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.

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DEMO 2009 Liveblog

September 16, 2009 /

DemoThe feeling you get when you enter the ballroom at DEMO is unlike any other conference. Each company is given just six minutes on the DEMO stage to truly demonstrate how their product will change the world. No PowerPoint or flashy corporate presentations allowed. Just the founders and the technologies many are staking their careers on… it doesn’t get any more straightforward and fast paced than that.

Below is the archive of the liveblog I created while at DEMOfall 2009, direct from San Diego.

  • 1:55 PM: GraemeThickins Starting to set up for my on-site coverage of DEMOfall next week….
  • 3:55 PM: GraemeThickins Tech~Surf~Blog: DEMO 2009 Liveblog post.ly
  • 4:30 PM: GraemeThickins
  • 4:30 PM: GraemeThickins I’m at the Sheraton Marina in San Diego, ready to get registered and then stop into the reception for press…
  • 5:28 PM: GraemeThickins Chris Shipley just gave her good-bye speech to the press… 13 years she produced DEMO, 20-some events. Amazing. Will miss her.
  • 9:09 PM: GraemeThickins At the bar with Aaron Fulkerson, cofounder of Mindtouch, and Andie Rhyins, SVP/publisher of VentureBeat (who I haven’t seen in like 10 years)… amazing conversation.
  • 10:15 PM: GraemeThickins Coolest buzz I picked up on tonight at the opening reception was what DEMO presenter CallSpark has goin’ on … met cofounders Wendell Brown and Adrian Vanzyl
  • 11:19 PM: GraemeThickins
  • 11:19 PM: GraemeThickins Pic I took earlier at the reception of Steve Larsen, serial entrepreneur and DEMO 4-timer, with Liza Sperling, event producer and all-around livewire….
  • 11:20 PM: GraemeThickins
  • 11:21 PM: GraemeThickins I’m live-blogging #DEMOfall09 over here: bit.ly …except now I’m stopping, till morning
  • 11:24 PM: GraemeThickins The sun started going down as I shot Aaron Fulkerson of Mindtouch, with Kim King of the King Group…
  • 6:34 AM: GraemeThickins
  • 6:34 AM: GraemeThickins CallSpark, a startup I met at the reception last night, has officially announced. It
    provides real-time interactive content streams before, during, and after each call, “creating dynamic new mobile call experiences.” Like, get this, you can see a person’s latest tweets as you call them, or during. It will be available as an iPhone app (and may be in the App Store by today, they say), and via the mobile Web for Android, Blackberry, and Palm Pre at m.callspark.com. I saw it demoed on an iPhone, and it’s very impressive, pulling from 12 databases. I want it.
  • 7:01 AM: GraemeThickins I’m at #DEMOfall09 today & tomorrow, live-blogging a lot (not tweeting)..it’s all at this page updating in real time: bit.ly
  • 7:10 AM: GraemeThickins Had a great time last night chatting at the bar with Andie Rhyins, SVP/publisher of VentureBeat, and Aaron Fulkerson, cofounder of MindTouch, based here in San Diego… now it’s time for breakfast!
  • 7:10 AM: GraemeThickins
  • 8:04 AM: GraemeThickins breakfast at #demofall09 yfrog.com
  • 8:04 AM: GraemeThickins
  • 8:36 AM: GraemeThickins The hush, the lights lower… we’re ready to get this party started!
  • 8:36 AM: GraemeThickins
  • 8:44 AM: GraemeThickins Chris Shipley out first, talking about live stream at www.DEMO.com by Bit Gravity (sitting next to Mari from there), also telling the story about how she originally took the producer job 13+ yrs ago. he says 56 companies will be presenting new products. Matt Marshall, co-producer, just came out and talked about a new feature he’s introduced to DEMO, the “Alpha Pitch” companies. He also announced a new site at VentureBeat: www.DEMObeat.com
  • 8:52 AM: GraemeThickins First presenter is HP, launching “Skyroom” — HD-quality videoconferencing software with full collaboration for instant face-to-face meetings… up to three other video connections. Uses a buddy-list approach. Nice interface. Showing live connection now with an off-site demonstrator. Will run on any HP or Vista machine, but best on a quad-sore system.
  • 8:57 AM: GraemeThickins Micello (Sunnyvale) is all about “Google maps inside of buildings”… for malls, conventions centers, college campuses, airports, theme parks, stadiums, etc… “where there’s lots of stuff happening inside.” Now demoing how it works with their own fav shopping center, Stanford Shopping Mall. They
  • 9:00 AM: GraemeThickins They’re creating 10 maps a day now, using an efficient technique they developed… it’s the new “indoor location-based world”… now raising institutional round, want to get to 100 maps a day soon.
  • 9:06 AM: GraemeThickins VIAAS (from Third Iris, Campbell, CA) is SaaS-based video surveillance. Showing intelligent camera, plugged it in and it works… you can annotate events, access them by text, tag, event, for later investigation… now logging in with new camera he just installed — worked! Takes away all the complexities of video surveillance. Available online now – camera about $300, monthly service about $30.
  • 9:10 AM: GraemeThickins Fuze Box now introing “Fuze Meeting” … so easy, a 5-yr old can do it. High-def content with social integration and mobile technology. Now showing demo on iPhone with vid of five-yr old twins of the company’s CMO… very cute!
  • 9:12 AM: GraemeThickins No software to download with Fuze Meeting.. it’s all in the cloud. One click to fetch attendees into a meeting. Pretty cool. Can post link to meeting via Twitter in one click…yo! Only $29 per mo based in annual subscription.
  • 9:19 AM: GraemeThickins TravelTrac (Irvine, CA) offers a way to share your trips and adventures online… CEO says market wide open — even on TripAdvisor, only 1% of users share their stuff. Lets you share you experiences as they happen. Nice site — three current interest areas: road-based, trekking, sailing. TravelTrac iPhone app now in the AppStore… looks pretty cool, and also lets you post to Facebook and Twitter.
  • 9:24 AM: GraemeThickins Next up is MyRealEstate.com (San Jose), first of its kind property-management service web site. Lets tenants and landlords get real-time info. Since property mgrs are always on the go — you got it, it’s mobile enabled! They also offer property surveillance. The server ain’t working, so they’re trying to talk their way through the demo… welcome to the world of demoing live.
  • 9:34 AM: GraemeThickins WhoDoYouKnowAt.com (Dallas) is all about “relationships, relationships, relationships!” A private networking app…notifies you when other members have your outdated contact info. Gives you reciprocal access to all your trusted colleagues’ contacts. You can grant various levels of access, even staying 100% anonymous if you like. Free to join… and now three months of free Gold access with code “DEMOfall09.”
