’s cry for a moment for all the startups. Boo, hoo, hooo.
Back to reality. Any startup that looks at this as a loss should be refused funding.
First it’s funny that a CNET reporter is saying that. After all, CNET is one of the few organizations around that has the resources to attend both conferences. CNET should LOVE this because it gives them a HUGE advantage over 99.9% of other bloggers.
The way I look at it is that four years ago only 70 companies got paid attention to (I attended Demo that year). Now double that number will. Even if you only try out the top five companies from each conference that number will be double too. So, competition between two conferences is GREAT for startups. Any startup that says otherwise just won’t have credibility with me.
The fight between Arrington and Shipley has helped focus our attention on these two conferences (the LA Times even wrote about it) so now startups are getting even more PR than they’d get if there were only one conference. Keep in mind that each of the 70 startups on this list paid $18,000 to get on stage, so I’m sure not crying for Shipley’s business. Seems to me that it’s better than ever.
OK, now that we have the drama of the morning out of the way, let’s dig into the 70 demonstrators at Demo. TechCrunch will announce its list on Monday morning at 6 a.m.
If Shipley really cared about the startups she would have made each of the URLs in this list linkable. Here, let me do that. Then, let’s take the weekend and see what we can learn about each of these companies. What do you think of this group? Anything here catch your eye?
UPDATE: I just visited every one of these companies. Boy do they almost all suck (at least their Web sites and if their sites suck, I can’t believe their products are going to do much better).
Accordia Group, LLC; New Rochelle, NY;
Adapx, Inc.; Seattle, WA;
Alerts.com, Inc.; Bellvue, WA;
Arsenal Interactive, Inc.; Mountain View, CA;
Asyncast Corp; Campbell, CA;
Awind Inc.; Junghe, Taiwan;
beeTV; Milano, Italy;
Best Buy; Minneapolis, MN;
BizEquity Corp.; Spring House, PA;
Blue Lava Technologies, Inc.; Honolulu, HI;
Cerego; Tokyo, Japan;
Cinergix, Pty Ltd.; Melbourne, Australia;
Clintworld; Boenningstedt, Germany;
CoreTrace Corp.; Austin, TX;
crowdSPRING, LLC; Chicago, IL;
DesignIn, Inc.; Marblehead, MA;
Dial Directions, Inc.; Alameda, CA;
DOCCENTER; Omaha, NE;
Enterprise Informatics, Inc.; San Diego, CA;
Familybuilder; New York, NY;
ffwd.com, Inc.; San Francisco, CA;
Fortressware, Inc.; Mountain View, CA;
Fusion-io; Salt Lake City, UT;
G.ho.st; Ramallah & Modin, Palestine and Israel;
Green Sherpa; Santa Barbara, CA;
Infovell, Inc.; Menlo Park, CA;
Intelius, Inc.; Bellevue, WA;
Invision TV, LLC; Bethesda, MD;
iWidgets, Inc.; San Francisco, CA;
Kadoo Inc.; Washington, DC;
Koollage, Inc.; San Jose, CA;
Mapflow, Ltd.; Cork, Ireland;
Maverick Mobile Solutions, Pvt. Ltd.; Maharashtra, India;
MeDeploy; Hamden, CT;
Message Sling; Worcester, MA;
MeWorks, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan;
Microstaq, Inc.; Austin, TX;
MixMatchMusic, Ltd.; Burlingame, CA;
Momindum; Paris, France;
OpenACircle.com; Dallas, TX;
Paidinterviews, LLC; McLean, VA;
Paragent, LLC; Muncie, IN;
Photrade, LLC; Cincinnati, OH;
PlanDone, Inc.; Petaluma, CA;
Plastic Logic, Ltd.; Mountain View, CA;
Qtask, Inc.; Burbank, CA;
Quantivo Corp.; San Mateo, CA;
Radiant Logic, Inc.; Novato, CA;
RealNetworks, Inc.; Seattle, WA;
Rebus Technology, Inc.; Cupertino, CA;
RemoTV, Inc.; New Haven, CT;
Rudder, Inc.; Houston, TX;
Semanti Corp.; Alberta, Canada;
Sim Ops Studios, Inc.; San Francisco, CA;
SitScape, Inc.; Vienna, VA;
SkyData Systems, Inc.; San Mateo, CA;
SpinSpotter; Seattle, WA;
Telnic, Ltd.; London, England;
TetraBase, LLC; Boothwyn, PA;
The Echo Nest Corp.; Somerville, MA;
tikitag, an Alcatel-Lucent Venture; Antwerp, Belgium;
Toolgether; San Mateo, CA;
TravelMuse, Inc.; Los Altos, CA;
Trinity Convergence, Inc.; Durham, NC;
TurnTo Networks, Inc.; New York, NY;
UbiEst S.p.A.; Treviso, Italy;
UGA Digital, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan;
Unity Solutions, LLC; Clearwater, FL;
Usable Security Systems, Inc.; San Francisco, CA;
WebDiet, Inc.; Henderson, NV;
Xumii, Inc.; San Mateo, CA;
Zazengo, Inc.; Santa Cruz, CA;
Looking for Friends and Family via Social Networking Sites at DEMO!
