If you notice a dearth of cashed-out entrepreneurs and rolling-in-it venture capitalists around town this week, you're not hallucinating. Today kicks off August Capital VC David Hornik's conference The Lobby, located on Hawaii's sunny Big Island. The conference is, ostensibly, "off the record," but we think some tidbits will manage to get out. We hear that the nonstop out of SFO this morning was filled with conference-goers. (This video of SoftTech VC Jeff Clavier and Dogster founder Ted Rheingold before takeoff makes the eerie observation that, if the jet goes down, so does Web 2.0.) Hear anything interesting coming from the Big Island? Let us know.

I hate conferences — boring masquerades whose true mission isn't collegial thinking, but business development and self-promotion. The exception is PopTech, a tiny get-together held in bucolic seaside Camden, Maine, each October at the height of the colorful autumn foliage season. Organizers Bob Metcalfe and John Sculley deliberately chose the location as the furthest possible spot from Silicon Valley's inbred excess. It's like a TED for New England-y wonks. Instead of PowerPoint or product demos, people who actually do stuff get up and present their ideas, often engaging in unscripted "gotcha" debates. This year the whole thing will be webcast live starting today at 9 a.m. Maine time. Valley snobs, wake up: Schoolkids in Maine now get free iBooks in seventh grade, thanks to former PopTech star Angus King. At this hour, they're already eating your lunch.

In response to my public putdown of tomorrow's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, conference organizer Tim O'Reilly's publicist gave me a press pass to the three-day event. This is becoming like the plot of Dune — tricks within tricks within tricks! Look for my fawning, co-opted coverage at Rupert Murdoch's feet, starting 8 a.m. Wednesday morning.(Photo courtesy of Read/WriteWeb)

If you're an entrepreneur, you probably don't care what Rupert Murdoch has to say about MySpace's rivalry with Facebook at the upcoming Web 2.0 Summit. (Short version: Bitches just jealous.) You're there looking to hook up with clients, investors, or journalists. And that doesn't happen during panel sessions or keynotes, does it? "The sessions at technology conferences are often like plots in porn films," technology consultant Ben Metcalfe told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's required for the context, but it's not really what you paid for." Metcalfe is a "lobbyconner," as these deep-thinking, shallow-pocketed startup types call themselves. They refuse to pay conference fees which run to the thousands of dollars but still covet the schmoozing, which can be had for free. And heck, they're probably the ones you want to talk to. The ablity to do simple math is a nice thing to have in a business partner.

"Social networking is second only to chat rooms as the worst place to advertise. The content there from your friends and your family is more compelling than any advertisement. Google has the greatest advertising in media history — search advertising. When you type a word into the box, we know what you're looking for. When you're on Facebook, we know you're looking to meet a girl or talk to your friends. It's a terrible platform for advertising. The holy grail of e-commerce forever has been that people are going to buy something online because their friends did, or that everybody here is into skiing so we're going to sell a bunch of skiing stuff. It hasn't happened. Plus, e-commerce is a low-margin business. It's nowhere near search inventory."

Don't feel bad if you weren't invited to next week's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Billed as a big-think brainstorming session, Web 2 .0 is actually a three-day business-development party with a $3,000 entry fee. Attendees are there to find sales and partnering leads, and to boost publicity for their companies and products. Most of the "bloggers" who'll post from the show will be there to hawk either a product or their consulting services. No one wants to waste their time on you. Fine with me, but so far there's a lack of walk-the-talk participatory media from conference-goers.

At 23, Mark Zuckerberg is already a conference-circuit regular — seen at last month's TechCrunch40 and again at this month's Web 2.0 Summit. But even fans ding Zuck's presence as dull, wooden and robotic. Is he shy? Nah, "He just doesn't care," says a coworker. Despite his current heavy rotation in the media, he only takes the stage when he's told it's a boost for the company. Don't believe it? Zuckerberg's not even scheduled to appear at the Facebook-themed Graphing Social Patterns conference on Sunday in San Jose. The kickoff keynote will be delivered by LinkedIn's more entertaining founder, Reid Hoffman. Aw come on, Mark. After the look-at-me antics and vain false modesty of the tech industry's quasi-celebrities, it'd be a soul-cleansing relief to come watch you stare at your shoes Adidas sandals.

