Tech~Surf~Blog

DEMO 09 - Opening Reception, Interview 7: Sobees

I went on the lookout for more presenting company teams, and struck up a chat with two fellows who'd come at the way from Switzerland. Their company, deskNET SA, is introducing Sobees, which is a social desktop aggregator. I spoke with Nicholas Helke, chief communications officer (shown at left), and Francois Bochatay, CEO.

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Hints of What's Coming at DEMO '09

As noted to the right in my sidebar, I'll be reporting from the DEMO conference coming up soon in Southern California. I always look forward to this time of year. I think it will be my seventh or eighth DEMO event in a row (they're held twice a year), and maybe my tenth overall. DEMO is "The Launchpad for Emerging Technology."   Nowhere else can you get a reading on what's coming in tech better than you can at this event. Click in that graphic to the right for details about registering.

DEMO prides itself in finding the "diamonds in the rough" before anyone else. Over the years, this event has been the site of the first launch of such ventures as Palm, Java, TiVo, and E*TRADE in the mid/late '90s, and, in more recent years, Salesforce.com, VMware, Six Apart, OddPost, IronPort, GrandCentral, and Glam Media, to name a few.  DEMO says it focuses "on real products ready for market—regardless of their geography." Presenting firms hail from many countries.

So, who attends this thing?  Media and bloggers, VCs, business development professionals, IT executives, and new technology firms from all over the world.  DEMO says 15,000 people have attended their events over the past 19 years. Read more here: Who Attends DEMO? Here's a sampling of companies the people of DEMO have told me will be attending the upcoming event on March 1-3: Deutsche Telekom AG, August Capital, Meakem Becker Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Allegis Capital, Motorola, Google, Hitachi America, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Symantec, UBS, NYSE, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, VentureBeat, Business Week, Forbes, ABC, eWeek, North Bridge Ventures, NTTCOMWARE, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Verizon, Alcatel-Lucent, SVB Capital, Mayfield Fund, Granite Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and more.

What kinds of firms will be pitching?  Well, DEMO doesn't let out much in advance of the show -- certainly not the list of presenters. That's a big secret. (Companies actually have been dropped from the event if they leak that they're presenting. And we press attendees, of course, have to honor that embargo as well.) The list of presenters is only released the Friday night before the event, which kicks off with a Sunday night reception. (I always post that list of presenters as soon as it's released to the press, so watch this space on the evening of February 27th.)  But the DEMO producers did provide me with an interesting set of stats on the DEMO '09 presenters, represented in a couple of charts. So, here's a Breakdown of DEMO '09 Presenters by Market Segment and Funding to Date:

But should we really be expecting much excitement at DEMO this year?  Isn't the economy in the tank?  Does innovation really move ahead in these times?  You bet it does!  And the DEMO blog cites recent examples of that from the 2001 downturn. Sure, there will be fewer attendees, and fewer presenters. For the last several shows, we've seen about 65 presenters on average doing their six-minute pitches at each event. This time, it will undoubtedly be less, maybe may even fewer than 50. But I guarantee you we'll be hearing some of tomorrow's big winners, on stage for the first time. Because we always do. And the anticipation of that is, frankly, really exciting to me, and to the rest of 500+ who will be attending. It is an extremely upbeat affair, every single time.

There are some great updates being posted on The DEMO Blog, by Chris Shipley, Executive Producer, and other staff members.  Here are three recent posts:

• Two Panels Just Announced for DEMO '09 ... VCs on one, past DEMO company CEOs on the other
• Smart Money Takes a Flight to Quality ... "yes, it's a great time to throw a conference that launches new technology products, spots trends, and celebrates innovation"
• Making a Lasting Impact ... about how one past DEMO presenter, battery company Boston Power, is growing rapidly

And give a quick listen to a podcast about DEMO '09 recorded on January 29 by my friend Keith Shaw of Network World and Carla Thompson of the Guidewire Group.

