eMediaOne

Remainder aka remnant advertising are not exactly widely known terms, but the average person browsing the web for content knows perfectly well what it is. Anyone who’s ever browsed their favorite news site and has been exposed to advertising units that seem totally off base with the publisher brand, or even completely – even if unintentionally – juxtaposed to the content that’s being viewed has been a ‘victim’ of ads that were placed just to fill up unsold ad inventory, which is what remnant advertising comes down to.

5to1, a startup with a high-profile founding team that includes former Fox Interactive execs Jim Heckman and Ross Levinsohn, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding to work on a solution that can turn remnant advertising into premium advertising. The company’s breaking out of stealth mode today at TechCrunch50 with a service that could rid both publishers and advertisers of the extremely ineffective ad campaigns that are basically only beneficial to the networks selling them.

The 5to1 system allows publishers to get in between the remnant networks and the ad inventory to give them more control over what will appear on the site, where and when. The company’s founder and CEO Jim Heckman dubs it a “Match.com meets iTunes for advertising” because it allows publishers to dynamically create ‘playlists’ of ad units of sorts and easily run both proper ads and potentially placeable remnant ads on variable places on their website(s).

Ultimately, the goal is to make it easier for content publishers to increase the quality of – and with it, the revenue that comes from – the ads that appear on unsold inventory without too much hassle. And if it takes off we’ll see a lot less of these horrible screaming ads that you’d never click on even if they held you at gunpoint.

Expert panel Q&A:

Q – Marissa Mayer: At Google, we agree that optimization can be done. However, what technology do you have for matching content to advertising, and how can you provide for larger-size networks with lots of inventory?

A – Jim Heckman: We’ve been in stealth for a year, but we’ve noticed that publishers like hearing about being able to match advertising with context and having control over it. We didn’t want to compete with the Google model, but we’re more like iTunes: you ‘play’ ads whenever you want. It’s no different than what Web 2.0 has done for content. So if you’re a tech blog on gadget, you can see what ads work for gadget news sites specifically. It’s not algorithmic, but more of a marketplace.

Q – Roelof Botha: Can you demonstrate better CPMs?

A: We can find ads so fast, even with hundreds of thousands of ads in the system, literally in seconds. You can drag and drop ads right in the rotation. We talk to publishers and they tell us that even if we get similar CPMs but just prettier ads that don’t curse with the content, they’d already be happy. But talk to us again in six months.

Q – Tony Hsieh: Does it take a lot of time for publishers to deal with your system, and what about scale?

A: We showed publishers in our beta test that it doesn’t take a lot of time to manage their advertising units on unsold inventory. They want to be involved, and they seem to be motivated with the speed of our system. The key thing is: the compiled results of the entire network shows the context of just one ad in seconds.

Q – Paul Graham: Humans can only do worse than the best optimization, right?

A: Pages are dynamic. What we found is that a vast majority of ads are not contextual, and we can fix that.

Q – Marc Andreessen: Regarding the chart, which side do you lean most to?

A: All inventory is not created equal, but I’d say just in the middle.

Video:

Pictures:

Other coverage:

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

In between startup sessions at TechCrunch50, we are hosting a number of heavy hitters in a panel titled ‘Creating scarcity, value and brand protection as we face limitless ad inventory” in collaboration with AdMeld. On the panel we have Michael Barrett from AdMeld, Kenneth Fuchs from Sports Illustrated, Kal Patel from Best Buy, Peter Foster from Hi5, Jim Heckman and Ross Levinsohn from 5to1 and Aaron Broder from Gorilla Nation. TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde is moderating.

Talking about the dilemma that remnant ads pose to quality publishers, Ross Levinsohn cautions: “In many ways I think the Internet has killed itself to a degree because there was a notion that I will just add another page without maximizing the premium spots.”

Live blog:

Kal Patel is talking about Twelpforce, an initiative from Best Buy that taps into the essence of Twitter to leverage customer service.

Ross Levinsohn: Advertising doesn’t always work. Sometimes algorithms don’t function because it lacks a human touch. Big brands and advertisers need that, to not have machines take over where and when there advertising units appear.

Peter Foster: How low are we willing to go. It comes down to what are you wiling to accept and what aren’t you.

