Tag: Network World Conferences

DEMOfall 08: 72 New Technologies to Launch Sept 8-9

September 5, 2008 / Graeme / 1 Comment

I’ll be attending the DEMOfall 08 conference in San Diego, September 7-9, 2008. Demofall08 Close to 100 media and bloggers will be there, with total attendance expected to be the largest ever (I predict close to 1000).

Here are some excerpts from DEMO’s press release, which just hit the wire, including the complete list of presenting companies, A to Z, and their web addresses:

Leading Technology Conference Continues to Highlight
the Best in Entrepreneurship from Around the World

The DEMO conferences, known for launching some the world’s biggest technology products, will kick off this Sunday with 72 new products poised to launch onstage in just 72 hours. Beginning its 19th year of supporting innovation, DEMOfall 08 will highlight products from more than 11 countries and 19 states. Known as the conference that launched products from Google, Apple, Palm, Intel, Yahoo!, and TiVo, the fall conference will host one of its largest attendances of journalists, investors, and business professionals in its history. DEMOfall 08 is being held from September 7 – 9 at the Sheraton San Diego. To learn more about the event and register to attend, visit www.demo.com.

"Every DEMO, we strive to identify the companies that will defy all the odds and have significant impact in the technology markets. Ours is a year-long process that culminates in 72 hours of products that are more than disruptive; they change the rules of the game as we know it,” said Chris Shipley, product analyst and executive producer of the DEMO conferences. "I am very excited to unveil the class of DEMOfall 08. They are innovative, they are important, they are fun, and they represent the future products and solutions we all will be using soon.”

The DEMO conferences are held twice a year, requiring the DEMO team to hold in-depth interviews with more than 1,000 companies ready to launch new products at the event. This rigorous process ensures that DEMOfall 08 attendees will, for the first time, see new products from around the globe including Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan.

DEMOfall 08 Presenting Companies

Accordia Group, LLC; New Rochelle, NY; www.accordia-group.com
Adapx, Inc.; Seattle, WA; www.adapx.com
Alerts.com, Inc.; Bellvue, WA; www.alerts.com
Arsenal Interactive, Inc.; Mountain View, CA; www.heycosmo.com
Asyncast Corp; Campbell, CA; www.rocketron.com
Awind Inc.; Junghe, Taiwan; www.awindinc.com
beeTV; Milano, Italy; www.bee.tv
Best Buy; Minneapolis, MN; www.giftag.com
BizEquity Corp.; Spring House, PA; www.bizequity.com
Blue Lava Technologies, Inc.; Honolulu, HI; www.bluelavatech.com
Cerego; Tokyo, Japan; www.usa.iknow.co.jp
Cinergix, Pty Ltd.; Melbourne, Australia; www.creately.com
Clintworld; Boenningstedt, Germany; www.clintworld.de
CoreTrace Corp.; Austin, TX; www.coretrace.com
crowdSPRING, LLC; Chicago, IL; www.crowdspring.com
DesignIn, Inc.; Marblehead, MA; www.mydesignin.com
Dial Directions, Inc.; Alameda, CA; www.dialdirections.com
DOCCENTER; Omaha, NE; www.doccenterinc.com
Enterprise Informatics, Inc.; San Diego, CA; www.enterpriseinfomatics.com
Familybuilder; New York, NY; www.familybuilder.com
ffwd.com, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.ffwd.com
Fortressware, Inc.; Mountain View, CA; www.fortressw.com
Fusion-io; Salt Lake City, UT; www.fusionio.com
G.ho.st; Ramallah & Modin, Palestine and Israel; http://g.ho.st
Green Sherpa; Santa Barbara, CA; www.greensherpa.com
Infovell, Inc.; Menlo Park, CA; www.infovell.com
Intelius, Inc.; Bellevue, WA; www.zumende.com
Invision TV, LLC; Bethesda, MD; www.invision.tv
iWidgets, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.iwidgets.com
Kadoo Inc.; Washington, DC; www.kadoo.com
Koollage, Inc.; San Jose, CA; www.koollage.com
Mapflow, Ltd.; Cork, Ireland; www.eirlift.com
Maverick Mobile Solutions, Pvt. Ltd.; Maharashtra, India; www.maverickmobile.in
MeDeploy; Hamden, CT; www.medeploy.com
Message Sling; Worcester, MA; www.messagesling.com
MeWorks, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan; www.meworks.net
Microstaq, Inc.; Austin, TX; www.microstaq.com
MixMatchMusic, Ltd.; Burlingame, CA; www.mixmatchmusic.com
Momindum; Paris, France; www.momindum.com
OpenACircle.com; Dallas, TX; www.openacircle.com
Paidinterviews, LLC; McLean, VA; www.paidinterviews.com
Paragent, LLC; Muncie, IN; www.paragent.com
Photrade, LLC; Cincinnati, OH; www.photrade.com
PlanDone, Inc.; Petaluma, CA; www.plandone.com
Plastic Logic, Ltd.; Mountain View, CA; www.plasticlogic.com
Qtask, Inc.; Burbank, CA; www.Qtask.com
Quantivo Corp.; San Mateo, CA; www.quantivo.com
Radiant Logic, Inc.; Novato, CA; www.radiantlogic.com
RealNetworks, Inc.; Seattle, WA; www.real.com
Rebus Technology, Inc.; Cupertino, CA; www.rebustechnology.net
RemoTV, Inc.; New Haven, CT; www.remotv.com
Rudder, Inc.; Houston, TX; www.rudder.com
Semanti Corp.; Alberta, Canada; www.semantifind.com
Sim Ops Studios, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.wildpockets.com
SitScape, Inc.; Vienna, VA; www.sitscape.com
SkyData Systems, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; www.skydata.com
SpinSpotter; Seattle, WA; www.spinspotter.com
Telnic, Ltd.; London, England; www.telnic.org
TetraBase, LLC; Boothwyn, PA; www.tetrabase.com
The Echo Nest Corp.; Somerville, MA; http://echonest.com
tikitag, an Alcatel-Lucent Venture; Antwerp, Belgium; www.tikitag.com
Toolgether; San Mateo, CA; www.toolgether.com
TravelMuse, Inc.; Los Altos, CA; www.travelmuse.com
Trinity Convergence, Inc.; Durham, NC; www.trinityconvergence.com
TurnTo Networks, Inc.; New York, NY; www.turnto.com
UbiEst S.p.A.; Treviso, Italy; www.ubiest.com
UGA Digital, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan; www.ugadigital.com
Unity Solutions, LLC; Clearwater, FL; www.unitysolutions.com
Usable Security Systems, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.usable.com
WebDiet, Inc.; Henderson, NV; www.webdiet.com
Xumii, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; www.xumii.com
Zazengo, Inc.; Santa Cruz, CA; www.zazengo.com

