Does the World Need Another Tech Conference?

What happens with two bombastic, larger-than-life Tech personalities join forces? They infuriate some people, delight other people and generally shake up an industry. When Jason Calacanis, of Weblogs and Mahalo fame, and Michael Arrington, of TechCrunch fame decided to launch the TechCrunch40 conference last year, they were hardly subtle about it. Urban Valley legend is that Arrington rudely announced the conference on the floor of the venerable--and competing-- Demo conference where hallowed products like TiVo and the PalmPilot first debuted to the masses. He says he actually blogged about it in pajamas from the hotel room, because he was too bored to even stay at Demo. But either way, the gloves were off.

The conference is back on Sept. 8 and now dubbed TechCrunch50 for the 52 companies debuting at it. (Don't ask.) It's being held the same day as Demo this year and tech folks are choosing sides carefully. For a two-year-old conference, TechCrunch certainly has some big-name loyalists. Among its panel of experts are Marissa Mayer of Google, Marc Andreessen of Netscape, Opsware and Ning fame, Mark Cuban, Chad Hurley of YouTube, and some of the Valley's most powerful investors. Not bad.

Center stage are the startups. Both Calacanis and Arrington are known for rubbing some people the wrong way, but even critics admit these are two guys obsessed with helping fledgling entrepreneurs. They don't charge companies to present and spend hours with each one, helping founders hone their pitches. They require that the VCs sponsoring the event give the entrepreneurs a private audience. And they award the winning company $50,000. Most notable: This isn't the insider crowd. The bulk of the startups are outside of the Valley game, with one-quarter of them coming from outside the U.S. If they've stepped on toes and bruised industry egos in the last two years, Arrington and Calacanis shrug that they're doing it for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are the life blood of the Valley and the greater tech economy.

We snagged the entrepreneurs just before the conference kicks off Monday Sept. 8, to tell us what to expect and why they picked such a nasty fight. TechTicker will be on scene for much of the conference too, so stay tuned.