The Battle of the Publicity-Hungry Trade Shows; Book an Appointment with Your Doctor Online…Can it Work?
DEMO vs. TechCrunch: The Saga Continues – The debate about the war of words between the established, venerable show and the upstart competitor, TechCrunch50, keeps growing. The heart of the argument is whether or not the DEMO model of charging presenting startups a (hefty) fee presents a barrier too high for many innovative startups. I think most would agree it does. However, TechCrunch has its own barriers. In any case, the dust up got both shows coverage in the NY Times: Amid Conference Halls and Keynote Speakers, a Rivalry Forms
Can ZocDoc Overcome Local Search’s Problems? – ZocDoc offers an interesting service, compiling a directory of doctors and letting searchers schedule appointments online. The company just raised $3 million from Khosla Ventures (story with screenshots from VentureBeat). The question, though, is whether or not the service can overcome the bad data that has tripped up local service provider search to this point. Anyone who has ever searched for a local service provider knows the frustration of running into incomplete, outdated, or unreliable data, a problem that has kept the print yellow pages relevant.
