I keep one of the most complete lists of upcoming conferences and events in the tech industry. Why? Because I have thousands of friends who report to me over on Yahoo’s Upcoming.org the various events that are happening. Even more come to me via the tagging and search features there.

My friends who do tech events tell me they get a majority of their attendance thanks to being listed on Upcoming.org and on Facebook. If your tech event isn’t on my calendar, please do comment here and let me know your Upcoming.org URL and I’ll add it.

Anyway, I’ve been to tons of conferences and I am seeing lots of new conferences that have to do with pleasing an audience and/or Twitter. Two of the best new conferences I’ve attended this year on this topic don’t even try to sell themselves as “audience” conferences. They both say they are Twitter conferences. But, don’t miss what’s going on here and the approach they are taking.

Steve Broback runs TC140. Aka “The Twitter Conference.” His first version, earlier this year, had the coolest newest developers on stage that I’ve seen this year. I love people who are studying the data streams going through Twitter and Facebook and who are trying to bring something out of this. If you hang around Steve for a while he isn’t very flashy. He isn’t known for having big Hollywood parties, but everytime I get together he shows me a new tool for building web sites, or shows me a new trick he learned in Excel for looking at data a new way. His conference reflected his personality and I learned a lot of cool tools and techniques I could use with Twitter. His conference is biased toward businesses and developers, but this time he’s added a ton of celebrities, which makes it my favorite audience building conference out there, plus it’s very affordable, $299 through September 6th.

Jeff Pulver on the other hand is a guy who understands social media. I attended his breakfast in Tel Aviv where he had hundreds of people networking. He has a huge following. He also has good contacts in the music and entertainment industry. I remember one of his parties at his VOiP conference where he had a great rock band and it was lots of fun. His conference had great panels on charity, media, entertainment, along with musicians who played in between sessions. His conference, too, reflected his personality. His conference, 140 characters, is biased toward social media experts, storytellers, entertainers, and audience builders who are looking for inspiration to get to the next level.

Other conferences that are good for people who are trying to build audiences?

Blogworld in Las Vegas, October 15th.

LeWeb, Paris, December 9th.

What conferences are you going to attend between now and the end of the year?

Who will win your “audience” money, Pulver or Broback? Why?