Mego “No Go” at DEMO

by Brian Solis

TechCrunch and Valleywag are reporting that mEgo and wixi were booted from DEMOfall 2007.

Their crime?

dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnn

The perpetrators previewed their technology at TechCrunch40 even though they were held under strict embargo with the event that they were “supposed” to officially launch at, DEMOfall 2007.

Not only are they removed from the prestigious conference, but they will also forfeit their $18,000 participation fee.

Michael Arrington stated in his post, “Frankly, this is probably good news for mEgo, who’ll now get far more attention than they would have if they had actually gotten on stage. But it’s also a warning to other startups: Don’t screw with DEMO – they hit back.”

The moral of the story is, don’t mess with contracts that are pretty explicit about what not to do. Make sure that whatever decision you make is the most beneficial for your company, investors, and ultimately, customers.  Ignorance is not an excuse or a defense.

As Arrington says, both companies will get more than their fair share of coverage outside of the event, but I bet almost 100% of the articles will leave out what each company is launching this week.

UPDATE: Wixi wasn’t booted, they chose to withdraw from DEMOfall after being selected as one of the TC40.

mego wixi techcrunch valleywag demo demofall2007 demofall 2007 fall tc40 techcrunch40 tc20 techcrunch20 bub.blicio.us bubblicious