DEMOfall 07: Thoughts and Images

October 2, 2007 / Graeme / 0 Comments

Another DEMO event has come and gone, and it was a great one. Kudos again to Chris Shipley and team. These conferences go by so fast, but I try to capture as much as of the energy and optimism as I can from all the tremendous innovations that get launched here. It’s certainly a challenge to cover so many interesting, breakthrough technologies, but always a great conference experience. Entrepreneurship at its finest!

Didn’t get a chance to shoot a whole lot of photos this time — too darn busy meeting people, attending all the sessions, and (of course) writing posts! But I did get 50 pix or so up on Flickr. And I’ve included a selection of them here in this post.

Demofallstagecolors

As a recap, I thought it’d be fun to give you some facts about this conference. This year is the 17th straight for DEMO events (and two conferences per year have been held for many years now). The brand had its beginnings in 1991, founded by tech journalist Stewart Alsop, and was later acquired by IDG. It’s now run by the crack team from Network World Conferences. [By the way, speaking of Stewart Alsop, who became a VC several years ago — I was bummed that I had to miss hearing him deliver a keynote at an angel investor conference back here in Minnesota last week, because of all my travels. But I hear that event went very well, too.]

There were 69 companies pitching at DEMOfall this year, two of them public firms, and all the rest private — mostly small startups (and, in most cases, just coming out of stealth mode). Those 67 companies have amassed — get this — more than $450 million in funding to date! That’s an eye-popping average of $6.7 million each. (Of course, that figure is skewed somewhat by one DEMO presenting company, Jasper Wireless, which has already raised a cool $49 million! Its investors include my friends at Crescendo Ventures and BridgeScale.) As I mentioned in a previous post, 13 of the 69 companies were from countries other than the U.S. — quite a global contingent this year! Demofallsunrise It was great to see and hear these entrepreneurs from other countries, and I got to meet several of them. [My favorite company name of that bunch: Red Square Ventures, from…guess where?] My post with links to all the presenting companies is here, and it lists where each of them is based. There were also 12 states represented — CA, as you may have guessed, had the most companies (32), with MA a distant second (6), then TX (5), and NY (4). Sadly, none yet from my adopted home state of MN — but I’m working on that. [Chris, trust me — we have several here waiting in the wings!] I was, however, instrumental in getting a firm from WI to DEMOfall this year, so I’m happy about that.