  • 9:40 AM: GraemeThickins Oh, this next name is good: Lunchster (San Francisco). It simplifies staying in touch with your closest contacts — yep, doin’ lunches. Now in private beta. Seamlessly integrates with Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar. The app coordinates all the details of your lunch dates… think how much time you spend doing that! Just put lunch@lunchster.com in the cc: field of your email… how simple is that?
  • 9:48 AM: GraemeThickins Tungle (Montreal) is a DEMO returnee, now launching Tungle for iPhone. Works in synch w/ Outlook, iCal, Google Cal, and more. Use app on iPhone, or go to web site and do it all for free… “the power of a worldwide Exchange server.” CEO says you’ll never get double booked! Share calendars with anyone, no matter what cal they use, and whether or not they have an iPhone. It’s been made available to all Ning users, others… free, and app in now in the App Store.
  • 10:03 AM: GraemeThickins Rseven (Dublin, CA) is a life-caching service. Records all your daily activities… just synch to Rseven, its website will show you everything you did chronologically in a timeline format, and also displays the strength of your relationships with the people you communicate with.
  • 10:05 AM: GraemeThickins dotSyntax (Rochester, NY) showed Digsby, a desktop app for managing all your IM, email, and social network accounts — one buddy list, one newsfeed of all your social stuff. Let professionals manage mutiple brands (like on Twitter) without browsers or multiple apps.
  • 10:08 AM: GraemeThickins Traackr (Boston, MA) is now demoing A-List — an authority list that identifies the most influential people online in a given market segment or topic. Gives PR people profiles of these top influencers… yeah, baby!
  • 10:15 AM: GraemeThickins Waze (from Israel) is a free mobile traffic app that uses live maps and has real-time traffic updates, and can even re-route you when necessary. Has social features to update others — with speed traps, construction, etc. App is available for all four major mobile platforms. They already have 180k users in Israel – “completely crowdsourced by users.”
  • 10:17 AM: GraemeThickins First “Alpha Pitch” now – 90 seconds, no visuals, didn’t even catch the guy’s company name…. this is a fail. Bad one to kick it off.
  • 10:20 AM: GraemeThickins Keen (SF) is next Alpha Pitch — much better. Commercial printing is $162B market, 80% small biz. This is an ecommerce platform just for printers, really lets them run their whole business, too. Great 90-second pitch — proving it can be done!
  • 10:27 AM: GraemeThickins Now back to 6-minute pitches…MyVocal (Paris) is showing a mobile app to play all your fav audio files. You can even send it text files that convert to audio minutes later. Browser plug-in lets you convert any web page, article, etc, to audio and sedn to the MyVocal app. Good pitch.
  • 10:32 AM: GraemeThickins TuneWiki (Milpitas, CA) has “Lyrics Legend” app for many mobile platforms. New CEO on stage says it’s his seventh day on the job! Now introing their social media player. Showing on brand new Nokia music phone just out in Germany — U2 song lyrics, as song plays, are being displayed in your choice of languages. Will even email the lyrics to you, share on your social networks. “Discover music like never before.”
  • 10:39 AM: GraemeThickins YiqYaq (Redwood City, CA) is showing RadioWeave is a (cool!) iPhone app that doesn’t just stream radio, but traffic and weather reports, etc, too, weaving multiple stations for you… and advertisers can micro-target the listeners. Users create channels, like whale sounds (!) or whatever. Your friends can listen to your “micro channels” and vidce versa… and you can even now listen to your friends’ tweets! (converted to audio), for those long, boring drives…. no more having to read on your iPhone while you drive. Oh, happy day 🙂
  • 10:46 AM: GraemeThickins Enthusem (Tampa, FL) lets you send personalized printed greeting cards that are based on online content such as video, audio, or any web content. Can do it with any site that has their widget installed. The site has a nice interface to create your card. Mail to just about any part of the world for $2-4 .. they’re “reinventing the printed greeting card.” (Great! I hate the lame online cards.) They have a public API. You can send a card from any site, even from within LinkedIn, for example. Now showing an iPhone app — isn’t just about every company here? Great for non-profits.
  • 10:53 AM: GraemeThickins Twirl TV (Los Altos Hills, CA) is about “social TV for the YouTube generation,” which the CEO says is growing at a rate of 85%. Users can create their own networks and share episodes, see what friends are watching, or watch together. “Online TV is the only media growing at double-digit rates.” These guys seem to have a model that stands a chance of working…
  • 11:00 AM: GraemeThickins Emo Labs (Waltham, MA) is an already VC-funded startup, one of only a few so far, that is introducing its “invisible speaker system” with its own sound technology that overcomes limitations and bulkiness of physical speakers. “Zero footprint ” that literally disappears when embedded into a device that is space-constrained — like plat-panels TVs. Tiny speakers they have just will never cut it. “First fundamentally new sound technology in decades.” Showing large screen TV — sounds literally comes from the screen! “A TV that sounds a s good as it looks.” Wow, this is killer.
  • 11:07 AM: GraemeThickins Hand Eye Technologies (San Francisco) is now showing “HIT” — which enables smart phones to see what a viewer is watching on broadcast TV. Lets you point, click, and interact with digital content you’re watching. You can purchase, vote via your phone. Yep, it’s the long promised “interactive TV” nirvana, still being pursued by a startup…
  • 11:20 AM: GraemeThickins Matt Marshall now up talking about the DEMO judges, a new feature started with this event, and he’s inviting two up on stage… they’re sitting on stools and chatting about the morning’s presenters. Shervin Pishevar of SGN is cautioning about too much focus on features and not on the problem being solved. He’s wondering, with all the entertainment oriented presenters, can we really do that on a mobile phone? Nirav Tolia of Fanbase says Emo Labs is “amazingly innovative stuff” and really likes TuneWiki. Pishevar says game devs could look at TuneWiki for new app ideas. Tolia thought Third Iris had a great value proposition.
  • 11:22 AM: GraemeThickins Lunch break – to the Pavilion floor!
  • 11:22 AM: GraemeThickins
  • 11:49 AM: GraemeThickins we get to walk the red carpet to the Pavilion this year at #demofall09 … nice touch yfrog.com
