A frequent ritual of Silicon Valley is the moneymaking gathering known as the technology conference, where investors, entrepreneurs and industry executives come together to strike deals, catch up on trends and engage in some nonvirtual networking.

But a noisy new entrant is disturbing that peaceful realm of croissants, keynotes and hallway handshakes. It has incited a bitter public dispute with a more established competitor by the most ethical way to run such a conference.

Demo, a 17-year-old conference franchise

owned by the technology publisher IDG, has served as the springboard for hit products like the Palm Pilot and the TiVo digital video recorder. In San Diego during the second week of September, 70 start-ups will pay $18,500 each to form a six-minute presentation to a crowd of investors, journalists and others.

To Michael Arrington, the elbow-throwing founder of the popular Silicon Valley blog TechCrunch, Demo’s business model amounts to “payola.”

“How do […]

Orginal post by dhiram