Your intrepid reporter: pumped and ready. I can't wait to live-tweet DEMO '09! I did somewhere between 200 and 300 newsy tweets at the last one -- so (fair warning) get ready for the firehose!  And I'll be doing podcast interviews for the first time, too, with my whiz-bang new toy: a studio-quality handheld recorder. I'm gonna give it a go in the way of some short, ad-hoc interviews of presenting company founders, VCs, and various luminaries wandering the great hall, the pavilion, and (of course) the hallways. And I'm told I can upload these pretty quickly to my blog, giving those of you who can't be there at least a near-realtime sense of what's going on at DEMO.

Will you be going to DEMO '09?  If so, let us know in the comments! (And let's try to meet up face-to-face.)  If you can't make it, what would you most like to see covered? What answers would you be seeking if you were there? What you would most want to get out of the event?

What's Up With the 'Social Media Today' Widget?

So, I tried turning on this widget again in my sidebar today.  It sure looks cool when you first see it, which I did several months ago.  I put it in my sidebar briefly back then, but I remember it wasn't working right, so I took it off.  Also, it couldn't be adjusted for width and was displaying somewhat "chopped off" in my standard-width Typepad sidebar. Well, today, I thought I'd try it again to see if they'd improved the thing at all. The width thing is still a problem for Typepad blogs, and I don't see any way to adjust for that. Are the links working for you?  I was having a problem for a while clicking through to the scrolling stories. But if this thing appears to be working okay now, I just may turn it back on again in my sidebar.  I'm sure you can get at a lot of this same news on Alltop's Social Media page, if you just want a plain-vanilla UI (basically a random list). But I find scrolling widgets to be more fun....

What I've Been Blogging and Tweeting Lately

Just a post to catch you up to what I've been doing elsewhere online recently, on venues other than this.  First of all, my volunteer/pastime blogging thing over at Minnov8.com included a post a couple days ago on a bigtime conference held here in the Twin Cities last week called the MIMA Summit.   It was sponsored by, you guessed it, MIMA (the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association). Here's a partial screen clip of that post, and the whole post is here.

Then, just yesterday, I participated again in the weekly Minnov8 Gang Podcast, this one Episode 9 already. (Wow, time flies when you're having fun.)  You can grab it off the Minnov8 home page via the link at top center there, as you can see on the second screen clip. We talked about a number of topics, including recent confabs in the Twin Cities, the economic times, social media (of course), and, hey, even wine.

Finally, I continue to Twitter all the while -- that just never stops! :-)  I'm including here a recent screenshot of my Twitterstream. But please do follow the whole dang shebang here.  One cool thing that happened recently is this: I received a rating for my Twitter account of 91 out of 100 from twitter.grader.com.  Wow, that means my Twitter presence is rated higher than 91% of all the other accounts they've graded! Nice to know I'm doing something right..

UPDATE 10/6/08:  Meant to say that social media is a part of everything I do now for my clients, and also that I'm quite active in our local Social Media Breakfast organization. Be sure to keep the morning on Oct 31 open, because we have an exciting, nationally known speaker coming to town. [Actually, he was already here for a private gig, and I convinced him to stay over a night...  :-) ] Watch the "SMBMSP" site above for the announcement later today.

UPDATE 10/9/08:  I see our local media site MinnPost picked up my story on the MIMA Summit.

DEMOfall 08 vs. TechCrunch50: My Wrap-Up of Last Week

I attend a lot of conferences. A ton of conferences. I actually started reporting on tech conferences in 1997, would you believe?  Heck, I can't even count how many I've attended, how many reports I've filed, for how many media outlets, how many endless thousands of words I've tapped out, at all hours of the day and night, from meeting rooms, lobbies, and bad hotel rooms all over God's green earth (not to speak of planes flying above it).  I think that gives me some perspective on what makes for a good conference.