  • 1:48 PM: GraemeThickins sitting in row 2 (moved up one) with Keith Shaw of NetworkWorld… getting ready for afternoon session at #demofall09
  • 1:56 PM: GraemeThickins again, I’m not live-tweeting #demofall09 this time (just an occasional tweet)..instead, I’m live-blogging it like mad at bit.ly
  • 2:13 PM: GraemeThickins Starting off afternoon session with an “Alpha Pitcher”… Pinyadda, an alternative to your RSS reader (a well-done 90-sec pitch).
  • 2:15 PM: GraemeThickins Second alpha pitcher was Ringful… see preventivecare.mobi.
  • 2:22 PM: GraemeThickins First 6-min presenter in this afternoon session is Armorize Technologies (Santa Clara, CA), showing its HackAlert malware monitoring and detection SaaS offering. Prevents “driveby downloads”..24/7 monitoring for corporate customers…sends alerts when malware detected, tells you exactly what line the bad code in on, removes it, and prevents that hacker from doing it again.
  • 2:28 PM: GraemeThickins Webroot (Boulder, CO) up next , introducing “Internet Security Complete.” Hybrid desktop/web-based approach. Also has a new web portal, “to move security off the desktop and onto the web where it belongs.” Has a nice “identity manager” screen for managing all your passwords. Lots of features. Demoing here, launching in 2010.
  • 2:35 PM: GraemeThickins Intelius (Bellevue, WA) is showing DateCheck, which is a free mobile app to check out people before you date them! Has buttons called “Sleeze Detector” (for criminal records) and “Net Worth”… and you can even check out where they live, what their house is with, etc. Love this line they used: “Records don’t lie, but people do.” The closing quip was the best, though: “Look up before you hook up!”
  • 2:40 PM: GraemeThickins MicroAssist (Austin, TX) is presenting “EthicsEd,” an e-learning solution to prevent sexual misconduct in schools. The Dept of Ed says nearly 10% of school children are abused. The online course, for continuing education credits, is $8 per teacher.
  • 2:43 PM: GraemeThickins Cardagin Technologies (an alpha pitcher) allows local businesses to do promotions via mobile phone … they digitize their promotions.
  • 2:46 PM: GraemeThickins Another alpha pitcher, Gelato Dating, is launching a new breed of online dating site. Says this category is the third biggest online content money-maker.
  • 2:51 PM: GraemeThickins Back to 6-min pitches: Freeddom Technologies (San Paulo, Brazil) has a mobile payment platform that lets retailers, telcoms, or banks set up their own white-label credit cards. Transactions are started at the merchant’s cell phone or current POS terminal, and are PIN-authorized at the customer’s cell phone. No new hardware needed!
  • 2:57 PM: GraemeThickins MoLo Rewards (Sanford, FL) lets you immediately redeem loyalty rewards or coupons using “near field communication (NFC)” RFID. Its patented technology allows the user to redeem every valid coupon in his/her phone’s “mobile wallet” with a single wave of the device at a POS terminal.
  • 3:05 PM: GraemeThickins Next up: Point of Wealth Systems (Portland, OR) is trying to bring technology to the estimated 47 million people in the U.S. who are unbanked or under-banked, via a kiosk that provides financial services to these cash-compensated employees. They don’t need no stinking bank! No more losing money, having it stolen, etc… see www.thepower.com. Allocating space on each machine, too, for giving to a charity of your choice.
  • 3:12 PM: GraemeThickins The next presenting company I did an audio interview with at the last DEMO, when they were an attendee: Cazoodle (Champaign, IL), which is showing their new shopping search site. Advanced semantic search technology, which they learned from apartment search. “Starting today, search becomes automatic… turns the Internet into a giant shopping center.” These guys were pumped up!
  • 3:20 PM: GraemeThickins Piryx (Austin, TX) has a new payment system — they’re wearing t-shirts that say “I’m not your Pal” (!) They call it a social commerce platform, and are out to enable nonprofits, small businesses, local governments, political candidates, etc with “real branded social commerce.” Rock on, I say!
  • 3:26 PM: GraemeThickins Cortera (Boca Raton, FL) is bringing better credit reporting and better cash flow to small businesses, which have been horribly under-served in this area. Taking a online community approach.
  • 3:31 PM: GraemeThickins Hevva (Madison, WI) is showing Local Dirt, the first nationally integrated platform for buying, selling, and finding local food. Creates efficient local markets in one transactional platform — for individuals, businesses, and distributors. “Think global, eat local.”
  • 3:37 PM: GraemeThickins TotalTrainer (Laguna Niguel, CA) has an on-demand personalized training and nutrition platform, for gyms and health clubs to maximize fitness results. If the two presenters use it, then you’re guaranteed to look good — they’re, like, perfect. I’m sure the majority of the audience feels totally inadequate… 🙂 But if you run a health club, it sounds like a no-brainer to use this platform.
  • 3:39 PM: GraemeThickins Now, for another alpha pitcher… 90 seconds for fame for Diditz. It’s a site that lets you “convert your Facebook photo albums into web pages and promote the things you are passionate about.”
  • 3:42 PM: GraemeThickins This alpha pitcher was smooth… InfoChimps.org — the world’s largest open platform for data. Lets you discover, share, and sell data of any size, topic, or format.
  • 3:51 PM: GraemeThickins Now, the DEMO judges come up on stage… Anu Shukla, CEO, Offerpal Media: thinks huge opportunity for unique payment systems (referring to Piryx), but it’s all in the distribution and ability to build a large brand. Omar Hamoui, CEO of AdMob, says the mobile ad market has been historically hard to crack. Satish Dharmaraj of Redpoint Ventures: again, for payment systems, distibution is the key. He likes the idea of Local Dirt, bringing the farmer’s markets online.
  • 4:17 PM: GraemeThickins Ford marcomm guy now telling the story of how the “Microsoft Tag” is used in the launch of the new Taurus… printed in the brochures and ads. You use your cell phone to read the tag, and up comes a landing page with all the info — in this case about the Taurus. He says his engagement numbers are way up, and people can share videos much easier, etc. Ford is very happy with the results.
  • 4:36 PM: GraemeThickins Break time now! Back to the Pavilion to check out the presenting companies’ displays… and, you got it, more eating and drinking. They treat us well that way.
  • 4:52 PM: GraemeThickins at #demofall09 the Porter-Novelli/Austin folks even had a chance to sit down… but only for a few minutes