PeopleSearches.com
http://www.PeopleSearches.com
[...] Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive Let’s cry for the poor fragmented, underreported … gold mine of links to all the startups presenting at demo and tc50. (tags: links startups entrepreneur entrepreneurship) [...]
[...] Let’s cry for the poor fragmented, underreported startups [...]
Given all the dogfight between the two events, the ones who wiil certainly lose are the startups (look at the bitching going about the demo startups – am sure TC ones will also go thru’ the same).
I mean what the heck do these guys (demo/tc) think of startups? Isn’t this ‘hold on the new site till we give a green signal’ a sort of parade?
Startups – time to go back and execute on your plan.
Given all the dogfight between the two events, the ones who wiil certainly lose are the startups (look at the bitching going about the demo startups – am sure TC ones will also go thru’ the same).
I mean what the heck do these guys (demo/tc) think of startups? Isn’t this ‘hold on the new site till we give a green signal’ a sort of parade?
Startups – time to go back and execute on your plan.
[...] Scoble, a very well known social media blogger just went through this list of 70 start-ups and said: I just visited every one of these companies. Boy do they almost all suck (at least their Web [...]
This is a pretty dismal list of startups. True, there are a number still behind closed doors, but I’m feeling less than inspired by even the names being chosen. I haven’t seen anything interesting in any of these, and certainly nothing new.
This is a pretty dismal list of startups. True, there are a number still behind closed doors, but I’m feeling less than inspired by even the names being chosen. I haven’t seen anything interesting in any of these, and certainly nothing new.
[...] other reasons to go local with your services – at the end of the day, the new media A-listers can be assholes. Sure, local people can be assholes too, but at least you have a connection with the [...]
[...] some posts about sites highlighted by DEMO - saying they “almost all suck” (see original post) and now followed up with a post about “useful travel web sites“. It wasn’t [...]
I just visited several of the sites and am confused by your definition of “suck.” Yeah a COUPLE of them were an eye sore but MOST of the sites I checked out where clean, professional looking and I understood what they company did relatively quickly. Most had pretty easy to understand video explanation or online demos. What exactly where you hoping the website would do?
I just visited several of the sites and am confused by your definition of “suck.” Yeah a COUPLE of them were an eye sore but MOST of the sites I checked out where clean, professional looking and I understood what they company did relatively quickly. Most had pretty easy to understand video explanation or online demos. What exactly where you hoping the website would do?
Charles: compare this list of startups to the Gold Standard and you’ll see a complete different quality level. http://scobleizer.com/2008/09/07/the-gold-standard-of-recent-startups/
If you want to enter the marketplace that already exists and you want to have the potential of getting some attention you’ve gotta be better than what already exists, not worse.
Charles: compare this list of startups to the Gold Standard and you’ll see a complete different quality level. http://scobleizer.com/2008/09/07/the-gold-standard-of-recent-startups/
If you want to enter the marketplace that already exists and you want to have the potential of getting some attention you’ve gotta be better than what already exists, not worse.
[...] logo One of the services listed on the infamous “this sucks” list by Scobelizer, Kadoo is meant for you to share stuff. This sharing can also be linked to your [...]
[...] Let’s cry for the poor fragmented, underreported startups Startups: your web site sucks [...]
[...] Actually, the issue goes much deeper, it is not that there are going to be a bunch of startups that paid a lot of money to get on stage and show off their product, even if it is just another way to poke someone on a social network. The TC50 and Demo are coinciding this year, which makes it even more interesting for the startups, two shows, same time, both are “must attend events”. [...]
[...] a nutshell, bar a few exceptions, their sites are, according to him, just lousy. I bothered to verify and… couldn’t agree more! Just take the [...]
Good but what would we do without your relentlessness, Scoble? I can't believe you made all those links, let alone visited them, let alone decided they all sucked.
Good but what would we do without your relentlessness, Scoble? I can't believe you made all those links, let alone visited them, let alone decided they all sucked.