Graeme Thickins on Tech

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: IT/Software (Page 18 of 58)

DEMO Spring 2010 Announces Presenting Companies

March 19, 2010 / / 1 Comment

JWmarriottDesertSprings DEMO_2010-logo+dates As is
my custom, I’m publishing the list of DEMO presenters as soon as it’s
released.  What follows is an
excerpt from the press release that just hit the wire:

———

The
DEMO conference, the world-renowned launch platform for some of the most
notable emerging technologies introduced over the past two decades, today
announced the lineup of 65 companies that will share their never-before-seen
products and value propositions to the technology community at DEMO Spring 2010
on March 21-23 in Palm Desert, California (JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort).

The
DEMO conference opens a window into technology's future, and this year the
event will feature some of the most promising new products and prototypes from
a variety of different industries including Social and Media, Cloud,
Enterprise, Mobile, and Consumer Technologies.

DEMO
Spring 2010 is also excited to have VentureBeat Founder and CEO, Matt Marshall,
on board as DEMO’s new executive producer, who has evaluated and selected
leading-edge innovations to launch on the DEMO stage.  

In its
second year, sitting alongside the demonstrating class of DEMO Spring 2010, the
Alpha Pitch program will feature 13 early-stage entrepreneurs and pre-launch
mode companies that will have 90 seconds in the spotlight to share their
prototypes to the critical DEMO audience. To have qualified for the program,
each company must be pre-revenue, and have received no more than a seed round
of funding.

You can
still register to attend by going to the DEMO web site.  Live broadcast
over the web will be available through a partnership with DEMO 08
demonstrator and former DEMOgod award winner BitGravity,
for registered qualified members of the press.  Qualified members of the
press may request live viewing access via www.etouches.com/demovideo. Videos from
live DEMO Spring 2010 presentations will also be available within 24-48 hours
after each presentation on DEMO.com.

———

As
always, I will be covering the event on-site, posting some audio interviews as
I can, and also live-blogging the entire proceedings, as I did for DEMOfall
’09.

And now, ta-dah!  Here’s the just-released list….

DEMO
Spring 2010 Demonstrators:     

ABJK
NewCo, Inc.; Austin, Texas; www.zosh.com                                                                                  

AirSet;
Berkeley, California; www.airset.com                                                                                          

AppVoyage;
San Jose, California; www.appvoyage.com                                                                                   

AppWhirl,
Inc.; Mountain View, California; www.appwhirl.com                                         
                       

bloson;
Cambridge, Massachusetts; www.bloson.com                                                                           

BlueSkies
Hospitality Management Systems (HMS); Pendleton, Indiana; www.blueskieshms.com             

BrandFolium
Corporation; Sunnyvale, California; www.brandfolium.com                                                  

CalendarFly;
Pelham, New York; www.calendarfly.com                                                                           

Closely,
Inc.; Denver, Colorado; www.closely.com                                                                                 

Cloudscale,
Inc.; San Mateo, California; www.cloudscale.com                                                                

Democrasoft;
Santa Rosa, California; www.democrasoft.com                                                                

DigitalScirocco;
Seattle, Washington; www.digitalscirocco.com                                                              

Everloop;
Danville, California; www.everloop.com                                                                                  

eXaudios
Technologies; Ramat-Gan, Israel; www.exaudios.com                                                             

FathomDB;
San Francisco, California;

www.fathomdb.com

Fliptop;
San Francisco, California; www.fliptop.com                                                      
                       

General
Inspection, LLC; Davisburg, Michigan; www.generalinspection.com                                            

Genieo
Innovation; Herzlia Pituach, Israel; www.genieo.com                                                                    

GlideTV,
Inc.; Pleasanton, California; www.glidetv.com                                                                          

GreenNurture;
Tempe, Arizona; www.greennurture.com                                                               

gwabbit;
Carmel Valley, California; www.gwabbit.com                                                                            

Hillcrest
Labs; Rockville, Maryland; www.hillcrestlabs.com                                                          

InfoDome;
Oakland, California; www.InfoDome.com                                                                              

Infusionsoft;
Gilbert, Arizona; www.infusionsoft.com                                                                              

Invested.in;
Thousand Oaks, California; www.invested.in                                                                        

InVisage
Technologies, Inc.; Menlo Park, California; www.invisageinc.com                                                                                                                     

MightyMeeting,
Inc.; Setauket, New York; www.mightymeetings.com                                                       

MiniMash,
Inc.; Oakland, California; www.minimash.com                                                             

my6sense,
Inc.; Herzeliya Pituach, Israel; www.my6sense.com/                                                               

NetToons,
Inc.; El Cerrito, California; www.nettoons.com                                                            

Network
Hippo, Inc.; Ottawa, Ontario; www.networkhippo.com                                                                

nyoombl,
Inc.; Palo Alto, California; www.nyoombl.com                                                                         

Phone
Halo; Santa Barbara, California; www.phonehalo.com                                                                  

Pi
Mobility; Sausalito, California; www.pi.pngmobility.com                                                                            

Rebtel;
Stockholm, Nacka Strand; www.rebtel.com                                                                                 

Sharetivity;
Palo Alto, California; www.sharetivity.com                                                                            

SocialWish;
Brooklyn, New York;

www.socialwish.com                                                                                            

Solvate;
New York, New York; http://solvate.com                                                                                   

Supercool
School; San Francisco, California; www.SupercoolSchool.com                                                          

Sutus,
Inc.; Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada; www.sutus.com                                                            