The real challenge to us as a publisher is to find a network that is truly premium.

Heather Harde: What percentage of inventory are you direct selling?

Kenneth Fuchs: We sell everything direct.

Peter Foster: We end up selling 5 to 10 percent.

Aaron Broder: Premium programs go beyond selling a box ad. It is really about connecting your ad with a marketer’s messaging. You obviously have to listen to the publisher and what they want.

Michael Barret: Typical publisher at AdMeld has 100 million impressions plus they can not sell directly, and they have direct sales forces. We’ve built this platform that allows publishers to tap into all of these different sources and concentrate on their direct selling.

Jim Heckman: You’re talking about campaigns that are built custom, programmed with a publisher. Something that will be complementary to the brand, ads that the user will relate to and not tune out.

When I was at MySpace, we had a 100 million (billion?) unsold ad impressions. Silicon Valley creates companies looking at the whole world of advertising, we are approaching a trillion unsold pieces of inventory.

When you have a nice ad followed by a fat belly ad after the sold inventory runs out, that hurts the publisher.

63% of all ads aren’t even looked at anymore, Consumers are tuning out.

90% of all ads are unsold, they are machine-based and pushed. So there is uplift, but when you disperse it among the inventory, the individual publishers are hurt.

Ross Levinhson: AT Fox Sports, 70% of the inventory was sold. If we sold out all the remaining inventory, I think in 2003, it meant only $250,000 in revenues. We made a determination that a quarter of a million dollars at that time wasn’t worth the hassle of policing it.

On MySpace, we had to create scarcity where there was no scarcity. So we had the homepage, ad networks were arbitraging. Tom shut that down, no more ad networks on that inventory. If you have a site like Hi5 or MySpace or Facebook, creating billions of impressions a month, you have to find a way to create some scarce inventory so you can talk to the Best Buys. They don’t want to be next to [remnant ads]

In many ways I think the Internet has killed itself to a degree because there was a notion that I will just add another page without maximizing the premium spots.

Kal Patel: We look at how does it actually show up in front of our customers.

Jim Heckman: What has happened is we are selling a small percentage of our quality content, and everything else is going to the remnant networks.

Peter Foster: Also back in the day there were a few dozen ad networks, now there are 500. That is the challenge, there are so many companies doing great work, but it is all being back-filled by the same inventory.

Jim Heckman: I think Ross is right. Creating scarcity in any business is essential. I think you are better off not selling an ad at all on your front age and protecting your ad integrity.

If you are Sports Illustrated and you have a story by a top writer with beautiful images. Do you really want to put a yellow teeth ad up there?

Video:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Flickr has long had a way to note other users’ pictures that you think are worth saving. But the “Add To Faves” function is rather single serving, and not very social like the rest of Flickr. Today, the service is launching a new feature called “Galleries” to expand your interaction with others’ photos.

Basically, Galleries allow you to curate up to 18 photos from anywhere on Flickr into your own hand-made gallery. Previously, if you wanted to make a group of pictures surround something, you could only do it with your own. With Galleries, if you wanted to make a collection of the 18 best pictures taken at TechCrunch50, for example, you can easily do that, no matter who took the picture.

The top portion of these Galleries are the thumbnails and below each of them is the large-sized versions of the pictures in a stream. Clicking on any of the thumbnails jumps you down to the portion of the page where that particular picture resides. Here’s a particularly artsy one for you.

To add a picture to a gallery, just click the “Add to gallery” link in a picture’s menu bar.

[photo: flickr/marshall astor]

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Looks like those DigiTimes sources were right: the ASUS Eee Keyboard will officially launch in North America and Europe in October. And while CEO Jerry Shen is keeping quiet on pricing, the original $400 to $500 estimates should hold-up. The Commodore 64-esque keyboard PC originally announced at CES in January features an integrated 5-inch display, 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of memory, either 16GB or 32GB of SSD storage, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI and wireless UWB HDMI. And given the October launch, we’re expecting this thing to run Windows 7 unlike the XP prototypes we’ve seen so far. Maybe Moblin too, if you want to save a nickle.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

ASUS: Eee Keyboard to launch in October, C64 fans unite! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to Ask.com spokesperson Nicholas Graham, while companies are expected to help community organizations, it’s not unheard of for these cause-related partnerships to also benefit the companies. After donating $25,000 to Autism Speaks through a targeted awareness campaign, 80,000 visitors changed their Ask home pages to Autism Speaks-related skins and 63% of campaign visitors became permanent users. Despite the fact that the promotion lasted only a few days, Ask saw a 10% increase over other holiday and non-cause related skinning promotions. In anticipation of October and Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Ask is building upon its community successes and teaming up with Susan G. Komen for the Cure in “Search for the Cure”.

