OK, Two More Content-Sharing Plays…That’s It!

Then I’m done — I promise. After all, Demo ended nine days ago, and here I am still writing about it. There was just sooo much good stuff there, people — what can I say?. Thanks for working with me on this. Would you believe I’m up to almost 30 posts on it now? After this, I think I have just one more left in me: a recap of the themes of the event as I see them. But, first, the two final content-sharing companies I wanted to talk about: Zingee and LocaModa. [And please note the last are not necessarily the least.]

Zingee uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to make your hard drive a hosting device, letting you share content — files and folders — really easily, with your friends, with groups, or the whole world. “You just drag the files or folders to a name,” said D.K. Kim, CEO. “And everything shared gets a unique URL, which can be searched. It’s simple and free.” Essentially, Zingee creates web links to all the files on your computer that you want it to. And you securely control exactly what is shared and who you share it with. There are no file size restrictionss, and viewers do not need to register or install anything. D.K. Kim has a background with Citibank and HP, and also was cofounder and CEO of financial services portal Quicken.com Austral-Asia, which had an IPO in 1999 on Australian Stock Exchange. Zingee is based in Singapore but also has people in Australia, including Sydney-based Mick Liubinskas, who is the company’s CMO. Mick, a surfer (that’s him in the photo), has sales and marketing experience with IBM, Virgin, and several IT startups. More recently, he headed global marketing and business development for Kazaa. I asked him about that experience: “I was hired as the first marketing person and grew the team to about ten and grew downloads to 300 million — the most downloads in history. Most of it was viral but we worked hard on media and partner marketing.”

I also asked Mick about his thoughts on the state of P2P technology: “I really see it as the next platform, one that builds on the Internet. We’ll only know how big it is in 2015 — ‘P2P 2.0’. The net guys are still getting used to working with it…Developers of applications for the Internet need to learn how to harness and use it. Web 2.0 is really a precursor to P2P 2.0, which will be web apps using P2P — not all of them but more than half…Most will be impacted by P2P, we just don’t know how yet. Once the apps start coming, then everything else follows — net admin, devices, etc. Look at headsets following Skype.”

How will you convince consumers about the quality of your security? “Trust is earned. You have to let people try it at a low level and grow. Plus you need to partner with trustworthy companies. Half hard tech work, half perception.”

What stuff does Zingee do that no one else does? “The secret sauce is we turn any web-enabled device into a web server that’s really simple to run. We open the content on devices to the web.”

I also asked Mick to comment on the presence of P2P technology at Demo, and what that may mean as far as its spread or adoption: “There was less P2P there than I expected. [Three companies as I counted.] Most are still doing straight web. P2P doesn’t always create value, but it can change the value equation…I lived and breathed P2P at Kazaa. There are only about 20 people in the world who really know what life was like there… Lots of work yet to do in P2P, but I’m excited about it.”

LocaModa extends the web to the street. Interconnecting mobile phone, web, and narrowcast technologies, LocaModa has two applications. The first is called StreetSurfer™ — which lets you find real-estate listings from your cell phone. Big brokerages such as GMAC are aleady starting to use it, said Stephen Randall, CEO and cofounder. “Any cell phone becomes a remote control.” A newer offering is Wiffiti™, which the company calls the first in-location blogging network — “facilitating freedom of expression on the street.” Randall said it’s about “web and phones converging, to the ‘Web Outside’.” It combines social networking with blogging for venues like bars, clubs, and restaurants. Wiffiti™ encourages people to interact with content or entertainment on large-format, Internet-connected screens via their mobile phones. The company says there are “massive untapped markets beyond the couch and the desk.” Out-of-home media is going digital in locations ranging from retailers to street corners, they say. What’s really unique about LocaModa’s proprietary interactive networks is that it “helps consumers in the moment to opt-in and connect to brands.” Consumers can use their mobile phone like a remote control to surf or communicate with large screens in storefront windows, cafes, bars, or city streets. The company “converts passive out-of-home networks into interactive marketing networks.” This was definitely one of the most different, unique applications of technology and Web 2.0 social networking at Demo 2006.

Tag: Demo 2006