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.

Tag: cloud (Page 3 of 3)

My Live Blog: Defrag 2010

November 16, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Defrag-StageSign I'm in Denver for my fourth consecutive Defrag conference, which is every one since it started in 2007.  This time, it's actually in Broomfield, CO, a suburb, at a nice place called the OMNI Interlocken Resort. I'm starting the live blog on Tuesday evening, as we're gathering in the hotel lobby to go to some sponsored dinners. (I'm headed to Boulder with Gist.)  The conference fires up in the morning, when my live-blogging will begin in earnest.  Check out the agenda.  In the meantime, I have my twitter stream appearing in the live blog, and that of the conference organizer (@defrag), Eric Norlin.  I also have it set up so that any tweets with the hashtag #defragcon will appear in the live blog window, at least for now. (I'll probably shut that off starting in the morning, or it would get to be too much.)  [UPDATE: Decided on the morning of day one to leave it all in! Makes for a more interesting live-blog, and archiving the whole conversation, in proper chronologial order, is pretty cool for anyone who may want to refer back. There were so many *great* Twitter exchanges going on during the event!  I know I made a whole bunch of new Twitter friends… 🙂 ]

I'm looking forward to a great conference!  When the event is completed, I'll archive this live-blog, which switches it around to proper chronological order. And the link for this blog post will remain pemanent for the live-blog archive. That's the big advantage for me to document a conference with this live-blogging tool, compared to just tweeting the event. (Have you tried going back to get an archive of your tweetstream for a certain day or event?  Good luck.) Plus the fact that I can do posts longer than 140 characters. Hope you like it!

‘Glue’ is a Cloud Conference That’s Different – It’s for *Developers* (and some interesting new twists on the next one)

November 4, 2010 / / 0 Comments

GlueConf-logo You may know I've attended the Glue Conference in Denver since its inception.  I've reported on both of those great events, in May 2009 and May 2010.  The last one I live-blogged, and that is luckily archived here.  The '09 event, however, I only covered by live tweeting — i.e., all my coverage was done on Twitter — so good luck finding that archive. And it was probably a couple-hundred "posts" long, too. Shees…

Anyway, the next Glue is coming up in May 2011, and I certainly plan to be there — live-blogging, not live-tweeting!  So, why would I be talking about that event now, when it's several months out?  Well, because I have some important *advance* news about it for all my developer friends, whether you're involved in a cloud-based startup or not.  Here's the deal:

Eric Norlin runs the event (and sister event Defrag, this month), and makes clear Glue is aimed at developers. That makes it different from other "cloud computing” conferences, which he thinks is a big echo chamber. "Glue seeks to explore the connective tissue of the web and IT infrastructure," says Norlin. EricNorlin-Defrag2007 "That connective tissue can be called a lot of things — service oriented architecture, web services, APIs, cloud computing, etc. Call it what you will, developers know that it’s not the name that counts, it’s the building of the application, and the underlying infrastructure that supports it."

Norlin says his goal with Gluecon has been really simple: to make it *the* gathering place for developers in the API/cloud space. "With that goal in mind, we’re setting out this year to change the game for developer conferences," he says. "And the only way that I know to change the game is to open things up in such a way as to get maximum involvement from the community. As such, I’m extremely happy to announce that Alcatel-Lucent is signing on to be the Community Underwriter and Partner Sponsor of Gluecon 2011."

So, what does that mean for the event?  It's this: Alcatel-Lucent (which runs OpenAPIservice.com) will be underwriting 15 companies to have demo pods at Glue 2011. The participation of these companies will be based solely on merit, not the ability to pay for an exhibit, says Norlin.

"We’re announcing that 15 companies will be selected to have completely free demo space at Gluecon. The demo pod will include passes to the show, signage, Internet — everything you need. Just show up with a laptop."

To select the companies, Norlin says he and Alcatel-Lucent have put together a top-notch selection committee: Chris Shipley (Guidewire Group), Mathew Ingram (of MESH and GigaOM), John Musser (Programmable Web), Laura Merling (Alcatel-Lucent), Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb), Jeff Lawson (Twilio), Jeff Hammond (Forrester), Ian Glazer (Gartner), Ben Kepes (Diversity.net), Krish Subramanian (CloudAve), Vinod Kurpad (Best Buy), Seth Levine (Foundry Group), and Eric Norlin.

"The process will be simple," says Norlin. "We'll accept applications for the 15 spots, and every person on the selection committee gets to vote for their favorite 15 companies. The top 15 vote-getters will have a demo pod."  He points out that Alcatel-Lucent will have just one vote (two if you count Programmable Web, which is owned by Alcatel-Lucent), but not nearly enough to swing a decision. The company wants to maintain the credibility and neutrality of Glue, Norlin says.  He points out the selection committee purposely includes analysts (Guidewire, Gartner, and Forrester), journalists (GigaOM and ReadWriteWeb), a manager inside a large corporation (Best Buy), and even other company CEOs (Jeff Lawson of Twilio) to help run through this process. Alcatel-Lucent’s involvement, he says, is altruistic: enlarge the size and interaction around this developer community — "and everyone benefits."  Other exhibitors will be still be able to secure exhibitor space, Norlin adds.

But wait — there's more. "We’ll be doing some awesome things leading up to Glue — like holding 'hackathons' around the country, and then flying the winners to Gluecon to participate in a major league hackathon at the conference. And that’ll just be the beginning – stay tuned," he says.