Sponsor

The search company is donating up to 50 cents per consumer who successfully answers a health fact and reskins their Ask homepage with a breast-cancer related graphic. The skins display a series of questions that challenge consumers’ understanding of breast cancer prevention, early detection and treatment. The campaign will last until the end of October and all proceeds will benefit Komen for the Cure and their mission to eliminate breast cancer. Similar to this Ask campaign, GoodSearch also runs cause-related campaigns in order to benefit charities. Rather than switching out page skins, GoodSearch users specify one of 83,000 charities and 50 per cent of all advertising-related payouts are designated to the charity of choice.

Says Ask spokesperson Nicholas Graham, “Health and reference are already two of our strongest verticals. It makes sense for Ask to team up with Komen and increase awareness amongst our 50 million monthly visitors.”

According to the American Cancer Society, there are about 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the United States and women have a 1 in 8 chance of developing invasive breast cancer. While there are a number of breast cancer-related corporate partnerships, only a few are fully embraced by health advocates. In recent years, environmental health organizations have formed the Think Before You Pink campaign as a backlash movement against companies that work on pink ribbon campaigns but manufacture products linked to the disease. Because Ask specializes in delivering information to its consumers, a public information campaign on breast cancer seems like a great fit.

Says Graham, “When you engage a community of users, the service becomes more robust. It makes a positve difference in the online and offline world.” To change your skins and support Komen for the Cure visit the Ask Skins gallery.

Discuss

Social game startup Zynga sure does get into a lot of legal fights. Just as they settle down to business with the Playdom you-stole-our-playbook fight, we’ve confirmed that they settled a different lawsuit – one where they were playing defense.

In February 2009 Mob Wars creator David Maestri sued Zynga for copyright infringement. Zynga’s game Mafia Wars – a text-based game very similar to Mob Wars – was just too much of a copy of Mob Wars, said Maestri. Maestri himself had only recently cleared up his own rights to the game after a scuffle with his former employer, SGN.

The Maestri-Zynga lawsuit has now been settled as well. The rumor was that Maestri was demanding $10 million from Zynga to settle the litigation. Ultimately, says one source, he got a payment in the “high seven figures.” So that implies something like $7 – $9 million.

Wonder why the settlement was so high? It’s hard to believe, but Mob Wars was pulling in an estimated $1 million/month at one point from users eager to upgrade their weapons and other stuff. These games seem silly, but real money flows through them from virtual goods.

Not a bad payday for Maestri. And it also highlights the fact that none of these companies have a completely clean record when it comes to respecting the intellectual property of competitors.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

It’s less than a day before the third annual (and third sold out) TechCrunch50 launch event in San Francisco. Fifty startups are preparing to launch their new products on stage in front of thousands of people. Are they nervous? Yep. But its all part of a rite of passage into the wonderfully chaotic world of being a startup entrepreneur.

A bunch of good articles giving advice to launching startups have been posted over the last couple of days. We’re linking to them here, because when CNET and others look back at TechCrunch50 2009 and sort the winners from the losers, you want to be on that winners list. So take the advice of these grizzled veterans seriously. And then ignore most of it and forge your own path, like all good entrepreneurs do anyway:

22 Tips on How to Operate a Trade Show Booth: Jason Calacanis gives solid, useful advice on how to run your TechCrunch50 (or any conference) booth.

An Open Letter To All TechCrunch50 2009 Startups: The TC “Bump”, What It Really Means & How To Navigate It: Sean Power with Alistair Croll talk about their experience of launching Akoha at TechCrunch50 2008, and how to make the most out of the traffic and attention you’ll receive. Good advice: “Being Talked About Is Nothing. Being Remembered Is Everything.”