Attendance at the event was more than 700, which DEMO sums up as "corporate development executives, investors, influential journalists, and the most imaginative entrepreneurs in the world." I love that last bit. The press list numbered 76, including such venerable names as the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, the Financial Times, The Economist, The Deal, CBS, the AP, Reuters, USA Today, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Merc News, Wired, CNet, ZDNet, eWeek, Computerworld, NetworkWorld, InfoWorld….but that’s not all! Demofallsurfvideos Several standout blogs were reporting on site as well, including Read/Write Web, GigaOM, Mashable, TechDirt, the new Blognation (Oliver Starr and Marc Orchant) — and (ahem) your buddy at Tech-Surf-Blog, of course… 🙂

DEMO has quite a track record as a launchpad for some pretty amazing firms. Here are just some of them: Skype, WebEx, E*Trade, Six Apart, Salesforce.com, IronPort Systems, Moobella, Kaboodle, U.S. Robotics, and new ventures from such large firms as IBM, Sony, Motorola, Microsoft, and Adobe. It’s also launched such memorable products as TiVo, Half.com, Java 1.0, the Palm Pilot, and Ugobe’s Pleo toy.

This year’s DEMOfall had a good mix of consumer-facing, corporate computing, and enabling technologies. So,the event reflects activity across the entire technology industry. Here’s how this crop of presenters was categorized:

• Consumer technologies … 36 (5 devices, and fully 31 software and services offerings)

• Enabling technologies … 16

• Small business software and services … 10

• Enterprise software and services … 5

• IT management and infrastructure … 2

Demofallpavilion

An interesting bunch of the small business tool companies got together the first night for beers, I was told, and decided their offerings were the solutions for "everyman," or all the "average Joes" out there. In the course of all this revelry, they coined a new term: "Web2.joe" — which is pretty funny. [Well, okay, maybe you had to be there.] They decided all their tools shared the main criteria needed by today’s small business people: affordable, easy to use, and customizable. These partying companies, a few of which I had a chance to later blog about, were BatchBlue, FastCall411, Advanta (ideablob), InstaCall, Vello, PlanHQ, and Tungle. I definitely think they’re all addressing a big need, and I’m sure we’re bound to be seeing more such small business tools, especially hosted apps, at future DEMO events. It’s such a huge market opportunity.

Demofallafterdark

And that, friends, is what DEMO is all about: unlimited opportunity.

See you down the road at the next conference!

Demofalltheinterview Demofallpool Demofallsunset

DEMOfall 2007 Presenting Companies Announced

September 21, 2007 / Graeme / 2 Comments

I’m really looking forward to the DEMOfall conference next week in San Diego — and, since I’m now working for a few days at my place in San Clemente, I only have an hour’s drive south to get there. The press announcement just came out earlier today, per usual procedure on the Friday before, announcing the innovations to debut at this year’s fall event. Demofall07nextbanner_2
Wow, it’s another fire-hose of pitches from hot, new startups — there’s no place a guy like me would rather be! The twice-yearly DEMO conferences, now in their 17th year, are known for seeking out and showcasing important new technologies that usher in new methods of computing. [DEMO is produced by Network World Conferences, a unit of tech publishing giant IDG.]

DEMOfall ’07 is taking place September 24-26 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina. It will introduce 69 carefully vetted products and services (see below) to "an audience of investors, business development executives, media, pundits, and fellow entrepreneurs." I would expect attendance in the neighborhood of 700, based on past experience. Presenters include both early-stage and established companies.

Demofall07sheraton_3
The event begins at 6 p.m. Monday evening with an outdoor welcome reception alongside the harbor. The conference itself then runs all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, culminating in a dinner and panel discussion Wednesday night. The complete schedule is available here.

DEMO conferences tend to feature a mix of technologies from across the whole spectrum of the technology industry — everything from consumer Internet startups and other consumer technologies, to enterprise software and enabling technologies and other new ventures focused in B2B markets, and everything in between. The press release called out this sampling of some of the technologies that will be introduced at next week’s event:
* a visually engaging, interactive, 3D-animation slot machine game.
* a powerful “bubble of security” tool that protects consumers as they bank and shop online.
* a conference call system that calls you, so every meeting begins on time.
* technology that enables mobile device users to find search results with lighting speed and accuracy.
* an automated check-in service for doctors’ waiting rooms, delivering immediately relevant health and wellness information to the patient.
* business execution software for SMBs, which keeps the entire team on track.
* fast, reliable storage technology for today’s digital age.
* a new MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) application for Facebook.
* a music entertainment service that allows users to collectively listen and re-mix musical compositions on their cell phones.
* a one-click service for improving the quality of videos captured on cell phones andlow-end digital cameras.

This DEMO event is truly global. We’ll see presenters from several countries besides the U.S., including Russia, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, France, Ireland, England, Canada, Israel, and India.

