Memo to Chris Shipley: Luca Brasi Sleeps With the Fishes!
“Demo needs to die,” said TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington yesterday.
Oh, my. Oh, dear. Not more bloody tangoing!?!
The pugnacious tech blogger–who was last seen slapping around other tech bloggers who deigned to also raise money for their ventures, much as he has been doing–made this classy statement in an interview with Daniel Terdiman of CNET’s Geek Gestalt yesterday, about scheduling his TechCrunch 50 conference at the same time as the fall conference of the longtime leader in the start-up conference space, Demo, run by Chris Shipley.
DemoFall is September 7th to the 9th, while TC 50 is September 8th through 10th.
“It’s just an old-school model,” continued Arrington to Terdiman. “It clearly involves pay to play, and what we’re offering is better.”
Not satisfied to just schedule his event at the same time as Demo–which is fine, I guess, given this is America and we all have the right to be aggressively, and even pointlessly, competitive–the second shot is at the $18,500 fee that Demo demonstrators pay, once they get invited to that conference.
TC 50 does not charge, which, to be fair, would be my choice too.
Still, given his inaugural TC 40 conference sold out and was, said Arrington to Geek Gestalt, profitable, the channeling of the Corleone Family in the online tech space seems a bit much to me.
After all, despite the fact that Arrington recently characterized tech blog sites as competing gangs (”You can do just about anything you want, but the politically savvy folks tend to arm themselves to the teeth and gang together to protect their property. Everyone else is in the middle of chaos, either fighting blindly for attention or politely asking–by linking early and linking often–if they can join the big Gang.”), let’s be honest.
The whole group of us together would lose badly in a fair fight with my son’s kindergarten class.
Of course, they bite. We should know better.
(Full disclosure: Walt Mossberg and I have been running a conference, called D: All Things Digital, for many years. D6 is in late May and is sold out. Nonetheless, full coverage of the event and also full video of the interviews with tech and media players on stage–including Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Bewkes, Howard Stringer, Mark Zuckerberg and many others–will be on this site. We also do a few demos, so until then, we fervently hope to find no horse heads in our beds.)
Comments
Watch out, you two. You’re next. I mean, who are you to charge people to come to a conference at a fancy hotel, eat and drink well, think big thoughts, learn from your expertise and insights. Information wants to be free, right?
Good thing your kid goes to a tough kindergarten. You’re going to need that protection.
Posted by Chris Shipley at April 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 amChris:
Bring it on, Shipley!
I have Om Malik in my gang, and despite his recent health problems, he can teethe like a toddler!
Also: Rafat Ali=Mad Dog.
And, I am not saying Walt eats nails for breakfast (actually, he often enjoys a heart-healthy egg-white omelette with low-fat cheese), but he knows how to use an iPhone. Even that annoying keyboard!
Posted by Kara Swisher at April 3rd, 2008 at 4:30 amYeah, but I’ve got Twitter and I know how to use it.
Or, maybe we join forces, start a gang. Cool tattoos, 5-year-old thugs in leather jackets, a tough street name, Walt making funny faces w/ orange peels… We could kick some Web 2.0 ass.
Posted by Chris Shipley at April 3rd, 2008 at 4:38 amMichael Arrington! Stop coming on here and posing as Chris Shipley.
I am totally calling your mother.
Posted by Kara Swisher at April 3rd, 2008 at 4:52 amI’m predicting a run on these:
Posted by Christopher Carfi at April 3rd, 2008 at 8:23 amhttp://www.kropserkel.com/horse_head_pillow.htm
mmm, RED MEAT. yum!
well all i gotta say is from the entrepreneur’s perspective, competition is good.
due to scheduling, there’s a bit of a dilemma having to decide whether you do one or the other, but for most folks the question would only be one of them anyway.
chris puts on a good show, but TC also did a reasonable job first time out. DEMO’s challenge will be to prove that paying the $18.5K really *is* worth it, TC’s will be to show it can do a good job filtering more companies, and put on a show as good as DEMO.
at the moment, there’s plenty of business to go around so i’m not gonna spend a lot of time crying for either of them.
again, it’s great for entrepreneurs to have competition & choice — that’s a lot more than most folks living under mob rule in Chicago ever had…
as for you Swisher, better sleep with one eye open!
Posted by dave mcclure at April 3rd, 2008 at 8:41 am“How did things ever get so far? I don’t know. It was so unfortunate, so unnecessary.” Perhaps a meeting with “the families” is in order.
Posted by carmen hughes at April 3rd, 2008 at 1:12 pmMcClure:
I always sleep with one eye open!
Posted by Kara Swisher at April 3rd, 2008 at 2:11 pm