So, then, I suppose you guys would like to hear my take on the events I attended in California this past week, huh?  I guess this is as good a time as any, as I drink wine on the plane home and finally get some think time, to start tapping this one out on the keyboard. Seems like my chance to wax on about my thoughts on these two opposing/overlapping events...

Now, the way I figure it, there are two ways I could do this: a really long blog post (trust me, I have tons I could say), or really short. I can't see something in between. Since the flight is only another hour and a half, I'm thinking shorter has to be the way to go. Thus, here's my analysis in sound-bite form.

Two Conferences for Startups: Similar, But World's Apart
You know how the two events were similar, I suspect. I've blogged previously on this topic (scroll back if you want). I'll focus here on how they were different.  So, here goes some thoughts off the top of my head:
- DEMO was for a more experienced, mature crowd. TC50 was for the "cool kids." (Cool kids by definition are not all that experienced, and frankly can be a real pain in the ass.)
- DEMO was extremely well run. TC50 wasn't.
- DEMO was held in a resort location. TC50 was held...south of Market.
- DEMO was friendly. TC50 wasn't.
- DEMO networking was excellent, as usual. TC50's was...meh.
- DEMO had great social media tools set up for attendees. Never saw anything like that at TC50.
- DEMO had some great parties. TC50's...weren't.
- DEMO had everything on site. TC50 required riding cabs (hotel, evening events), which sucks.
- DEMO's food was flat-out excellent. TC50's was ho-hum.
- DEMO's production values were top-flight. TC50...has some things to learn.
- DEMO had great bump music. Never heard much at TC50.
- DEMO's on-stage presenters were well prepared. TC50's varied...widely.
- DEMO's logistics were impeccable, as usual. TC50's were...challenged.
- DEMO's support of press attendees is flat-out the best. TC50's was...some emails.

But enough equivocating! How do I really feel? :-) I'm just telling it like it is based on my own conference experience. Do with it what you will.  Now, in defense of TC50, I was only there for one day (the last).  Maybe the first two days were better (God, I hope). Because I wasn't there for all of TC-50, I can't attempt to give you a list of my top-10 favorite startups that launched there.  But, since I did take in the entire DEMOfall conference, I will do my normal best picks from that event -- out of the 72 startups that presented.

My Top-Ten DEMOfall Picks
Here are the ones that lit me up, presented here in no particular priority order (just alphabetically). And, to give you the gist of each, I'm including part of what I tweeted about each right as they were on stage:
•  Best Buy (Giftag.com) - of course! my hometown boys - "universal gift registry"...Firefox plug-in...just highlight product at any ecommerce site, then click Giftag icon in your browser bar, and it's saved
•  BizEquity.com - provides valuations of small businesses, at no cost to the business...small biz in U.S.=$5.8 trillion, a couple trillion more than all Nasdaq cos!
•  BlueLava Technologies (iLovePhotos.com) - has desktop software (Mac now, Win later) that examines your photos and sends 'em to the people in the photos...ooooo!
•  DialDirections (SayWhere) - no more typing on your iPhone, just SAY it, dude! mapping, directions, reviews... (coming soon)
•  Fusion-io - announced ioDrive last yr, now ioSAN...shared solid-state storage...1.5Gb/sec - doubling perf from last yr...can transfer 5 DVDs in seconds
•  MixMatchMusic - a community for musicians and consumers alike, to mash it up...and the musicians even make money!
•  PaidInterviews - disrupting the traditional recruiting model...once candidate's selected, they're paid their "ask price" to go on interview...turns recruiting world upside down
•  Plastic Logic - been developing new display technology for 10 yrs, reader coming '09...no glass, very light, long battery life....woooo!
•  PhoTrade - a visual marketplace connecting photogs, advertisers, web publishers...upload, set price, share...when you're on deadline, you gotta find and buy a photo fast
•  SpinSpotter - out to bring transparency to news reporting...lets user put on "Spinoculars," highlight unsubstantiated words, submit objections...gad, maybe keep media honest?

