Redbeacon co-founder Ethan Anderson has written an article on the MBA Blogs section of BusinessWeek sharing what he and his two co-founders learned by applying to TechCrunch50, going through the entire process, and winning it all. He highlights five key points:

1. You need a stellar product.
2. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
3. Listen to feedback from those who matter.
4. You need to take risks.
5. You need to engage in a little self-promotion.

Read Ethan’s article here.

Last week CitySourced had the opportunity to present to a sellout crowd and an even larger online audience as one of the 2009 TechCrunch50 presenting companies. On their blog they’ve shared details of their experience and lessons they learned along the way in hopes of helping future presenting companies. They note everything from working until 2:00am every night for a week prior to the conference, to Robert Scoble stopping by the company’s office the day after their presentation. The full story is here.

Kijubi, one of the DemoPit companies at TechCrunch50 2009, wrote a blog post about their experience at TC50 here. As a result of the conference they received press coverage from the New York Times, the LA Times, TechCrunch and many other publications. They also note they made many connections with VC’s, angel investors, potential partners, and industry bloggers. Read their full account of the DemoPit experience here.

On September 14th and 15th energetic entrepreneurs from all over the world electrified the San Francisco Design Center at TechCrunch50 2009. The crowd was excited, poker chips were abound, and deals were announced. In the end, San Mateo, CA based Redbeacon walked away as the overall winner, but success and fun were shared by many. The Animoto recap video, as well as the list of all of the winners, is below.

TC50 Winner:
Redbeacon

TC50 Finalists:
Threadsy
AnyClip
CitySourced

Best Presentation:
iMo

Best International Company:
Trollim

Microsoft BizSpark Award Winner:
AnyClip

Perkins Coie Award WInner
Toybots

Demopit Winners:
oDesk
YourVersion
Socialwok
Chyngle

Additional coverage here.

Break Media, Glam Media, AIM, and Amazon Web Services are adding to the “war chest” of advertising and services given away to the startups launching at the TechCrunch50 next week. The total “war chest” is now up to $1.3 million. More details over on TechCrunch.

DotSpots, a 2008 TechCrunch50 company that drew a lot of interest, has launched into private beta. The service lets users annotate any part of a web page, from a single quote to the entire page, leave a comment and socialize it with friends. The first 500 people to sign up here will get in. More details over on TechCrunch.

We just announced our last round of expert panelists over on TechCrunch. Dick Costolo, Satish Dharmaraj, Bradley Horowitz, George Zachary and Lior Zorea will join us to judge the presenting companies. The full list of experts is here. Read more on TechCrunch.

We have posted the conference agenda for TechCrunch50. The 50 presenting companies won’t be released until the day of the conference, and many other details have not yet been announced, but this should give you a good idea of the excitement that is in store for the conference. The agenda is here.

Look above and you’ll see our brand new conference logo! We’ve already coverered the news on TechCrunch. Details are here. Thanks again to DESIGN about TOWN for creating it for us.

New vs. Old logo:

On TechCrunch we just announced our TechCrunch50 conference partners will be giving away an aggregate of $1 million in advertising to TechCrunch50 companies. Facebook, Google (Youtube), Microsoft (Bing) and MySpace are all participating with substantial donations. We expect additional partners will join shortly.

Head over to TechCrunch for all the details.