Tastr,
Inc.; San Diego, California; http://xpenser.com/                                                                            

Teneros;
Mountain View, California; www.teneros.com                                                                            

Value-Centered
Solutions, Inc.; San Pablo, California; www.inoutcash.com                                             

VenueGen;
Morrisville, North Carolina; www.venuegen.com                                                                    

ViaCLIX;
Los Gatos, California; www.viaclix.com                                                                                               

VIC
Wave Communication, Inc.; Victoria, British Columbia; www.vicwave.net                                           

VISIARC;
Stockholm, Sweden;

www.visiarc.com
and www.mobiledocuments.com                            

Vivox; Natick,
Massachusetts; www.vivox.com                                                                                      

Voxofon,
LLC; Houston, Texas; www.voxofon.com                                                                               

Widgetbox;
San Francisco, California; www.clickturn.com                                                                      

Zerista,
Inc.; Denver, Colorado; www.zerista.com                                                                                   


DEMO
Spring 2010 AlphaPitch Companies:

flinc;
Dieburg, Germany; www.flinc.mobi                                                                                               

Immitter;
Los Angeles, California; www.immitter.com                                                                              

KarmaKorn;
Lindenhurst, Illinois;

www.KarmaKorn.com  

MEDL
Technology Co., Ltd.; Mongkok, Hong Kong; www.medltech.com                                                

neverend
media; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; www.neverendmedia.com                                                   

R3
d.o.o.; Maribor Slovenia, Europe; www.mmatcher.com                                                                      

PERMISSIONtosend;
Denbigh, Wales, UK;

www.permissiontosend.com

SocialOrbits,
LLC; Chicago, Illinois; www.SocialOrbits.com                                                        

Systems
Thinking Institute, LLC; Cedar Creek, Texas; www.systemkey.net                                               

TicketPlayground.com;
Plantation, Florida;

www.ticketplayground.com

ThickButtons;
Palo Alto, California;

www.thickbuttons.com

Yumit;
Madrid, Spain; www.yumit.com                                                                                                   

UppyMedia.com;
Alameda, California;

www.uppymedia.com                                           

ZURB;
Campbell, California;

www.zurb.com


An
additional excerpt from the press release: In addition to the exciting
companies that will take the stage, DEMO will host some of the single most
influential entrepreneurs, organizations, and venture capitalists in the industry
to participate in panel sessions on the key themes for the show, including:

– Social
and Media

– Cloud

–
Enterprise

– Mobile

–
Consumer Technologies

Matt
Marshall, Executive Producer of DEMO, will lead these panel discussions
throughout the multi-day conference.

———

I'll be at DEMO for the entire event, which starts late afternoon Sunday and goes through Tuesday evening.  If you'll be in attendance, I look forward to
meeting you!



Details of Minnesota Startup SMB:LIVE’s Acquisition by ReachLocal

March 6, 2010 / / 13 Comments

SMBlive My local followers here in Minnesota may have heard about the acquisition of local startup SMB:LIVE this past week. The company was known more in these parts by the name of its service, CloudProfile, which had gotten some local buzz due to a test program it had going with Best Buy.  In fact, the day the acquisition was announced, the brand-new March issue of Twin Cities Business magazine landed on my desk, with a glowing piece on the company, under the headline Found in the Clouds.  CloudProfile So much for the timeliness of monthlies: just the day before, the company had ceased being an independent Minnesota firm, becoming part of a high-flying Southern California firm, which has filed for an IPO.

ReachLocal

And I now have the details of what the acquirer — ReachLocal — paid for the firm. I simply asked my friends at socalTECH.com, a great site that covers the tech community out there, where ReachLocal is based. And, thanks to my prodding late yesterday 🙂 they took another look — proceeding to discover just the data I was looking for, which was in a filing they hadn't checked till they saw my email.

So, here's the deal: the purchase price was $2.8M in cash, plus up to $5.7M dependent on milestones — for a total of $8.8M, including assumptions of some liabilities. That's according to Ben Kuo, editor at socalTECH.com, who told me ReachLocal had buried the information in an S-1 addendum, and had not announced it in their earlier news release.

Not a bad payday for a firm that had barely released their site into the wild. Congrats to founder and CEO Alex Hawkinson. (Read more about him and his small team here.)  For more on the deal, see socalTECH's coverage that was updated last night.  And here's another site in SoCal with a page that groups socalTECH's previous stories on ReachLocal, including their filing for an IPO in late December.