Read My Play-by-Play Twitter Account of Both Events
By the way, speaking of tweets, I thought I'd give you the links to my entire Twitter archive on each of these events. The only way I can capture or save all my tweets for later blogging -- at least until somebody creates a better way -- is to scroll back in Twitter and shoot a screen capture of a page at a time. So, that's what I did, and I then posted those images (PNG files) to my web site.  The trouble with this approach, of course, is that everything is arranged most recent first -- so you don't get the logical, chronological order of the event, unless you somehow go to the bottom screen capture first and read up.  Anyway, here's my index of tweets for DEMOfall (#1 most recent, #18 oldest), and my index of tweets for TechCrunch50 (#1 most recent, #8 oldest). 

Let me know what you think. Did you attend either event?  Or did you try to follow them online?  Do you even care?  What were your favorite startups at either one?

Rejected iPhone Developers: Read the Agreement

We were just talking about this yesterday on the latest Minnov8 Gang podcast -- the whining we're starting to hear from some developers whose iPhone apps are being rejected by Apple.  Now today we're seeing stories pop up on the topic: Of Course You’ll Keep Developing For The iPhone (TechCrunch) and Blockage on iPhone Apps Begins to Properly Annoy Developers (The Guardian), to name two.

I would only say what I said yesterday: read Apple's iPhone Developer Agreement. How many developer's really do, I wonder? I've read it, and it's not that hard to get through -- though it is long (around 30 pages, as I recall). It's written in very clear, simple English -- not so much in "legalese," as you might expect. I can't imagine there isn't something in there that says Apple can reject apps that could be deemed competitive to them or damaging in some other way to their business. There is language in the agreement, as I recall, that Apple can reject apps for certain stated reasons -- and, I suspect they also say somewhere it can reject them for no reason at all, at its sole discretion. That's the kind of agreements lawyers write, and Apple has a very good legal department.

So, to all those who aspire to develop for this platform, and don't wish to have their apps rejected -- read the agreement and, if you don't understand it, get legal help.  Knowing what you're getting into up front is always a good idea. If you don't like what you read, then don't do it.  It could save you a lot of whining later.

 

 

Want More on DEMOfall? Go Here....

In case you haven't noticed, I'm posting my brains out on Twitter again while here at DEMOfall. So, go here to keep up: www.twitter.com/graemethickins. I won't try to repeat it here. Below is a clip from the ever-scrolling firehose...  :-)

DEMOfall Blog Feed Is Startin' to Buzz

In addition to having a Twitter account -- @demofall08 -- DEMO has a nice blog feed set up at a site created by EventVue, which you can see here. Actually, it's just part of an entire social network for the conference. I joined it over the weekend, so my posts will be there. (And my tweets appear at their Twitter page, too.) In the screen shot below, you can see that at least one TechCrunch50 blogger is already using the blog feed. Figures.

UPDATE:  Hah, just found another Twitter account that DEMO runs -- @demotweets -- which I see has been going for some time now. I guess it will also have updates about the event. The other Twitter page mentioned at the top is for the purpose of aggregating tweets from attendees, so it was just set up a couple days ago.

DEMOfall 08: 72 New Technologies to Launch Sept 8-9

I'll be attending the DEMOfall 08 conference in San Diego, September 7-9, 2008. Close to 100 media and bloggers will be there, with total attendance expected to be the largest ever (I predict close to 1000).

Here are some excerpts from DEMO's press release, which just hit the wire, including the complete list of presenting companies, A to Z, and their web addresses:

Leading Technology Conference Continues to Highlight
the Best in Entrepreneurship from Around the World

The DEMO conferences, known for launching some the world’s biggest technology products, will kick off this Sunday with 72 new products poised to launch onstage in just 72 hours.  Beginning its 19th year of supporting innovation, DEMOfall 08 will highlight products from more than 11 countries and 19 states. Known as the conference that launched products from Google, Apple, Palm, Intel, Yahoo!, and TiVo, the fall conference will host one of its largest attendances of journalists, investors, and business professionals in its history.  DEMOfall 08 is being held from September 7 – 9 at the Sheraton San Diego.  To learn more about the event and register to attend, visit www.demo.com.

