conflicts of interest
The anointing of
Yammer as the winner of TechCrunch50 has raised questions about how the startup-launch conference operates. Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, has made much of the fact that he and fellow event organizer Jason Calacanis don't charge startups to present at the show, as established rival Demo does. But people who attended the show are saying behind his back that the contest was rigged in favor of a pet startup of Arrington's with ties to one of the event's sponsors.
More »
Yammer
Twitter was an offshoot of Odeo, an otherwise unpromising podcasting startup. Yammer, a Twitter clone launched at the TechCrunch50 conference, even copied the origin myth; it sprang from the loins of Geni, the
$100 million genealogical website started by former PayPal executive
David Sacks. Like Facebook, users sign up with their work email address as a way of verifying that they're employed by a company. Yammer's positioned as a tool for coworkers to keep track of each other's status, with features missing in Twitter such as threaded comments, tags, and messages longer than 140 characters. Even more interesting: In a panel following the demonstration of the site, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said he's interested in buying the whole thing. At last, something resembling an exit for Geni.
Valleywag
