Hanging out in the back lounge, I ran into the Co-founder of the Twiistup 5 fan favorite, Michael Broukhim, from Totspot. Speculation was that Mahalo had been acquired or secured additional funding, but it turns out that the news was more on a personal level. Twiistup 6 took place last week and this time around, under new management, the event went through a few changes. Instead of a one evening mixer that highlighted the showoffs and gave people a chance to mingle and get to know the companies, it was expanded to a two day conference with panels, and plenty of time for mingling.

It’s easy to say there’s a little unfairness in these competitions and opt out, but if you do, you’ll miss out on a ton of publicity, traffic, and potential funding. I’ve heard several people complain that TotSpot won the people’s choice award at Twiistup because they gave tequila to guests, while other companies showed their sites. TotSpot got people’s vote because they To all the people who whined that Twiistup’s startup competition was unfair, here’s my answer: You’re right.

The Los Angeles technology crowd turned out in full for last week's Twiistup 5 event--a showcase for startups looking for exposure and funding--with over 1,000 attendees at a private aircraft hangar at the Santa Monica airport. The winner of the judge's choice award was Cogi , a Santa Barbara-based firm which develops a service for transcribing conference calls and meetings; TotSpot , which operates a social networking site that allows families to create private sites for their children, was awarded "Fan Favorite" for the most votes from the crowd. Cogi was co-founded by Robert Dolan, former co-founder and CEO of Callwave; Mark Cromack, co-founder of CrystalVoice Communications; and Palmer Jackson, who also was at Callwave.