Techdirt, the ever-opinionated analysis blog, has weighed in and found Demo's lineup of startups and new products more compelling than last week's TechCrunch40. Why? Mike Masnick doesn't come out and say it, but his implication is clear: Unlike the parade of Web 2.0 one-note-Johnnies drummed up by TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, most of experienced Demo organizer Chris Shipley's picks were focused on useful improvements to existing technology, not gimmicky new ideas. Arrington and Calacanis launched TechCrunch40 because they felt that it was somehow wrong for conferences to charge startups to present. Nonsense, of course. I think that the fact that Demo charges presenters — reportedly $18,500 apiece — was actually what makes it a stronger event.

An attendee at the EmTech conference reception Wednesday afternoon — okay, okay, my boss — noted that he hadn't "seen that many kinds of cheese at a party since 2000." Today the Financial Times observed that in 1998 the Federal Reserve was forced to cut rates because of credit issues and the biggest boom in history followed. So, is all this merely boom-times deja vu or a real indication of the state of the tech economy? All I'll say is if you missed your chance to cash out the first time around, the cheese barometer says to act now, before the opportunities become a bit too well-aged. (Photo by junehug)

Jason Calacanis, frenemy of Valleywag's parent company and co-organizer of an event with TechCrunch (the TechCrunch 40), invited me to the event's Facebook group. Upon joining, I asked, "This means I'm in free, right?" Jason's reply: "sorry, no Valleywag people at the event. You guys are just too hated! :-)" Aw Jason, I emoticon you too!

There are times when a magazine is more than just a magazine. Times like springtime! The season when ideas become conversations and bylines jump to life; when the caterpillar sheds its larval newsprint and blossoms, at last, into a butterfly in flight about the z calo. By next month, it'll be happening in twos, as the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine both put on their nice clothes and venture into the world of the living with a pair of star-studded public conferences. Each will deliver its parent publication's noted intellects in a neat, bow-topped basket of brains, all spit-shined and freshly painted. But which to choose if you've got only one weekend and, say, no more than a month's rent or so to devote to the zeitgeist hunt?

• Reason I came to VON, a conference that means both "Video on the Net" and "Voice on the net": Free press pass, free coffee and it's brighter than my home office

The variety of stars at tech conferences used to be limited to bloggers, startup innovators, designers and programmers identifiable only after a glimpse at a name badge. But a new class of celeb is rising with more recognizable star power: videobloggers, often good-looking and engaging, practiced at being entertaining, and a prime target for conference-long entourages. Other techies love hooking up with a less nerdy brand of internet celeb. At this weekend's South by Southwest conference, star vloggers included Casey and Rudy from sci-fi show Galacticast and ABC News vlogger Amanda Congdon. The biggest star by far, though, was Ze Frank, host of the one-man "The Show," who cruised a few parties, hosted the annual Web Awards, and performed a Powerpoint stand-up routine at a Buzzfeed party. Prediction: "Fun" conferences (full of the geeks who do the actual work of Web 2.0) like SXSW will have more vlogger presence than "business" conferences like the upcoming suit-heavy Video on the Net. (photo by Scott Beale)

Techcrunch's Mike Arrington — who has never claimed to be a "golden fountain of objectivity" — recently partnered with Jason Calacanis to launch the Techcrunch20 demo conference. The idea is to break out of the paid-demo conference mold and give space to startups based purely on merit. However, there's no reason to throw the cash-baby out with the payola-bathwater for other events.The Supernova conference — produced by the Wharton School — also selects its 12 Techcrunch-sponsored "Connected Innovators" based on merit. Of course, the winners must be prepared to cough up $5,000 in order to accept the honor and make their presentation; that's in addition to the $2,000+ conference fee, though if you're so inclined, you can bundle your $5K fee in with some slick conference sponsorships for yet more money. Note that winners get three (presumably laudatory) posts on Techcrunch as part of the deal, in addition to related conference coverage. None of this is improper or even unusual as far as conferences go. If nothing else, it illustrates that the charitable instincts of the Techcrunch20 event will not be copied elsewhere unless some serious insta-cash blows out of the demos at the freebie conference.