http://www.hote...s.suntuubi.com/

They interviewed over 1000 startups for TC50 and picked what they thought were the best of them. That means that the barrier to entry is the quality of your idea rather than how much money you can spend.

(On a more personal note though, I find it interesting that you decide to take a shot at Calacanis’ height… yet leave yourself wide open with your butchering of the English language. Moral of the story? Nobody is perfect, build a bridge and get over it.)

John Holmes. I agree $1,500 is a lot of money but Michael & Jason don’t just think like entrepreneurs, they are entrepreneurs. That’s why this model will work and I also think it’s fair if TC promotes its own products.
Maybe not to you but to me it’s strong brand I trust & use on a daily basis.
That ain’t gonna change if they tell me about TC50.
If the TC50 business model would be like Demo, then they might have a problem but not right now.
I won’t go to TC50, but I don’t have to because TC tells us about those companies, about the products, … for free. Be thankful, stop whining or go somewhere else.

it’s like american idol, comparing 2 great singers, one singing reggae and the second a hard rock song: it just doesn’t make sense.

at least payola has a clear agenda. and how come calacanis’ blog has zero comment? http://www.cala...ow-they-get-ya/ does that mean the guy thinks he’s more important than he really is? probably.

WOW! You sold out tix at $1,500 per head. Really, who can afford that. If you want to impress people reading your blog post stats of INDIVIDUALS paying their own way and subtract all service providers. Better yet, show these fools smiling at the door with their $1,500 receipts with a signed document that they won’t expense the event.
This is like Comcast running a commercial on Dish Network and pumping their chest how great they are.

The more people read your blog (Techcrunch) the more people see you as another gossip site like Valleywag. Dude, I’m tempted to write a daily blog and bash you on ALL your self serving advertising. This is a joke!

Be careful responding Arrington or I’ll post a pix. Jesus!

Erick launch your own website immediately. You are legit….

But the truth is there is nothing that either of them can do to stop pay to play, they can talk but the VC’s that i talk to see no problem with attending these conferences and as long as they continue to support pay to play conference that business will still exists.

Plus i disagree with your notion that charging biases the sample, clearly charging does make it so that “promising” companies with a solid business model who is already “winning” can further grow by being exposed to VC.

Every enterprise needs to make a profit. Techcrunch50 has carefully reassessed who pays and who benefits.

Techcrunch wants undiscovered talent. Charging talent biases the sample and discourages the best from participating. A funded company that uses these events to introduce their products, why don’t these companies buy PR or advertising? It would be simpler since they don’t need to win a contest.

Helping a promising technology to become more like a company, Techcrunch adds value.

I don’t think you should be so sarcastic.

It seperates the web2.0 soapbox companies which only have a “google adsense” business model from real companies with diverse business models, and paying customers. So Mr 4′11 keep dreaming about the next two years.

Be happy you guys are making a killing from this event, when I talk to VCs from here in Texas, they have no problem attending payola conferences, because they know that only companies with real and diverse business models and most of all “paying customers”, you probably have no idea what that looks like. A paying customers…