  • 4:56 PM: GraemeThickins pic.gd whoops, forgot to attach that photo of the Porter Novelli folks lunching…
  • 5:13 PM: GraemeThickins my #demofall09 Flickr set so far is here: bit.ly
  • 6:39 PM: GraemeThickins having a ball at the closing reception, chatting w/Steve Larsen, Andie Rhyins, and Steve Tingiris of #demofall09 presenter Enthusem…
  • 8:34 PM: GraemeThickins The “DEMO After Dark” party starts in about a half hour. The volunteer band, made up of DEMO press and other regulars, has been practicing for while, and they sound pretty darn good…
  • 8:42 PM: GraemeThickins DEMOfall09 – San Diego post.ly
  • 10:13 PM: GraemeThickins #demofall09 band is great (Don Clark/ WSJ on lead guitar)..they’re taking volunteers..I could do cowbell yfrog.com
  • 10:13 PM: GraemeThickins
  • 10:24 PM: GraemeThickins awesome banjo on that last number.. I recorded it, maybe I’ll post it #demofall09
  • 8:31 AM: GraemeThickins Great breakfast chat with @lizasperling and Mark Fors of presenting company Enthusem, Tampa, FL…. opening session of this last day of DEMOfall is about to start. I’m pumped. (Nothing new.)
  • 8:33 AM: GraemeThickins Decided to tweet some of my ScribbleLive posts here today (the short ones!).. since so many people said they were wondering why I wasn’t tweetin’ #DEMOfall09
  • 8:42 AM: GraemeThickins Funny opening – Chris Shipley introed, but didn’t come out – announcer came on saying, “we gotta go, cue Matt”…then Matt same out and said he was getting the hang of this thing, and he whips off his suit coat and throws it back! (big laughs)
  • 8:43 AM: GraemeThickins First alpha pitcher was Nubli, an email management tool – 90 seconds is not enough to say much about what it does, so we’re encouraged to get to their booth later.
  • 8:45 AM: GraemeThickins Next alpha pitch was from TrafficTalk – mobile traffic crowd-sourcing app. Go check out their site.
  • 8:52 AM: GraemeThickins First 6-min presenter today is Answers.com (NYC) – integrating a global wiki community as one place for all your answers, about anything. Thousands of categories, fact-finder’s gold mine. Tweet your questions to answers.com. Some 250 data sources, with more than 5 million answers currently. Lots of big backers behind this company, like Ron Conway, Redpoint, Garage Ventures, Highland, others. “Try us out, ask us anything.”
  • 8:59 AM: GraemeThickins Next up, Weels (Milton, MA) showing “Web on Weels” – see www.weelscorp.com. One-click, drag-and-drop interface for web browsing and sharing any page element with your friends. Runs on top of browser, no plug-in – opening up API, looking to attract developers. Looks pretty impressive, and a really great pitch for such young kids — two in college, one in high school!
  • 9:07 AM: GraemeThickins Article One Partners (NYC) is coming out of beta with its service that uses crowdsourcing to reasrch patent validity. They were the Silicon Alley Insider Startup-of-the-Year. Company has more than 3 million contributors already. It says it has no competition doing online crowdsourcing to uncover prior art. Many large clients, esp pharmaceutical firms.
  • 9:12 AM: GraemeThickins Kryon Systems (Tel Aviv) is showing “Leo,” a next-generation help and execution tool. Works on any application running on Windows — executes tasks automatically (guy at the laptop raises his hands). They showed it creating a pie chart in Excel, and a purchase order in SAP. “Just ask, Leo does.”
  • 9:18 AM: GraemeThickins Next up is LeapFILE (Newark, CA), which is demonstrating “LeapFILE Folder,” a private file system that lets users create, open, edit, and manage files in the cloud right from their desktop file explorer. Does away with having to upload and download files from web portals. Enables instant collaboration, and also gives IT better control over corporate content. “The end of file sharing.”
  • 9:25 AM: GraemeThickins Symform (Seattle, WA) is showing its “Cooperative Storage Cloud,” which is a service that provides unlimited online storage in exchange for an equal amount of local storage on the company’s premises. Low fixed-monthly rate, no per Gig fees. Targeting small business, to deliver enterprise-class disaster recovery at a price any firm can afford — and will also market its service through MSPs, who will offer virtual cloud services to their small business customers. Raised $1.5M in VC in May 2009.
  • 9:32 AM: GraemeThickins Anaplan (Redwood City, CA) is an on-demand suite of SaaS business apps to plan and manage any business — powerful software for modeling, etc, spreadsheets on steroids, etc, that any business can use for $49 per month for three users — “not hundreds of thousands of dollars” to buy traditional software. Pretty impressive, where SaasS is going, to power even the smallest of businesses…
  • 9:40 AM: GraemeThickins Liaise (Sunnyvale, CA) has an online service, now in private beta, that captures and manages key points (tasks, issues, dates, priorities) in emails and IMs. As you type, Liaise automatically and intelligently captures these key points and providers summaries, calendar integration, and reports. Doesn’t matter if those you’re communicating with have Liaise or not – communications will look like regular emails or IMs. This was an impressive demo…a very helpful tool to bring more efficiency to business communications.
  • 9:44 AM: GraemeThickins I.ndigo (San Paulo, Brazil) is demoing a tool called “Dekks,” which captures the informal knowledge within a business. Helps employees learn who knows what in an organization, and also gives management insight into the pulse of the enterprise.
  • 9:47 AM: GraemeThickins wow, more impressive presentations today at #demofall09 ..can hardly keep up blogging about ’em – it’s a firehose!
  • 9:54 AM: GraemeThickins Now, Hashwork (NYC) is a Twitter-like tool for work. Let’s you post work-related tweets internally, just to coworkers, or externally to customers or others. If you’re a Twitter user, Hashwork rolls up your #work tweets. There are other internal-only, Twitter-like services, but this one brings an outside service in. “We’re live now, open for business.” Impressive demo. Special offer for DEMOfall attendees: free upgrade to premium service. And, as a blogger, I’ll get a special code for my readers – watch for that! I defnly want to try this out, and think you will, too…
  • 10:01 AM: GraemeThickins Gogrok (Alhambra, CA) is a secure, high-performance P2P platform for real-time Internet collaboration. Integrates with major IM and VOIP platforms. Lets you communicate face-to-face over the net. Real-time coediting feature. Integrates desktop sharing and voice functionality.
