Hello World. That's programming speak for howdy! It's been a while since I showed up in the blogosphere (I know, my Bloglines vanity search tells me so), so I thought I'd throw out an update. A big one. The big news was a trip to the windy city sunshine city the big tomato the City by the Bay for TechCrunch 40. Of course, I had to get the obligatory iPhone before they'd let me in the conference, but I snuck by with the now-discontinued 4GB model. Maybe I can give some more coherent thoughts later (I'm full of empty promises) but the main things that stood out:

• Silicon Valley has obviously already forgotten web 1.0. We need revenue, people. How are your ideas, even the shamefully few good ones, going to make money? And what's more – the buyout craze is a lot like the IPO craze that cost me my first job in the biz. These days, people seem to be building companies to flip them like an old lady's bungalow. Let's add value to the world, not just our pockets. Let's make something people need instead of solving made-up problems that barely exist in the valley, let alone the Real World. In the swag bag, we got a stress ball emblazoned with the mantra "Stress Free Tagging." Class project: point out everything wrong with that.
  
• When a programmer/CEO who shall remain nameless wanted to make fun of bad ideas, he used the words "video wiki." So did at least three actual companies presenting (including the "people's choice").
• I actually knew one of the presenters: John Manoogian of Zivity, a company with a real business model (based on models). I promise not to tell the world the last time I saw him was at a Sisters of Mercy concert.
• Panelists need to be harder, or maybe they have odd ideas about what should get funding. Maybe I should be in the Video Wiki business. Only a couple companies got hit, and it was for their names? Extreme Reality had a dated name, but I really thought it was a brilliant idea (panelist question: "What's wrong with the mouse?" What someone probably asked the mouse inventor: "What's wrong with the keyboard?"). And Xobni... Yeah, the name is silly but other names were sillier and the idea was solid – Guy Kawasaki seemed to be playing it for entertainment rather than really hardballing it. And he was the only one coming close to hardball. One word: Truemors. Reverend MC Hammer, as expected, did not hurt 'em either.
  
• Cake Financial was a swell idea, but if everyone in the US used it wouldn't it crush the economy? Mint, on the other hand, is a super swell idea that I'm already using. I'm pretty sure I can already recommend it, although I hope the 50k they won goes toward as much security as can be had, since they're taking our credit card and bank logins. I have been saying for a while (to my dog, of course) that financial management's time has come on the web. My ideas didn't really encompass automagic management, but it sure seems good so far (if dependent on when your banks update).
  
• San Francisco has great great sushi, seafood, and Chinese – and amazing scenery. I hope to come back sometime.
• We had a great brainstorm session with Brian and Craig in their stylish but roach-infested boutique hotel about what we would do for our next big ideas. Here's a sample of what that looked like, in chronological order:

As you can see, we are ready to excite the world at the next TechCrunch40. Thanks to Jason and to Michael Arrington for putting on a good show, minor execution issues (and a slight desire to see it rolled back to TechCrunch20) aside. Thanks to San Francisco for being nifty.