"Every DEMO, we strive to identify the companies that will defy all the odds and have significant impact in the technology markets.  Ours is a year-long process that culminates in 72 hours of products that are more than disruptive; they change the rules of the game as we know it,” said Chris Shipley, product analyst and executive producer of the DEMO conferences.  "I am very excited to unveil the class of DEMOfall 08.  They are innovative, they are important, they are fun, and they represent the future products and solutions we all will be using soon.”

The DEMO conferences are held twice a year, requiring the DEMO team to hold in-depth interviews with more than 1,000 companies ready to launch new products at the event. This rigorous process ensures that DEMOfall 08 attendees will, for the first time, see new products from around the globe including Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan.

DEMOfall 08 Presenting Companies

Accordia Group, LLC; New Rochelle, NY; www.accordia-group.com
Adapx, Inc.; Seattle, WA; www.adapx.com
Alerts.com, Inc.; Bellvue, WA; www.alerts.com
Arsenal Interactive, Inc.; Mountain View, CA; www.heycosmo.com
Asyncast Corp; Campbell, CA; www.rocketron.com
Awind Inc.; Junghe, Taiwan; www.awindinc.com
beeTV; Milano, Italy; www.bee.tv
Best Buy; Minneapolis, MN; www.giftag.com
BizEquity Corp.; Spring House, PA; www.bizequity.com
Blue Lava Technologies, Inc.; Honolulu, HI; www.bluelavatech.com
Cerego; Tokyo, Japan; www.usa.iknow.co.jp
Cinergix, Pty Ltd.; Melbourne, Australia; www.creately.com
Clintworld; Boenningstedt, Germany; www.clintworld.de
CoreTrace Corp.; Austin, TX; www.coretrace.com
crowdSPRING, LLC; Chicago, IL; www.crowdspring.com
DesignIn, Inc.; Marblehead, MA; www.mydesignin.com
Dial Directions, Inc.; Alameda, CA; www.dialdirections.com
DOCCENTER; Omaha, NE; www.doccenterinc.com
Enterprise Informatics, Inc.; San Diego, CA; www.enterpriseinfomatics.com
Familybuilder; New York, NY; www.familybuilder.com
ffwd.com, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.ffwd.com
Fortressware, Inc.; Mountain View, CA; www.fortressw.com
Fusion-io; Salt Lake City, UT; www.fusionio.com
G.ho.st; Ramallah & Modin, Palestine and Israel; http://g.ho.st
Green Sherpa; Santa Barbara, CA; www.greensherpa.com
Infovell, Inc.; Menlo Park, CA; www.infovell.com
Intelius, Inc.; Bellevue, WA; www.zumende.com
Invision TV, LLC; Bethesda, MD; www.invision.tv
iWidgets, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.iwidgets.com
Kadoo Inc.; Washington, DC; www.kadoo.com
Koollage, Inc.; San Jose, CA; www.koollage.com
Mapflow, Ltd.; Cork, Ireland; www.eirlift.com
Maverick Mobile Solutions, Pvt. Ltd.; Maharashtra, India; www.maverickmobile.in
MeDeploy; Hamden, CT; www.medeploy.com
Message Sling; Worcester, MA; www.messagesling.com
MeWorks, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan; www.meworks.net
Microstaq, Inc.; Austin, TX; www.microstaq.com
MixMatchMusic, Ltd.; Burlingame, CA; www.mixmatchmusic.com
Momindum; Paris, France; www.momindum.com
OpenACircle.com; Dallas, TX; www.openacircle.com
Paidinterviews, LLC; McLean, VA; www.paidinterviews.com
Paragent, LLC; Muncie, IN; www.paragent.com
Photrade, LLC; Cincinnati, OH; www.photrade.com
PlanDone, Inc.; Petaluma, CA; www.plandone.com
Plastic Logic, Ltd.; Mountain View, CA; www.plasticlogic.com
Qtask, Inc.; Burbank, CA; www.Qtask.com
Quantivo Corp.; San Mateo, CA; www.quantivo.com
Radiant Logic, Inc.; Novato, CA; www.radiantlogic.com
RealNetworks, Inc.; Seattle, WA; www.real.com
Rebus Technology, Inc.; Cupertino, CA; www.rebustechnology.net
RemoTV, Inc.; New Haven, CT; www.remotv.com
Rudder, Inc.; Houston, TX; www.rudder.com
Semanti Corp.; Alberta, Canada; www.semantifind.com
Sim Ops Studios, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.wildpockets.com
SitScape, Inc.; Vienna, VA; www.sitscape.com
SkyData Systems, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; www.skydata.com
SpinSpotter; Seattle, WA; www.spinspotter.com
Telnic, Ltd.; London, England; www.telnic.org
TetraBase, LLC; Boothwyn, PA; www.tetrabase.com
The Echo Nest Corp.; Somerville, MA; http://echonest.com
tikitag, an Alcatel-Lucent Venture; Antwerp, Belgium; www.tikitag.com
Toolgether; San Mateo, CA; www.toolgether.com
TravelMuse, Inc.; Los Altos, CA; www.travelmuse.com
Trinity Convergence, Inc.; Durham, NC; www.trinityconvergence.com
TurnTo Networks, Inc.; New York, NY; www.turnto.com
UbiEst S.p.A.; Treviso, Italy; www.ubiest.com
UGA Digital, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan; www.ugadigital.com
Unity Solutions, LLC; Clearwater, FL; www.unitysolutions.com
Usable Security Systems, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.usable.com
WebDiet, Inc.; Henderson, NV; www.webdiet.com
Xumii, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; www.xumii.com
Zazengo, Inc.; Santa Cruz, CA; www.zazengo.com

