This year's season is half over, but already it's proven busier and more event-filled than ever before. The booming business-technology magazine sector is sponsoring an ever-building whirlwind of conferences. The last 60 days alone have seen events from the Industry Standard (iB2B and Net Returns), Red Herring (NDA 2000 and Venture Market East), the Silicon Alley Reporter (Digital Coast 2000) and Upside (E=B2, Launch and Preview). IDG's Agenda 2001 and Vortex, and Forbes' Telecosm. Business 2.0 launched the first of its new conference series in late October with B2 Live ("The 10 Driving Principles of the New Economy") and next week, eCompany Now will debut its first conference, "Riffing with the Masters: A Conference on What Works." That event will, in turn, be followed swiftly by the Industry Standard's "identity: Brand Excellence in the Internet Economy," and Webnoize, the eponymous conference from the digital-music webzine. Even the youthful publications Line56 and Inside.com are planning conferences of their own for early next year.

These days, it seems there's a new magazine every week, and with every new magazine comes a half-dozen must-attend events. The sheer number of conferences available for tech-Net-biz types is enough to make your head spin -- or, at least, fill up your calendar and swiftly empty your company's coffers. According to Dirk Spiers, co-founder of the conference-tracking portal Conferenza.com, there are between 2,000 to 3,000 tech-related conferences a year.

There's a reason why tech-biz magazines throw conferences: They're a great way to connect to your readers, terrific for brand-building and -- for those editors thus inclined -- proselytizing. And although no one is willing to say just how profitable these events are, almost everyone agrees that they are a very lucrative side project for publications looking for revenues beyond advertising. Lucrative enough, apparently, that everyone's doing them, from venerable institutions like Forbes down to the newest magazines you might not even have heard of yet. The business of magazines has apparently become the business of conferences, too.

It's logical that magazines would throw conferences since, after all, they make a living from writing about business issues, but the church and state division between editorial and marketing is, some allege, somewhat looser when it comes to conferences. More than one conference planner complains that the competition lets favored sponsors "buy" speaking gigs at conferences -- although no one is willing to name names. Jason McCabe Calacanis, CEO of Silicon Alley Reporter, says that so many conference planners are giving seats on panels and keynote sessions to the sponsors who are footing the bill that now his advertisers are coming to expect these kinds of favors, too. Says Calacanis, "There are a lot of maverick Johnny-come-latelys starting conferences. They create a lot of noise and then go to our sponsorship base and say 'We'll let you do a keynote if you buy a table.'"

But even conferences that appear to be more ethically sound -- no purchased keynotes here! -- may be less about journalism than self-promotion. Many of these conference panels are studded with editors and contributing writers from the magazine putting on the event. Magazine regulars serve as panelists, moderators or speakers and speaking slots are filled by the high-profile names that fill the pages of their publications every month.

All too often, this makes for a self-congratulatory event, with participants fawning at the feet of the magazine's favored cover personalities and en vogue companies. Some would argue that the conference business, which is often more about publicity and schmooze than a true exchange of ideas and criticism, should be kept far away from objective journalism. Should editors and journalists really be making nice on stage with the subjects they cover, including some of their own advertisers?

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