But a handful of outliers drew enthusiastic whoops and hoots from the audience watching on-stage demos. Panelists time and again drilled presenters on product scalability and revenue models, and one was ready to shoot down Birdpost.com - a Web site for birdwatching enthusiasts to track, compile and share bird observations - until he learned that roughly 18 million of those enthusiasts in the U.S. spent more than $32 billion on birding-related products and activities in 2001. By 2006, those figures swelled to 20 million active birdwatchers spending a large chunk of the $46 billion total that wildlife watchers across the U.S. spent on trips and gadgets.

"What we've really created is a framework for collecting," Birdpost.com co-founder Ben Crockett said in a phone interview the  day after his TechCrunch presentation. "It really draws on that inherent desire we have to collect and catalog and know."

And while one panelist suggested birdwatching was "a little bit geriatric," and so perhaps too much of a niche market, another pointed out the opportunities in making content available to young'uns: "This seems like a natural for classrooms, which is also going to be an unbelievable way for you guys to start marketing the product."

Image: Reuters

The S&P figures come on the heels of equally gloomy numbers from the real estate industry. On Monday the National Association of Realtors said the number of existing homes across the U.S. sold in July rose 3.1% on a seasonally-adjusted basis, while the national median price of an existing home fell around 7% to $212,400. For the same month the California Association of Realtors reported a 43% uptick in the number of existing homes sold statewide but a 40% median price slump, to $350,760, for existing homes.

Lower prices could help those Californians who’ve been priced out of the once-booming housing market, but the state is also among those hardest hit by the real estate bust, and sales volumes in many areas is being pushed by “deeply discounted, distressed sales,” according to CAR President William Brown.

Earlier this month foreclosure tracking company RealtyTrac said more homes across the U.S. are ending up in the hands of mortgage lenders. The company tracks preforeclosure actions including notices of default sent to borrowers, public auctions of homes and bank repossessions. Last month some 28% of foreclosure activity nationwide involved banks repossessing properties under default, while almost a third of foreclosure activity in the Golden State involved so-called real estate-owned properties. Nationwide, foreclosure activity rose 55% on a year-over-year basis, but was up 85% in California.

Analysts don’t see the housing correction easing any time soon. In a research note Tuesday Merrill Lynch said home prices remain well above those reached before the bubbly heights of the housing boom and sees prices nationally falling a further 15% to 20% by the end of next year.

BMO Capital Markets echoed that view.

“Increasingly, our national housing crisis is slowly becoming a series of regional crises with most of the pain felt in Florida, Arizona, Nevada and California. That said, regional price declines will be with us for a while and given that California represents roughly one-third of our GDP, housing will be a drag on economic growth for at least the next four quarters,” the broker wrote to clients Tuesday.