My Day in the Sun - I Mean, the StarTribune

Or I really should say, our day in the sun -- meaning our whole team at DoApp (my new gig). What a bunch of great guys, and I tip my hat to every one of 'em! Especially our illustrious founder, Joe ("Google guy") Sriver, and our crack team of talented developers.

It isn't every day you wake up and find yourself at the top of page one of your local daily's Business section. I was even quoted there, before the jump. Here's the story: Apple Shines on Minneapolis Firm's iPhone App (Minneapolis StarTribune).  But wait, there's more: another great piece on us appeared late Monday: Minnesota Keeps Feeding the iPhone Habit (Minnov8.com).

Having our myLite Color Strobe and Flashlight app break into the top ten of *all* free apps on the iTunes App Store, surging past many big-name apps -- like Facebook, AOL, MySpace, Google, and the NY Times -- has been a humbling and amazing experience. (We topped out at #8, after a wild ride up the charts.) We're even ranked higher than all the apps featured on "What's Hot" on the App Store front page! (Apple's a little behind in updating that list, it seems...)

Go grab any or all of our apps on iTunes -- just type "DoApp" in the search box. And reviews are always appreciated once you download 'em!  (Our apps are getting high ratings by consumers, which you can see via the independent ranking service, Medialets. For example, myLite is currently #25 of all apps -- paid and free! -- with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5.)

Our other apps are myTo-Dos with Email Support and Magic 8 Ball (it's mystical, man!).  And DoApp has many more iPhone/iPod Touch apps on the way, in a variety of categories.  We're even updating our first three apps with cool, new features. (One you get an app, you automatically get the updates -- so sweet.)

Apple said yesterday the number of iTunes App Store downloads is now up to 25 million! Got an iPhone or iPod Touch yet?  Downloading apps like mad?  Tell us your experiences in the comments...