  • 10:07 AM: GraemeThickins Zorap (Falmouth, ME) showed its app for Facebook and also is available on Ning – live social interaction around content. Pretty cool demo. Founders were DEMOgod award winners in 1998 for a video technology they developed, so you should check out this next-gen consumer chat service.
  • 10:17 AM: GraemeThickins Next up: Faculte (San Bruno, CA) is showing its “Broadcast Studio,” to let business professionals easily produce and securely distribute lively video presentations. They’re mashups of videos, images, audio, and other content with narration, annotation, webcam recordings, etc – viewable with an embedded universal media player. “We want to make producing quality videos as easy as preparing a presentation.”
  • 10:22 AM: GraemeThickins Panel discussion now… Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga really like Laisie: “Speaking on a macro level, email is an unmined opportunity.” Larry Augustin, CEO of SugarCRM, says he liked the presenters who showed the most enthusiasm: “This is DEMO, that’s what it’s about!” Russel Fradin, CEO of Adify, says startups must look early-on for revenue opportunities – advertising not enough!
  • 10:23 AM: GraemeThickins break time at #DEMOfall09 … let the schmoozin’ begin!
  • 11:12 AM: GraemeThickins It’s 11:00 am at #DEMOfall09 …next session is a panel called “Innovation ocn the Horizon: A Look Into R&D Labs – Search.” First panelist is Donna Dubinsky, founder/CEO of Numenta, “a four-year old startup” that’s developing a learning system. “We’re a platform company.” Available today as a research-only license. She has an employee here that is now showing a use of the sytem… a “Numenta vision tool kit.” The promise is allow computers, for example, to tell the difference between a sofa and a chair — a type of system that has never been done before. Can use such an image recognition system in a variety of applications, such as iPhone apps. Download beta version (has bugs) at Numenta.com.
  • 11:21 AM: GraemeThickins Next panelist is Rob Haitani, Chief Product Officer of Vitamin D, who talked about how Donna Dubinsky’s partner, Jeff Hawkins, inspired him and some other former employees of Palm, to quit their jobs and pursue his new vision for Numenta. “Computers today are blind.” Vitamin D is developing a way for computers to see, to determine who people and objects are, for video surveillance applications, for example. Showing how rules can be created – nice interface. Intelligent computing is a way to overcome information overload. See www.VitaminDinc.com.
  • 11:25 AM: GraemeThickins The final panelist in this session is Dick Lyon, a research scientist at Google. His area of research is pattern recognition. Audio content-based search is one example. Has tens of millions of hours of audio with YouTube videos.
  • 11:34 AM: GraemeThickins Back to alpha pitches… Melior Technologies. Gurus can host a brainstorm session, and monetize their expertise. Questioner gets online conversation with a guru. New global marketplace — see GuruSessions.com
  • 11:36 AM: GraemeThickins Alpha pitcher ShareGrove allows online conversations between friends — “conversation drives commerce, and we’re building a company to realize that potential.”
  • 11:43 AM: GraemeThickins Back to 6-min pitches… next up: 80Legs (Houston, TX), which allows web-scale crawling and processing of web content on-demand. Puts the power of 50,000 computers to work for you, using distributed computing. Any user can crawl and process up to 2 billion pages per day for $2 per million pages. Showing example of crawling web to find out what people think about which conference is better: DEMO or TechCrunch50. But, ya gotta go to their booth to get the answer! (Love that.) “Giving the power of Yahoo or Microsoft to all of you.” Will be launching an app store soon.
  • 11:51 AM: GraemeThickins Scientific Media (NYC) is showing DotGo – “the Internet for text messages.” Short codes don’t work for the Internet – “Today, we’re changing that.” Just text a company’s real name to “DOTCOM” and get to the company’s site. See www.dotgo.com.
  • 11:57 AM: GraemeThickins Vicman Software (Alexandria, VA) is showing its “Pho.to Platform.” Lets any web site implement advanced photo editing and manipulation functionality at minimal cost. It’s a SaaS-based white-label solution that lets sites like social networks, dating sites, photo album providers, etc provide rich imaging entertainment.
  • 12:05 PM: GraemeThickins Next is a DEMO returnee: Zuora (Redwood City, CA), which is debuting “Z-Commerce for Media.” CEO Tien Tzuo says “free is killing media.” What do they do? What way do they go to try to make money with web content? Showing example of LaJolla Village News, how easy it is to monetize their content – and now showing examples of their subscriber pages, details of what content each is buying on a daily basis, etc. “We have an obligation to help save the media” – to help them monetize their content.
  • 12:09 PM: GraemeThickins NativeTung (Los Angeles, CA) is an advanced language translation platform that lets web sites easily establish multi-language content channels. Pioneering realtime, automated language translation with proprietary technology. Lets any site increase its global business.
  • 12:18 PM: GraemeThickins Digitrad (Paris) came out jumping and screaming, to demo its “OrganIP” service, which simplifies communications – no more phone numbers! Just type a person’s name into your browser, and OrganIP locates and connects you to them at any of their online communities, social networks, or by phone. Also showing their iPhone app. “Now all your contacts are in one place – one name, one click, one call.” Has potential to make Internet telephony simple and ubiquitous.
  • 12:23 PM: GraemeThickins CallSpark (San Francisco) is now on stage — this one is awesome. Remember I blogged about ’em Monday night? Saw it at the reception. It’s an iPhone app (will be on the App Store any day now) that gives you an amazing amount of info when you go to call someone — their latest tweet, their Facebok page, Saleforce.com data, etc. Pulls data from 12 databases. You can set up your own CallSpark “Ring Page” so you can customize the data other people see. Now about to sign their third carrier deal.
  • 12:26 PM: GraemeThickins Burt AB (Gothenburg, Sweden) is showing “Rich,” a metrics tool designed for creative agencies to better analyze online display and rich-media ad campaigns.
  • 12:27 PM: GraemeThickins Gotta run now to check out of my room… and try to get back before the Pavilion opens at 1:15, then it’s off to the airport about 1:40.
  • 2:15 PM: GraemeThickins leaving #demofall09 ..been great! had 3 final demos w/Faculte, Rumbafish, 80legs in the Pavilion..adios! yfrog.com
  • 2:15 PM: GraemeThickins