PREDICTION:  Minnesota friends, I'm going out on a limb and predicting that one of these hackathons will be held right here in the Twin Cities.

"I’m excited because I feel like we have the ability to really change the game with this one." says Norlin.  "If you take away the company-specific conferences — Google I/O, Twitter, F8 — there really just aren’t that many national-level gathering spots for developers in the cloud/API space. There are a lot of 'business level' and 'workshop' conferences that happen around cloud computing, but we’re talking about developers.  And even where there are developer gatherings in the cloud/API space, the ability to pay has always been a limiting factor for startups and companies wanting to show their wares and exhibit. That ends with Gluecon 2011!  Now, developers in the cloud/API space will have the ability to participate in a pure meritocracy. Wow the selection committee, and you’re in."

Norlin sums up: "At the end of the day, what I want to see is 500-plus developers coming to Gluecon to build apps, figure out cloud infrastructure, scaling, security, and solve the tough problems around API construction, usage, and maintenance."

How does one apply?  The process starts here.

Gluecon 2011 will cover a broad spectrum of cloud/API topics that matter to developers — "from Hadoop to Clojure to Active API event processing to Cloud Scaling to Big Data databases (of both the NoSQL and SQL variety) to web protocols (activity streams, PUSH, etc)," says Norlin. "We’re going deeper, getting more technical than ever, bringing in a third day of workshops, just generally stepping up and kicking ass."

So, my developer friends, you think you can hang with the big boys and girls at Gluecon? Well, now you can apply for a Gluecon demo pod, and prove it.  (Want more info?  Email Eric at enorlinATmac.com.)

See you at Gluecon in May!

UPDATE: Just after I posted, this popped up on ReadWriteWeb: Weekly Poll: What Cities Should Be Chosen for GlueCon Hackathon Tour?  So, get busy all you Minnesota tech supporters out there, vote for the Twin Cities!!

 

 

Structure Conference: A Chat with Tien Tzou, CEO of Zuora

June 28, 2010 / / 0 Comments

TienTzou-Zuora On the afternoon of the second day at Structure, I had set up an appointment to interview the founder and CEO of a growing cloud enabler, Zuora. I'd met Tien a couple of times before — last saw him at another cloud conference, back in May, the AlwaysOn "OnDemand100" event.  Tien founded Zuora after nine years at Salesforce.com — he was one of the “original forces” there, joining in 1999 as the 11th employee. Zuora-logo (More about Tien here at the Zuora management page. He even served as CMO of Salesforce at one time!)  

I wanted to have Tien tell me about an announcement they made at Structure, concerning what they call "the first on-demand commerce solution for cloud businesses": Z-Commerce for the Cloud.

• Download or listen to Graeme's interview with Tien Tzou about how he sees Zuora powering growth for cloud businesses.. (MP3)"

My Live Blogging of DEMO Spring 2010

March 20, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Well, it's that time again. Twice each year, I cover the DEMO conference — and this time around it's DEMO Spring, in warm, sunny Palm Desert. It's been a long, cold winter!  I'm excited, because, as I noted in my previous post, 65 really exciting new ventures will be launching!  The event will be hosted by new executive director Matt Marshall, the CEO and editor-in-chief of VentureBeat.

Here's the page where my live-blogging posts will appear, in real time as they are published. To do this live blogging, I'm using a great tool designed
just for this purpose called "ScribbleLive." DEMO_2010-LiveBlogBanner   My on-site coverage will begin soon after I arrive on Sunday March 21 (the opening reception is that evening), and will run through late Tuesday afternoon March 23, when the conference wraps up. 

Before my last DEMO event (Fall '09), I always live-tweeted the proceedings, rather than
doing live blogging. That changed as of last fall. The tweeting had worked okay, but this live-blogging approach I decided I like better, for a
number of reasons: (1) I'm not limited to 140 characters per post… (2)
I find it a nice middle ground between doing short, often hard-to-write
(and understand!) tweets and the more rambling long-form blogging…
(3) it's as fast or faster than tweeting… (4) it's way faster than me
trying to post quickly on my own Typepad blog here… and (5) it
prevents many of my Twitter followers from getting mad and unfollowing
me when I'm doing so many rapid-fire tweets at events, which for a DEMO
can be upwards of a couple hundred! Another cool thing is that I can
attach a photo to any of my live-blog posts as well. (Though I will also
upload all my pix to a Flickr set during and right after the event.) 
The tool also allows me to attach an audio or video file, if I wish, but
I don't expect to do that.

For me, as a longtime event reporter,
this ScribbleLive tool is really an ideal solution. Here's my live-blog archive of DEMOfall '09. And here's another example of how myself and three other blogger colleagues used this tool simultaneously for the first
time: it was at the the Blogwell event at General Mills in Minneapolis last year.

I
look forward to DEMO Spring 2010, and hope I hear from you — whether during the
event, before, or after. I will likely be publishing some other,
stand-alone posts here on this blog while at DEMO — namely, audio
interviews, as I did starting at DEMO Spring '09. To communicate with me,
you can always post comments here at my blog.  Or, talk to me via
Twitter by putting @GraemeThickins at the beginning of your tweets —
since I will be monitoring Twitter search closely as I live-blog the
event.  Get this — if I want to tweet once in a while, those will appear automatically in this live blog, too. Pretty cool.

Look for me in the DEMO ballroom — I'll be in my usual spot in row three of the press section,
right down in front.

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!



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