Let The War For Startup Attention Begin
The war has begun. The first shots have been fired across the bow, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It might even rival the intensity of policital mudslinging we will see this summer. What am I talking about?
TechCrunch, the hugely popular technology blog published by Michael Arrington, and Jason Calacanis announced the dates for this year’s TechCrunch event yesterday. Last year was the first year of the event, and it started out as the TechCrunch20, which was expanded to the TechCrunch40. Well this year it’s up to 50. The best startup to launch at the event wins $50,000 and a lot of publicity.
So what’s the big deal? The event is September 8-10th 2008, which is right on top of the mother of all launch events; DEMO Fall 2008.
DEMO announced their dates long ago, so the choice of dates for TechCrunch clearly can’t be seen as an oversight, but a direct shot at DEMO. Arrington says he was just looking for available dates at the best venues.
Michael Arrington says that DEMO needs to die.
Chris Shipley responds that Arrington obviously doesn’t have the startups best interests at heart, because this will mean over 100 companies launching within a 5 day period. It will be impossible to be heard above the noise.
Carla Thompson put her criticism a little more bluntly.
Our own local PR maven at Porter Novelli, Josh Dilworth, thinks that startups should just stay home, and launch another time. A tough but honest opinion, especially given that Porter Novelli is a major sponsor of the DEMO conference.
Update: Valleywag publishes their own fight guide.
Update: Calacanis breaks the silence and offers Chris Shipley a job. Jason loves to make those job offers.
What do you think? Time to start trying out our new Disquss comment system!
Filed under: Opinion/Editorial
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