Quick Video of My Pix from ‘Social Media Breakfast’ Today

August 28, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Just created another Animoto video from the photos I shot at this morning’s “Social Media Breakfast-Twin Cities” at the Minnesota State Fair. What a hoot it was! I didn’t shoot all that many pix. I couldn’t — I had so many people wantin’ to schmooze! But, hey, that’s the best part. Sometimes I think, if it weren’t for SMB, I’d never break away from my computer….

For this video, I decided to use music from one of my own iTunes tracks. (Again, Animoto is a free service if you’re just creating 30-second videos, like this one, but you can buy an annual pass to create longer vids.) This video starts out with a shot of me in my cowboy duds on my deck before I left…

This was the 18th consecutive monthly SMB event here, which makes ours the longest continuous such group in the country! The day started out on a questionable note, with light rain falling as we all converged on the fairgrounds in St. Paul — in grid-lock traffic — for the 8:00 am start. But, thankfully, we had a big tent reserved for us in the Blue Ribbon Picnic Area, just on the north side of the Midway, so no one really got too wet. And the sun broke out by about 9:00 am, making it a gorgeous day at “the Great Minnesota Get Together.” Many of those attending the event hung around to spend the rest of the day at the fair…

Thanks to the Minnesota State Fair folks (@minnstatefair on Twitter) for hosting us, to Fox-9 (@myfox9) for the TV crew (watch tonight at 9:00 pm!) — and, especially, to my buddies Rick Mahn (@rickmahn) and Mykl Roventine (@myklroventine) and their crew for organizing such a fun event!

The highlight for me was the reading of the winning entries in the “Bacon Haiku” contest — one of which was mine! Myself and the rest of the 10 winners each got a cupful of chocolate-dipped bacon strips… mmmmm! And another nice touch at the event was Chris Lower (@MrChristopherL) getting our famous local No Name meat company folks (@NoNameSteaks) to show up and hand out free coupons for a package of their great bacon! Hey, now that’s social media word-of-mouth at its finest, huh?

A Quick ‘Blogwell-Minneapolis’ Video (My First One Ever Created with Animoto)

August 26, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Just for the heck of it, I decided to try a service called Animoto, which promises to lets you create videos in minutes from your own photos, letting you add music you select from their site, or you can use your own track. It’s free for creating 30-second videos (like the one here), or, if you want longer videos, it’s just $30 for a full annual pass, to create as many as you want.

I just uploaded a selection of my Flickr set from the Blogwell event, which I attended a couple of weeks ago (see previous post), chose an instrumental track, and — sure enough — I got the end-result in minutes. Pretty cool. Kind of a poor-man’s way to do video… 🙂 Especially if you’re like me and shoot a ton of stills at events of all kinds. Man, do I have the archive.

Hey, I just might make another video with the pix I shoot this Friday, August 28th, at our next Social Media Breakfast-Twin Cities — it’s at the Minnesota State Fair. That’s right, “Social Media on a Stick!” I just might wear my cowboy boots and hat…

Wonder what music track should I use for that one? Hmm, the possibilities boggle the mind…

My Day at Blogwell – Minneapolis

August 14, 2009 / / 0 Comments

The sixth regional BlogWell event was held yesterday, August 13, 2009, at General Mills headquarters in suburban Minneapolis, sponsored by GasPedal and the Social Media Business Council. Blogwell-logoIt was a sold-out conference, with more than 300 registered, and the largest such event to date of any of the previous versions held in major cities across America. Ours drew attendees from several states (and even as far away as San Francisco and London). It featured practical, how-to case studies from eight large corporations that have succeeded using social media: General Mills, Mayo Clinic, Walmart, CME Group, McDonald’s, Progressive, Ford, and AccuQuote (a last-minute replacement for H&R Block). Blogwell-graphic

I participated in live-blogging the event as a member of the “Minnov8 Gang,” with my colleagues Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, and Phil Wilson. Minnov8 was a media partner for the event. Please check out the archive of our live blogging at BlogWell at the Minnov8 site. We think it turned out great. It was the first time we’ve used a great new tool for this purpose called ScribbleLIve.  It even allows the archive to be presented in normal, chronological order (unlike typical blogging formats).

My Photos: As I usually do at events I’m covering, I point and shoot when I can, when I’m not heads-down on the keyboard. Or schmoozing. Or interviewing. I randomly grab shots with either my iPhone or my little (semi-worthless) Canon A560. One of these days, I’m going to get a better camera. Or, uh, become a better photographer? Someday. When I have time. Nonetheless, here’s my Flickr set, for what it’s worth.

My Tweets:  Didn’t do too many at the event, since we were live-blogging in longer-than-140-character chunks, which arguably is a better way to cover events. But what tweets I did do (before, during, and after) you can scroll back and see here: @GraemeThickins …and they’re also mixed in with just a TON of tweets the flowed on the hashtag #blogwell all day yesterday — and I see are continuing today.

