I’ll admit it — I’m a snob in many ways. And yea, it reared its ugly green head a few months ago when I heard that Hammer — yeah, that’s right, *THAT* Hammer — would be one of the “experts” at TechCrunch40 (then, merely 20). I wasn’t the only one questioning his “new media” or “business” qualifications [and I use the latter loosely; according to the oracle, his 'business' acumen is what's relegated him to the D-list]. I mean, if they wanted the everyman’s opinion, why not choose a blogger randomly from the crowd? (points to self) Or, any other D-list celebrity?

Well, it turns out there is in fact a connection. As Allen Stern — who is covering TC40 like I hope I would (asking questions and generally trying to be a shit disturber as nicely as possible), points out that Hammer’s new new media company, DanceJam is in fact backed *by* Mike Arrington and a bunch of others.

Huh.

Well, in this world of disclosures it would have been nice to have this tasty morsel of information when Hammer was announced as an “expert” panelist at the Conference. I mean, his improved (as it was nonexistent previously, although he does have a blog — good for him) visibility in front of the new media digerati is a pretty good “coincidence”, as DanceJam is launching TODAY — in the MIDDLE of the conference.

Well, all I can say is that it was well planned, and, it seems well executed. Don Dodge, for one, seems to have been impressed.

All I’m impressed with was how Machiavellian this was.

Or was trying to be, if, for example, we didn’t know that Mike Arrington, who runs this conference, decided to put the front man of a company he is backing back *INTO* the limelight as a an “expert” — when said frontman has been *out* of the limelight for years and is by no means an “expert” — just in time for said company to launch.