Don’t drink your own Kool-Aid (surviving TC50): Mark Suster says not to get too into the hype and attention you’ll receive right around the conference. Memorialize it, but don’t believe too much of the hype. Use all that attention to build a sustainable business.

See you all tomorrow!

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Mike Masnick of the blog Techdirt is one of the Web’s most outspoken critics of copyright owners, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to save them.

Here we go with this week’s ReadWriteWeb events guide. Remember to download the calendar in iCal format or import it into your Google Calendar. You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. This events guide is a weekly feature here on ReadWriteWeb. We publish it every weekend, as good a time as any to review your conference plans.

Know of an event taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us.

Sponsor

12 September 2009: New York City

Twestival

Twestival, famous for harnessing the power of social media to bring people together for great causes, is hosting a star-studded event in New York City, in association with Brooklyn Bowl and Flavorpill, benefitting non-profit CampInteractive. CampInteractive is a local non-profit that empowers at-risk, inner-city youth through the inspiration of the outdoors and the creative power of technology.

100% of all money raised through ticket sales will go towards CampInteractive.

With stars in abundance, NYC’s “Celebrity Bowling” tournament represents a unique opportunity for Twestival-goers to bowl with entertainment elite. Participants are invited to purchase a special group package that will score them a lane to bowl with a star.

The night will be packed with live performances featuring some of New York’s most exciting emerging artists, including Twestival favorite, Eclectic Method.

Buy your tickets now!

21 – 23 September: San Diego, California

DEMOfall 09 Conference

DEMOfall 09 promises to showcase the most comprehensive portfolio of credible emerging technologies, vetted by VentureBeat founder Matt Marshall and leading technology analyst Chris Shipley. Alpha Pitch, a new DEMO program, puts you in front of the most promising entrepreneurs with products in the alpha, prototype, and development stages of their life cycles. These are pre-revenue companies that have no more than one round of seed funding and are ready for your investment dollars.

DEMO is the launch pad of emerging technology and a true market performer for visionary investors, entrepreneurs, and industry influencers alike.

ReadWriteWeb readers pay only $1996. Save $500 off the standard fee by registering before August 15th.

22 September 2009: London

Realising the Benefits of Web 2.0 in Financial Services

If you are responsible for marketing, compliance, e-business, customer communications, or internal communications at a financial institution, you won’t want to miss this series of events:

The UK’s first conference focusing specifically on Web 2.0 in Financial Services:

• What is happening now? Current applications and experiences of social media in the financial services market;
• Hear how social networking is changing the approach of firms to marketing, PR, and customer interaction;
• Explore opportunities to enhance internal communications, process improvement, and compliance;
• Understand the developing legal and regulatory framework for Web 2.0;
• Identify the next steps for social media in financial services.

ReadWriteWeb readers get a 20% discount. Use the code KM6298RRWEB.

22 – 23 September 2009: Singapore

Social Networking World Forum — Asia

This two-day conference hosted by the Social Networking World Forum – Asia features key speakers from social networking publishers, advertising agencies, industry analysts, software developers and equipment manufacturers, pay-TV and network service providers, mobile operators, and more.

• Joint exhibition combining social networking and mobile social networking formats
• Evening networking reception
• Discount for early booking (expires August 21st)
• Free pass for exhibition only

22 – 23 September 2009: Melbourne, Australia

Marketing Now!

On September 22-23 a movement of highly engaged, passionate thought leaders and professionals will gather in Melbourne to demonstrate the power of social media for business today. Marketing Now! brings together the best of the best in new marketing innovation in two intensive days of interactive training designed to empower a new generation of change agents and business leaders. Marketing Now! will change the way you think about communications by equipping you with the tools and insight to foster advocacy and community for your business.

Follow Marketing Now on Twitter for conference updates.

30 September 2009: on Twitter

Twittamentary

Update: Call for submissions of stories and videos is now open. In this documentary, filmmaker Tan Siok Siok peels away the hype and explores the human dimensions of how lives connect and intersect, and then are affected and changed, as result of encounters on Twitter.

Twittamentary is created in the open spirit of the Web. Twitter users are invite to contribute ideas and videos to the film. When the film is completed, it will be released online under a creative commons license. In other words, you are both the contributor and the audience.