My Interviews: I took along my trusty studio-grade handheld recorder (the Olympus LS-10) and grabbed seven brief audio interviews before and after the sessions, and during breaks. The last two featured wine, so you’ll have to excuse the background merriment. Here are the MP3s, in the order I recorded them:

• Listen to my interview of my friend and fellow Minneapolis blogger Arik Hanson.

• Listen to my interview of Gia Lyons, evangelist for Jive Software.

• Listen to my interview of Don Smith, a social media guru at General Mills.

• Listen to my interview of Jesse Engle, CEO and cofounder of Cotweet.

• Listen to my interview of Jim Cuene, Director of Interactive Marketing, General Mills.

• Listen to my interview of Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company.

• Listen to my interview of Andy Sernovitz, founder of GasPedal and Social Media Business Council.

Y Combinator Taps MN’s FanChatter for Startup ‘American Idol’

August 6, 2009 / / 1 Comment

FanChatter-logo Here’s a story many in Minnesota have been waiting to hear — especially a bunch of my friends in the local developer and ad
communities who knew something was up. FanChatter-clients Yes, Minneapolis startup FanChatter
has finally gone public with what they’ve been doing for the past four
months.  FanChatter is a site that “helps sports franchises and other
businesses create a more profitable level of fan involvement through
real-time content sharing.”  (More on the company’s About page.)  In April, it was chosen as one of the lucky few to be accepted into the summer program of Y Combinator
(YC). Though the actual numbers aren’t announced, I’ve heard only 30
startups were chosen out of almost 1000 that applied. YC is an
organization founded in 2005 that does seed funding for startups.
Here’s how it explains what that means:

“Seed funding is the earliest stage of venture
funding. It pays your expenses while you’re getting started. Some
companies may need no more than seed funding. Others will go through
several rounds. There is no right answer; how much funding you need
depends on the kind of company you start. At Y Combinator, our goal is
to get you through the first phase. This usually means: get you to the
point where you’ve built something impressive enough to raise money on
a larger scale. Then we introduce you to later stage investors, or
occasionally even acquirers.”  (More on Y Combinator’s About page.)

YC’s application process
is well explained on their site, a process FanChatter went through
earlier this year, before their selection in mid-April.  After sitting
on this story for some time, waiting for the TechCrunch post to break
first (which is the normal way YC companies get announced), what
follows is the result of a phone and email interview I did over the
past few days with FanChatter founders Marty Wetherall and Luke Francl,
who remain in Silicon Valley through August. (The third founder, Norm
Orstad, was not available.)

Tech-Surf-Blog: Tell us about how you came to apply
for the Y Combinator program. Why did you think a MN startup would
stand a chance, and why did you decide to do it this year?

Luke: It was pretty much my idea, but it was
basically for the hell of it. I figured “why not?” We made a pact that
if we got in, we would do YC for sure, no matter what. Being from
Minnesota didn’t figure into my decision at all; YC doesn’t really
discriminate based on geography. As for the timing, it didn’t occur to
me to apply sooner. I think that worked out for us, as YC expanded
somewhat for the Summer 2009 class, due to the $2M investment they had
raised. [That was primarily from Sequoia Capital.]

Marty: I’d always heard about Y Combinator as this
program where only the best and brightest startups were allowed.  It
just sounded cool like that, even though I wasn’t very knowledgeable at
the time about Paul Graham or Hacker News.  All I knew was that
FanChatter needed something big to happen, so we went for it.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Give us the quick story on the process
— starting from when you applied, to when you were invited to make the
trip to Mountain View to pitch, and then how you were chosen as a
finalist.

Luke: The application is straightforward. The most
challenging part is the video. We spent more than two hours working on
a one-minute video. The first inkling we had that we might get selected
was when Paul emailed me to say our video didn’t work. Crap!
But that showed they were interested.  April 6th was nerve wracking as
we waited to hear if we’d gotten an interview. Finally, at 7:30 that
night, we got the email that they wanted to meet with us. We picked a
time and flew out the morning of the interview.  Afterward, you have to
wait around until YC calls you that evening. We got called about four
hours after our interview.  YC has standard terms which everyone knows
in advance, so you pretty much just have to say “yes” or “no.”

Marty: Couple things.  First, I’m a film and TV guy
with well-known Super Bowl spots on my list of credits, and this video
was the simplest thing I’ve ever done.  That’s because I didn’t have
the brain space to make it into anything more than dudes talking into a
web cam — but we must have said something right because they told us it
was good!  Second, there’s a photo on our blog of Luke getting the call
that we were in.  It was a great moment.  It felt like FanChatter had
arrived. LukeF-gettingYcombinatorCall [Here's that photo of Luke taking the call from YC's Paul Graham, shot by Marty.]

Tech-Surf-Blog: The amount of seed capital each Y
Combinator startup gets is not huge, but give us your take on the other
benefits of being selected.

Luke: Yeah, the money is not really the main
benefit of Y Combinator for a company like ours. I think if you were
fresh out of college and used to living on ramen, $15,000 or $20,000
would go a long way, but we all have mortgages. On the flip side, we
already have customers and so we can afford to take a little time and
try to make this work. For the company, we get an incredible inside
view of how Silicon Valley works, and a chance to pitch to the best
angels in the Valley on Demo Day. For me personally, I knew I couldn’t
turn down this adventure, even though I’m giving up income and living
apart from my wife for the summer.

Marty: Definitely a once in a lifetime
opportunity.  I’ve lived and worked in LA and felt how the film
industry runs that town.  Colors everything about it.  It feels like
that in Silicon Valley, but it’s tech.  In coffee shops, what you
overhear is tech talk.  Startups, angels, and VC.  It’s been fun to
experience this.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Once you were accepted into the program around mid-April, how were you able to keep it such a secret — and why did you have to?

Luke: Keeping this under wraps has been incredibly
difficult, because we wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But we were
advised not to blog about being accepted to Y Combinator, because then
it wouldn’t be news when we launched, meaning we’d have a difficult
time getting covered by tech blogs. This was a tough row to hoe for us
because we’ve been around for a while. I kind of wish we’d announced it
sooner — we could have easily been the first YC launch of the summer,
but that honor went to our friends at Bump.