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External Community Platform blueKiwi™ Announces Free Version

February 9, 2010 / / 0 Comments

BlueKiwi-banner350 Marketers, community managers, and innovation teams, listen up. blueKiwi, which calls itself "the global conversation company," today announced the availability of a free version of its well-established Social Business Platform. The company, based in France, has raised $12M in two rounds of venture capital and just opened a San Francisco office. It touts as customers such leading global brands as Alcatel-Lucent, Allianz, BNP Paribas, Cap Gemini, Dassault Systemes, Nokia, Microsoft, and Rainmaker, and partners including Accenture and Logica. BlueKiwi-logo

The new, free version delivers all the social media tools necessary to create vibrant online communities with external audiences. That's the key difference to understand with blueKiwi, differentiating it from such offerings as Jive, Socialtext, and Yammer, which are all focused on the internal employees of an enterprise. 

blueKiwi lets you monitor and manage external voices and bring the best of those conversations inside the company to make better decisions about products, services, and business strategies. That latter point is another key difference with this platform, as Erica Lee, VP of marketing, told me: "It's much more than crowd-sourcing for customer service. It's about building great products."

The company positions its solution as one that takes conversations "from discussion to ideation to action." The blueKiwi platform combines collaboration, microblogging, document sharing, polling, widgets, and an ideation process into a single solution. Community managers can engage, listen, and leverage the intelligence of both internal and external community members, in an ongoing conversation, and take the best ideas and turn them into reality.

"Too many products cater to internal people. The real power of enterprise 2.0 is bridging between external audiences and internal groups. If you don't complete the loop from external to internal, you lose the value and can't take the social advantage," said Carlos Diaz, CEO of blueKiwi Software.

What do you get with the free version? You can have up to 10 internal members, and unlimited external members, though you are limited to one external community. That makes it ideal for smaller firms or nonprofits. Larger or midsized firms would choose the Premium Version, at $699 per month, which allows up to 50 internal members, unlimited external members, and five external communities. Big enterprises get unlimited everything, at special, negotiated pricing.

Yes, the Kiwi Is a Fruit, Therefore…

The company also announced today the launch of its "Fruitful Conversations Community." Love that name!  Accessed through the blueKiwi website or within the product, this online community is open to any blueKiwi customer, whether they're using the free, premium, or enterprise versions. In this community, clients and prospects can discuss critical success factors for community management, how to engage members, and measuring and leveraging conversations from the crowd.

"In today's business environment, everyone is managing a community of some sort, and their greatest challenge is finding new and innovative ways to engage those communities," said Erica Lee. "With the 'Fruitful Conversations Community', we're creating a space for people with the same challenges to discuss and overcome some of the hurdles of community management. And we'll invite some of the community gurus from around the globe to join us in these conversations as we all learn to listen and then leverage the crowd."

I'm on it! I signed up for my free account, and am joining Fruitful Conversations. Anything that can make managing a community easier is a good thing, because this function is becoming so important for any business today.  In the signup process, after getting my confirmation email (which took 6 or 7 hours to arrive, likely due to time-zone differences), I particularly liked the way the "Community Rules" were presented — very well written and explained.

Graeme_blueKiwi

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I’m Live-Blogging the Defrag ’09 Conference

November 11, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Defrag-logo+dates Here I am for my third consecutive year covering the Defrag conference in Denver. What an awesome event!  The cream of the crop in tech — big thinkers, and lots of the Internet's movers-and-shakers and upcoming leaders. As I've done at two previous conferences this year, I'll be live-blogging the proceedings right here. I use a tool called Scribble Live, which I really like because I'm not limited to 140 characters per post, as I am when I live-tweet an event. Yet I can still attach photos if I wish to any given post (or even an audio or video file). Plus I can have my Twitter stream appear in real-time within the Scribble Live window as well — so it's the best of all worlds. Please follow along and let me know on Twitter how I'm doing. I'll start with the opening session Wednesday morning, and blog all the way through the final session late Thursday afternoon, when three of the original Cluetrain Manifesto guys will be on stage for the first time in 10 years.

Check Out “The New Me” on the Web

October 28, 2009 / / 2 Comments

So, what do you think of my new online business card?  Here's a JPEG of it:

GT-buscard2

To see the real thing, go here: http://graemethickins.businesscard2.com.  When you click through to that link, mouse over the card and check out all the features!  Do you have one of these yet? 
You should!  It's free, and so easy to set up.  Just go here to get your own: www.businesscard2.com. (Or there's a link in the footer of every card.)  Business Card2 is a powerful new
tool that lets you easily manage and promote your online identity. BC2-logo

I'm happy to report that Minneapolis-based Workface LLC, the
developer of BusinessCard2, is my newest client. Very cool stuff!  Please check out their web site. And stay tuned… because the story is just beginning.

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