The 24-hour storytelling event on 30 September 2009 shares the videos submitted up till then in a round-the-clock marathon in which participants get to watch the videos online, rate and comment on them, and tweet about them.

2 October 2009: Seattle, Washington

ExpressionEngine Roadshow

The ExpressionEngine Roadshow is a traveling conference designed to bring together experts and users to learn ExpressionEngine techniques and share insider tips. Now in its second year, and second city, the 2009 conference will be a full day event. The show runs from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, with breakfast before, a party after, and lunch in between, all included in the price of admission. Follow @eeroadshow on Twitter for the latest details.

8 October 2009: San Diego

Mobile Application Stores conference

As a partner seminar of Intenational CTIA WIRELESS I.T. and Entertainment, the Mobile Application Stores conference will focus on the tremendous opportunities in the mobile apps stores eco-system. The event is designed to give a complete understanding of how to capitalize on this exploding market.

Participants will discuss strategy and deployment in application stores such as Apple (iPhone), Google (Android), RIM (Blackberry), Nokia (Ovi), Palm Pre, and Microsoft, as well as other emerging application stores. To learn more, visit www.mobileapplicationstores.com or write to events@nextvisionmedia.com.

22 October 2009: London, England

Cloud Computing World Forum

The Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event for professionals to learn and discuss the future development and integration of cloud services. This one-day conference will provide a focused platform for the global cloud computing industry.

The Cloud Computing World Forum is the place to meet all the key decision makers from all of the cloud service providers in one place. Show highlights include:

• Hear from leading case studies on how to integrate cloud computing into working practices,
• Learn from the key players offering services in the cloud,
• Benefit from pre-show online meeting planner,
• Evening networking reception.

23 October 2009: Durham, North Carolina

The Social Media Business Forum

The Social Media Business Forum will feature national and local speakers from marketing companies, technology companies, and social networks discussing ways in which business communications have changed because of social media. Sessions will look at internal and external communications methods for both B2B and B2C companies and provide actionable takeaway items for attendees to immediately implement in their businesses. The forum targets business owners, executives, business communicators, key organizational stake holders, and anyone interested in gaining practical knowledge about social media.

Early bird registration is $125 until September 18, and $250 thereafter.

4 – 5 November 2009: Raleigh, North Carolina

Internet Summit 2009

Internet Summit ’09 will feature over 75 speakers, including representatives of major Internet brands such as Twitter, Pandora, Google, Salesforce.com, Digg, Technorati, CBS Interactive, Huffington Post, Blogger, Tree.com, and many more.

Topics will include social media, blogging, real time, mobile, video, search, online advertising, e-commerce, analytics, the cloud, and more.

Join over 1200 entrepreneurs, senior marketers, and executives in the conversation about the future of the industry and how to capitalize on the shifting dynamics of the Internet and tap into its unlimited business potential.

9 – 10 November 2009: Santa Clara, California

Social Networking World Forum — California

This event taking place at the Santa Clara Convention Center actually consists of three conferences: two days dedicated to social networking, one day dedicated to enterprise social media, and one day dedicated to social TV. Key speakers include social networking publishers, advertising agencies, industry analysts, software developers and equipment manufacturers, pay-TV and network service providers, mobile operators, and more.

• Joint exhibition combining social networking and enterprise social media formats
• Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates
• Discount for early booking (expires September 25th)
• Free pass for exhibition only

10 – 13 November 2009: Las Vegas

PubCon Vegas

PubCon Las Vegas is a multi-track educational conference hosted by SearchEngineWorld & WebmasterWorld. PubCon events are for thought leaders and professionals in search engine and Internet marketing to gather and to share best practices in the design, development, promotion and marketing of their Internet businesses and brands. PubCon London 2009 is a social networking event.

11 – 12 November 2009: Denver, Colorado

Defrag 2009 Conference

As online data is growing and fragmenting at an exponential pace, individuals, groups and organizations are struggling to discover, assemble, organize, act on and gather feedback from that data. In the largest sense, we’re all looking to augment the pace at which we achieve insights on raw data — to accelerate the “A-ha” moment.