Marty: Once we knew we couldn’t talk about it until
we launched, we decided we’d use a new piece of business for our
coming- out party.  We got that with the debut of our new ChatterBox
feature on the homepage of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Tell us what the process was like to
apply and, then, once selected as a semi-finalist, get up in front of
the four judges to pitch FanChatter.

Luke: We spent a lot of time crafting the
application. Every time I looked at the instructions, it seemed like
there was some facet I’d missed, and I tried to hew very closely to the
instructions, especially around answer length. I also paid close
attention to the basics, like spelling and grammar, so there wouldn’t
be any excuses to put our application aside. Paul and his partners look
at hundreds of applications, so I didn’t want to give them a reason to
pass ours by.

Waiting around at the YC office for the interview was the hardest
part. I’d read horror stories about how you’d be able to get out two
sentences and then Paul was just going to savage your idea. So, I
practiced our demo, and Marty practiced our two sentences. There were a
few other people waiting around so I showed them the demo, and I got to
see theirs.

Once we got into the interview my nervousness was lifted right away.
Paul was excited to see our demo. Paul, Jessica, Trevor, and Robert
came around to the other side of the table and crowded around my
laptop. [There's more about the four YC partners on YC's People page.]
Then Paul sort of riffed on things we could do — I think he came up
with about two years’ worth of work in about 10 minutes — while Jessica
tried to bring things to a close so they could stay on time.

Marty: It’s true.  Luke kept grilling me the whole
trip out here. “What are you going to do?” over and over. Not in terms
of the interview, but in terms of the company.  So, we were ready.  The
interview was easy once we got in there.  It’s definitely the closest
I’ll ever get to feeling like a contestant on American Idol.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Being chosen as a winner required you
to move to the Valley for the summer.  Marty, how did you, Luke, and Norm
handle that, with respect to your “other” lives, and how long are you
out there?

Marty: My wife and two-year-old daughter came out
here with me, which has been both good and challenging. Startup life is
round the clock, but we’ve made it work.  In many ways, it would have
been easier as a young guy just out of college, as many of our YC
classmates are.

Luke: I was already doing independent contract
development work (hey, if this startup thing doesn’t work out, let me
know if you need a good Rails developer!), so I finished up the
contracts I was working on and that was about it.  My wife and I had
planned to take a trip to Italy this summer (that was “Plan A”), so I
had to pass that up. We’re out here until sometime in September, and
then we’ll see after that.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Describe a typical day for you this
summer in the Y Combinator program in Mountain View. Where do all these
company founders work?  Are there events where you all get together?

Luke: For me, a typical day is programming,
programming, programming. We have a quick stand-up meeting in the
morning, and then I try to hack away at our products. I don’t see the
other startup founders much, except on Tuesdays when we all get
together for the YC dinner. That’s the social highlight of the week. 
Almost everyone works out of their apartments, though I know of one
group that’s living out of their office!

Marty: Our apartment is in Mountain View, just a
few blocks from YC’s offices. Those Tuesday dinners at Y Combinator
really define the program.  That’s where we meet and listen to amazing
speakers from the startup world, including successful YC alums.  It’s
interesting to check in with the other founders in our class to see
what they’ve accomplished since the previous week.  I think it pushes
all of us to keep up the momentum. Luke+Marty-Ycombinator [Here's
a photo of Luke and Marty, center, at one of the Tuesday night
meetings, from a Flickr set by "socialmoth" – a YC alum named Paul
McKellar.]

Tech-Surf-Blog: We’ve heard the mantra Y Combinator
puts forth for its companies is to “Make something people want.”  What
did FanChatter, which is not a brand-new startup, propose to “make”? 
Did you essentially propose to improve your offering for consumers in
order to be selected?  If so, how are you coming with that new work? 
And when will new features be available to your existing users?

Luke: I think an increasing number of companies
coming into YC already have products or working demos. They liked that
we had customers — that was very attractive. We sort of pitched it as,
“Look how far we’ve come working on this in our spare time. Imagine
what we could do if we did this full time.” We’ve been rolling out new
features to our existing customers all summer, as well as creating the
new ChatterBox product. Paul’s been very helpful in helping us figure
out the “big picture” of where we should be going: making more revenue
for our clients (and getting a piece of that).

Marty: In our case, we’re making something that
sports teams and other businesses who have fans want.  More engagement
so they can make more money.  I’ve always believed that content sharing
is the path to engagement, so that’s what we’re doing with Scoreboard
Photo Sharing and the ChatterBox — and that’s just the beginning.

Tech-Surf-Blog: So, what is yet to happen in the Y
Combinator summer program, as you’re now about two months into it — and
what does the future hold for FanChatter?

Luke: “Demo Day” is what it all leads up to. [That's in late August at YC's offices, attended by many VCs and angels.] After that, we’ll see. We’re working on becoming ramen profitable, but also looking to raise some angel money.

Marty: Who knows?  Hopefully we’re on to something
and fan engagement can carry us beyond sports and into music and TV and
anywhere fans come together around a common interest.  There’s so much
potential for interesting things to happen, and that’s where we want to
be.

I certainly wish my friends at FanChatter all the best
as they go forward. And I love the fact that they just happen to be
doing great things for our sports teams here in the Twin Cities!  [The scoreboard at the new Gophers stadium should be awesome, and I'm sure hoping FanChatter shows up there.]  For
more on the company, see its news release dated August 4.  And the TechCrunch story that broke August 1 is here: YC-Funded FanChatter Takes Social Media To The Ball Game.  Another good story followed that on MediaPost’s Online Media Daily.

If you’re a startup thinking of taking a run at applying for the Winter 2010 Y Combinator program, there are some great tips on YC’s site, and a FAQ page provides even more insight into how you might be able to take advantage of this excellent program.

What’s your take?  Will you apply?  If not, why not?  What are your
picks for other promising startups here in Minnesota who should apply?  Or is this a complete fluke?  Speak out in the comments.

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