The DEMOfall ’07 demonstrators are as follows:

360desktop Pty Ltd., Victoria, Australia
Advanta, Spring House, PA
AgendiZe, Grapevine, TX
Apprema Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Attendi Inc., New York, NY
BatchBlue Software LLC, Barrington, RI
CashView Inc., Palo Alto, CA
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., Redwood City, CA
ClipBlast!, Agoura Hills, CA
coComment, Geneva, Switzerland
CodaSystem France S.A., Paris, France
CornerWorld, Dallas, TX
Digital Fountain, Fremont, CA
Diigo Inc., Reno, NV
DimDim Inc., Burlington, MA
earthmine Inc., Berkeley, CA
EncryptaKey, Cypress, CA
Exalead Inc., New York, NY
FastCall411 Inc., Hollywood, CA
Fluid Innovation Inc., Austin, TX
Fusion-io, Salt Lake City, UT
Generate Inc., Maynard, MA
Glam Media, Brisbane, CA
Global Communications Inc., Houston, TX
Global Mobile Technologies LLP, San Francisco, CA
Graspr Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
iForem Inc., Redwood Shores, CA
InstaColl, Bangalore, India
Jasper Wireless, Sunnyvale, CA
kannuu Inc., Dallas, TX
LiveMocha Inc., Bellevue, WA
LogMeIn Inc., Woburn, MA
LongJump, Sunnyvale, CA
matchmine LLC, Needham, MA
MetaRADAR Inc., San Bruno, CA
mig33, Burlingame, CA
MotionDSP Inc., San Mateo, CA
mSpoke Inc., Pittsburgh, PA
MuseStorm Ltd., Yahud, Israel
Myndnet, East Palo Alto, CA
Myxer, Deerfield Beach, FL
Ncursion, Carlsbad, CA
PeopleJam Inc., Los Angeles, CA
Phreesia Inc., New York, NY
PlanHQ, Wellington, New Zealand
Prolify Inc., Waltham, MA
Propel Software Corporation, San Jose, CA
Proxure, San Luis Obispo, CA
Pudding Media Inc., San Jose, CA
Quire Inc., Mountain View, CA
Qumranet, Santa Clara, CA
Real Time Content Ltd., Ipswich, England
RedSquare Ventures Ltd., Moscow, Russia
RelevantMind Corp., Berkeley, CA
SceneCaster, Richmond Hill, Canada
SpaceTime, New York, NY
spigit, Pleasanton, CA
Sway Inc., Middleton, WI
Talari Networks Inc., Cupertino, CA
Trovix, Mountain View, CA
Truphone, London, England
Tubes Networks Inc., Boston, MA
Tungle Corporation, Montreal, Canada
Vello, Mountain View, CA
Vitarati Inc., San Luis Obispo, CA
Vyro Games Ltd., Dublin, Ireland
WMS Gaming, Waukegan, IL
Your Truman Show Inc., San Francisco, CA

For the
first time, DEMO is offering press and bloggers at the event open access to the video
files of all 69 demonstrators’ live stage presentations, PR contact Becky Sniffen tells me, to enhance coverage of the conference. They’re also offering us several edited video segments that
chronicle DEMOfall itself — a behind-the-scenes or man-on-the-street
look at the people and products of DEMO. These videos will be available
to us press registrants during and after the conference — so look for more video coverage of this event to be out there on the web, more than any other previous DEMO event.

I’m really looking forward to covering this conference, as I do twice a year without fail, because I think it quite simply is the best event in the business, year in and year out. (And I go to many.) Watch for my onsite coverage starting Monday evening, and then early Tuesday morning as the conference sessions get underway.

DEMO Alumni Party Packed ‘Em In

August 15, 2007 / Graeme / 0 Comments

I don’t know how many people actually showed up last night at Zibibbo in Palo Alto, but the DEMO folks said more than 500 had pre-registered. It’s a good thing they reserved the whole place for this affair — bar, patio, restaurant — because they needed every bit of that space. It was close quarters! But fun, and I saw many old friends, colleagues, and clients, and met some other interesting people. I thought I’d come pretty far, flying in from Minneapolis just in time (and staying today to do some other business), till I learned some other dude had come from France!

The roster of company founders and their VCs and PR people at this gala was pretty amazing. I could name drop, but I won’t. You could look at my Flickr pix of the party, though, and maybe pick out some you know. The list of companies that DEMO has launched, over some seventeen years, is nothing short of remarkable. What a record this conference has. You can read all about that at Demo.com. And, while you’re there, sign up for DEMOfall ’07 in September in San Diego. I’ll be there with bells on.

Here’s a selection of some on my (bad) photography from last evening. Hey, it’s not easy trying to swill wine with a notebook in one hand and a camera in the other! ….while engaging in charming banter 🙂 Well, trying to, anyway.