Defrag explores the intersection of topics like:

• Business intelligence
• Business process management
• Social computing and analytics
• Next-level discovery
• Enterprise 2.0
• Next-gen email
• The semantic Web

1 – 3 December 2009: London, England

Online Information & IMS 2009

Online Information and IMS together create the largest event dedicated to the information industry. Consisting of an exhibition delivering over 9,000 visitors from 70 countries, a conference and a show-floor seminar program, the event provides an annual meeting place for the global information industry.

Online Information is once again set to play host to thousands of information professionals, information end-users and publishers from around the globe, meeting suppliers of online content, e-publishing, and library management solutions. IMS provides a forum for IT, business, and information management professionals to find unlimited, relevant advice, educational content and compare solutions under one roof. Attend IMS and meet suppliers of content management, search solutions, and Web 2.0 technologies.

15 – 16 March 2010: London, England

2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum — London

The 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum takes place at the Olympia Conference Centre in London. The two-day event features four dedicated conference streams:

1. Social Networking World Forum
2. Enterprise social media
3. Social TV World Forum
4. Mobile Social Networking Forum

The event features key speakers from global brands, organizations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers, and more.

• Full workshop program within exhibition area
• Evening networking reception
• Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates
• Free pass for exhibition only

Download this entire events calendar in iCal format.

Discuss

Huzzah! It’s that time again! Time for TechCrunch50: where thousands of struggling entrepreneurs spend three grand they can barely afford to watch fifty of their peers dancing like malnourished bears for the approbation of Jason Calacanis! It’s like Christians and lions meets Satan’s own version of speed dating, with added Scoble! What’s not to love?

I’m sorry – you’ll have to forgive my cynicism, it’s just that I have to prove to you that I haven’t gone native.

You see, one of the main reasons I was hired by TechCrunch was for my traffic-driving habit of hurling faeces at unsuspecting industry conferences. Conferences like Jeff Pulver’s inexorably ill-planned 140 Characters in New York or Loic LeMeur’s très froid ‘Le‘ in Paris – both of which saw the sharp end of my tongue when I was at the Guardian. I learned there that no-one cares when I talk about interesting start-ups or noteworthy trends – but when I textually assault a hard-working event organiser, the page impressions flow like gravy.

And so you can imagine how worried I felt when I realised that the very first major conference to come along after I moved to TechCrunch would be the one that pays my wages.

For weeks friends have been responding to my protests of impartiality with wry looks and knowing chuckles. “Sure,” they said, “even if the wifi’s shit, the venue’s freezing and there’s no food, you’ll still have to say nice things. Arrington’s not going to let you publish a hatchet job about his cash cow. The man is a renowned megalomaniac; worse than Stalin and Kim Jong-il added together.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I argued back, “that’s just propaganda put about by jealous rivals at lesser blogs. Arrington hired me for my fierce independence, not just because he wanted to make sure I’d toe the line when it came to the most important event on his calendar. No one would be that cynical.”

Right?

Well, we’ll find out soon enough. In a bold journalistic experiment, this week’s column is split into several installments, of which this is the first. The others will be filed on Monday and Tuesday, live from the conference hall, or from whichever after-party or fringe event I find myself at when my deadline hits. I’ll be working overtime to bring you a true and complete picture of the event, so if you spot a hyper-focussed figure, hunched away from the main throng, obsessively pecking away at a laptop when he should be drinking and having fun, that’ll be me. (Or possibly Gabe Rivera; you’ll know for sure by the shoes.)

My original plan was to use this first installment as a prologue, to preview some of the companies that will be launching on Monday and Tuesday and suggesting which pitches you should definitely check out. I wouldn’t give too much away, of course, but hopefully I’d give you an idea of the 50 amazingly revolutionary products that will be competing for the $50k grand prize, plus $4.7bn in advertising credits, 3.76m Beenz and a share in the fortune of the late Dr Clement Okon of Nigeria.

There are just two problems with this plan. Firstly, with the exception of Penn and Teller, I have absolutely no idea what start-ups will be pitching. Really. In the interests of impartiality – and laziness – I’ve kept well away from TechCrunch HQ, where I understand frantic last minute preparations are underway to make sure this year’s event is the best ever. MG is charging his iPhones, Arrington is practicing his cynical stage-stare, Lacy is ironing her ‘I *heart* Brazil t-shirt, Daniel Brusilovsky and the interns are doing all the actual work – that kind of thing. But I’m staying behind my Chinese wall. Until yesterday I hadn’t even bothered checking that the venue was the same as last year, or confirming that I actually had a ticket.

