Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: DEMO 2006 (Page 6 of 7)

Peeks Into Demo 2006

Some juicy links for y’all on this week’s Demo 2006 Conference, before I head to the Orange County airport to fly to Phoenix…. For starters, here’s a list of presenting companies, with links to all their web pages. And here’s a PC Magazine story (via ABC News) about the event. Can you feel the tension building?

I also went looking for recent press releases from presenters. How about Krugle’s brand-new release – dated tomorrow even!….but just posted online. You saw it here first, folks. Some more: Sharpcast….Zingee….Iotum.

And the news is startiing to pop onto the “Virtual Press Office” for Demo 2006. This page will be getting much more populated with content over the next couple of days! And stay tuned to my blog, folks….lots more coming.

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[Written at San Clemente, CA.]

Web 2.0: What Is It? Where Is It?

Web 2.0 is everywhere it seems. Then again, it’s not. [I’ll explain what I mean by that later.] In case you’re still wondering what the term really means (and you wouldn’t be alone, by the way), just type “define Web.2.0” in your Google search box, and you can scroll through results till your heart’s content — 650 of ’em! The Web 2.0 page on Wikipedia alone is — get this — *2400 words long*. And one key point it makes early on is this: “a consensus on its exact meaning has not yet been reached.” So, you’re excused if you’re confused…

For another look at what it all means, here’s how Tim O’Reilly, the guy most credited with coining the term, defines it on a web page he calls “What Is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software”.

How’s this for a look at just a smattering of the companies that have sprouted up already in this nascent category. There’s only one thing I can say: Web 2-point-OHHHH!!! Most people date the beginning of the phenomenon as October 2004, when O’Reilly’s firm held its first event on the topic. (But, of course, the technology movement it represents really began before the term itself was coined and the conferences started.) Web2ohhh

Now back to the “where” part of Web 2.0. Just where would you guess most of these companies are located? Silicon Valley, or maybe the broader Bay Area in general? Yes, many are, but as you can see on this very interesting Web 2.0 Innovation Map from Fourio, the concentration of companies actually seems heavier in the Eastern U.S. And areas like the Pacific Northwest and Texas are well represented, too. [Thanks to my colleague Randy Geise, the boffo web designer/developer, for sharing the logo and map links with me.]

But Web 2.0 is definitely not everywhere — yet — as that same map shows. For example, when it comes to “innovators” in the Web 2.0 space, my home state of Minnesota, at least according to this map, is downright AWOL! As I said on my last post, I guess if the VC money ain’t there for IT and web technology, the startups won’t be either. [sigh…and Minnesota has been such a hotbed of high technology in the past]

But the energy in this space is undeniably strong. And I’ll be hearing about yet more new Web 2.0 companies and new offerings at the Demo conference, which is firing up in just two days in Phoenix. Here’s a news release from one of them (in this case, an existing firm introducing something new): Newsgator — in which they proudly proclaim “2006 will be the year of RSS”. And here’s a post from one of Newsgator’s blogs. Admittedly, they can’t say much yet, since Demo asks presenters to keep their news quiet till the actual event. But we’ll soon know what Newsgator, and several other Web 2.0 type companies, have coming. I’m looking forward to it, and will of course blog my brains out there for you, o valued readers.

[Written at San Clemente, CA. Hey, when the waves are lousy, you “tech” and you “blog”… 🙂 ]

Technology’s A-List

That’s who the producers of the Demo ’06 conference say you’ll be mingling with if you attend their event next week in Phoenix. The way it works is this: they filter through some 300 new upstarts that apply to present, reducing the number down to about 70 — the ones they think are the most promising. Demobannercrop3 Those then each get to do the famed six-minute pitch. How do they choose the companies? Who knows — behind some secure curtain, I’m sure. Do VCs lobby hard for their favorites? Ya think so? There sure are a ton of VCs that attend this thing, big names included, based on a partial attendee list I saw a few days ago.

This pitching at Demo is a big deal — hard to get a chance, then even harder to do it well. You talk about pressure. Check it out: watch some Demo presentation videos here — just look on the right side and click on the link “2005 DEMOfall,” for example, then pick a company. There’s a real art to presenting at Demo, according to Guy Kawasaki, a master presenter himself. Guy, of course, is also a VC these days. Wonder how many VCs will be blogging from Demo? I’m told 20-30 more bloggers besides me are part of the press contingent, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see some VCs hammering away on their laptops, too.

Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to do a post on the practice of VCs blogging. There are several of ’em doing it. Hey, they got the money, honey — *and* they got the time! Watch for that soon.

Demo Anticipation…

Two weeks and counting till February 6 when I’ll be arriving in Phoenix to begin reporting on the Demo ’06 conference. Can’t wait. Suffice it to say any conference that first brought to the limelight such technologies as TiVo, Java, VMware, Salesforce.com, and Movable Type is worth your attention. And, as the countdown shortens, the anticipation grows… What new companies will we first learn about at this one? What technology will we look back on in, say, five years and think, “Oh, yeah, I was there at Demo in 2006, when they first debuted that one.”? Demo is the grand-daddy tech event of them all, as Shel Israel tells us in this Conferenza post. And they should know, having reported on more of them than anyone.

Demo producer Chris Shipley said in her New Year’s DEMOletter blog post that 2006 would be The Year of Collaboration. That is so right on in my book. What she means, the part that struck me the most, is this: “People working individually and collaboratively are the value-add in a network of intelligent machines and massive data stores.” And she goes on in a followup blog post to clarify: “People, not tools, will drive 2006.” With that in mind, all the more reason to get to an event like this — to experience the things you can only get face-to-face…

There will be close to 70 company presentations. The ones I’m especially looking forward to will be in these sessions (with descriptions from the Demo site):
> The Search Is On – “With Google stock marching toward $500 per share, there’s no question that search technology is at the heart of big business. It’s no wonder, then, that “dozens of startups are wading into the waters of search. . . in search of more relevant, computationally-derived results across a range of data types.”
> It’s All Relevant – “As information proliferates – in databases, in email inboxes, on giant local and networked data stores – identifying, retrieving, analyzing and using that data becomes exponentially more difficult. Whether tackling gargantuan data stores or the every-day parade of messages, these companies are finding relevance in the haystacks of information that threaten to overwhelm us.”
I’m especially liking that last one, since I’ve been researching and writing about that topic lately…

Watch for more from me as Demo approaches, as I’m sure you’ll see from other bloggers who’ll also be reporting live from the event. Some have already started to post. Press attendance will be awesome: how’s WSJ’s Walt Mossberg and Forbes’ Quentin Hardy for starters?

Conferenza Redux!

I was delighted to see that Gary Bolles and Shel Israel at Conferenza have recently re-launched the conference reporting service as a blog! I was a contributor to Conferenza from 1999 to 2003, reporting on many technology events over that time. So, I’m really stoked about seeing the guys again at Demo ’06 in Phoenix, Feb 6-8. Seems it will be an awesome crew of bloggers at this very highly regarded event! Gee, sure hope I can keep up in the company of such greats at Shel, who of course co-authored the great new book just out, “Naked Conversations”.

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