(It is. I have.)

The second problem is that I strongly suspect this year’s companies will fall into the category of evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Which is probably a good thing. The market being what it is, it makes a lot of sense to play safe: develop something that users and investors can easily get on board with, make some revenue, keep up repayments on your home, ride out the storm.

The fact that last year’s winner, Yammer, was an evolution (’clone’ is such an impolite word) of Twitter is a case in point, and it wouldn’t suprise me if the selection panel have chosen similar kinds of businesses this year. Which is great for those who value tried and tested ideas and solid business models but terrible news for a columnist who gets off on mocking the sick and jeering the lame.

But, then again, I could be completely wrong. I mean, if this year’s selection really does err on the side of caution, how does one explain Penn and Teller? These are hardly men renowned for safe ideas; the last time I saw Teller thinking inside a box, Penn poured in a swarm of bees and did something decidedly innovative with a can of gasoline. So perhaps their presence is a hint that this year’s event will be one filled with ridiculously bold ideas, chosen to inject a much-needed shot of adrenaline in the arm of an industry flirting with the doldrums.

And yet that possibility doesn’t quite feel right either. No, actually, the more I think about it, the more I suspect that Penn and Teller’s attendance is indicative of a much more cynical plot altogether.

Just consider the evidence: a few weeks ago when Arrington asked for my bio for CrunchBase, I mentioned the odd factoid that I used to be a magician. Four weeks later and – lo! – Penn and Teller, the magicians’ magicians, are slated to pitch at TechCrunch50. Coincidence? I hardly think so.

A far more likely explanation is that my friends were right about Arrington all along. The poor man really is so desperate to ensure that my TechCrunch50 review is positive that he’s selected each of the participating companies based purely on how likely they are to appeal to me, and me alone. The other 1999 attendees be damned, all that matters is getting my journalistic thumbs up.

It’s an audacious plan. And you know what? It might just work. Especially if he’s chosen such me-focussed companies as…

• DoucheBall
  An evolution of the Foursquare/Dodgeball concept, designed to appeal to men who, for whatever reason, want to avoid running into any of their ex-girlfriends. Whenever a previous flame checks into a venue, an alert is pushed to the man’s phone allowing him to stay well clear until the danger has passed. Much like Foursquare, there’s a fun game element too, with badges to be won based on certain patterns of behaviour. By default, all users are awarded the “Player, please” and “Coward, grow up” badges at sign-up.
• Am I Fired Or Not?
  You know how it is – you have multiple freelance gigs, any of which you could lose at a moment’s notice by writing unforgivably navel-gazing columns about yourself and your friends. Combined with industry-wide budget cuts and publication closures, keeping track of who still employs you can be a full time job. But not any more! Introducing ‘Am I Fired Or Not?’ – the Friendfeed of firing; the RSS of redundancy. Simply add each new employer as they hire you, and be instantly notified when – a few weeks later – they come to their senses and remove themselves.
• WhoreSquare
  Sure, services like Skimlinks provide a neat way for site owners to make extra revenue by turning key words and phrases into affiliate links. But some editors are uneasy at the idea of shilling to their readers under the guise of producing impartial content. If you’re one of those editors then WhoreSquare is your perfect compromise. Simply install this free plugin and every single word on your blog will be instantly transformed into an affiliate link to my brilliant book, Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore. As an added bonus, every image, including your site’s own logo will be replaced with a gigantic animated gif of me holding the book, and waving. Sure, your readers are still being sold to but, trust me, they’ll thank you for it.
• BlackoutCast
  Heading out for a quick drink? Want to record everything you say and do after 10pm so you can play it back in the morning and remember all of the people you need to apologise to / pay damages to / add to your avoid list on DoucheBall? There’s an app for that.

Exciting products, all, as I’m sure you’ll agree. And each absolutely guaranteed to get a much-needed positive review from me next week.

Perfect! See you all on Monday! I’ll be the cold, hungry one in the corner, swearing about the fucking wifi.

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