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: tech trends (Page 2 of 2)

DEMO Spring 11: A Chat with PhotoRocket

March 1, 2011 / / 0 Comments

PhotoRocket-founders One of the DEMO presenters I had on my must-see list was PhotoRocket. It was one of the first companies I noticed last week tweeting they'd be here, so I immediately downloaded their iPhone app (alpha, now beta) and started using it. I loved it, and have shared several photos over the past few days. After they pitched on the first morning of DEMO (video), I stopped to chat with the cofounders, Scott Lipsky and Gary Roshak, at their Pavilion stand.  These guys have done a really excellent job with this launch. Everything is just, well…clicking! Here's the news release. PhotoRocket_logo And here's a brief description: PhotoRocket lets you share any number of photos to any number of people in an instant. Share with family and friends, post to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, or other favorite sites and archive your photos for safekeeping, all in one breathtakingly simple step. When you share with PhotoRocket, you give your family and friends instant gratification. PhotoRocket requires no registration and has no restrictions on downloading full resolution images. PhotoRocket is available now for Windows, iPhone, and Mac, with iPad and Android to come.

• Download or listen to my interview with Scott Lipsky (left) and Gary Roshak, cofounders of PhotoRocket… (MP3)

Photorocket-Graeme-Sharing

Live Blog: DEMO Spring 2011

February 28, 2011 / / 0 Comments

DEMO-palms I'm back at DEMO doing another live-blog. This is the 12th time I've reported on DEMO, and I've been doing the last few by using the "Cover It Live" app (see window below). Produced by the IDG Enterprise events group in conjunction with VentureBeat, the DEMO conferences in the United States and China focus on emerging technologies and new product innovations, which are hand selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launchpad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. For more information on the DEMO conferences, visit DEMO.com.

DEMOspring11-dates The conference kicks off officially at 9:15 am Pacific today, when my live-blogging will begin in earnest.  Here's the agenda.  I also have my Twitter stream set to appear in the live blog…occasional tweets, like to attach photos, but most of my posts will be in this live-blog iframe below. I've also aggregated virtually all the real-time "DEMO Chatter" in the box to the right, including Facebook and Twitter posts, and my curated Twitter list of the presenters' posts.

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 permanent 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!

DEMO Spring 2011 Announces Presenting Companies

February 27, 2011 / / 0 Comments

This year's DEMO spring conference, being held in Palm Desert, CA, February 28 – March 1, features 52 companies taking the stage to launch their new products or concept, ranging from innovators in the enterprise space to the coolest new consumer technology. DEMOspring11-slide The companies are listed below alphabetically, followed by product name (if different) in parentheses, and the DEMO category name.  In addition to this great group of demonstrators, DEMO will feature some exciting speakers and panelists.  We'll be hearing from newly announced Startup America CEO Scott Case, making his first public appearance…Mike Maples, Managing Partner, Floodgate Fund… as well as executives from Salesforce, Cisco, and other firms featured in panels and on-stage fireside chats.

Presenting Companies:

AboutOne.com … Consumer (family tool to manage & share memories and household info)
Ajax (Cloud89 IDE) … Cloud (IDE for Javasript developers, supports HTML5, Python, Ruby, PHP)
ApSynth … Cloud (PaaS for web apps, share them anywhere)
BiznessApps … Mobile (affordable iOS & Android app dev for small biz)
CVAC Systems … Consumer (fitness product)
DataRoket … Enterprise (data analysis tool)
ecoATM … Consumer (self-service kiosk for recycling consumer electronics)
eLIve Entertainment … Social & Media (lets friends talk while watching videos online)
EMBRIA Technologies (VIOLIN Platform) … Enterprise (Web OS for enterprise sw dev)
EyePredict (EPflow) … Cloud (neuroscience-based sw that predicts visual attention)
FaceCake Marketing (Swivel) …Enterprise/Retail (lets customers virtually try on products at home in 3D, poll social graph)
Fetch Plus Asia Pacific (FetchFans.com) … Social & Media (highly interactive, custom-branded Facebook pages)
flyRuby … Consumer (online marketplace for private jet travelers)
GageIn … Enterprise (business networking platform powered by content; intelligent collaboration)
Guardly … Mobile (personal safety service; alert family/friends/authorities about an emergency in a single tap)
GutCheck … Social & Media (DIY Web app to conduct qualitative research, one-on-one interviews w/target consumers)
HBMG Inc. (VECTOR) … Cloud (turnkey cloud server; shock-mounted case, no AC needed)
HeyStaks … Social & Media (shared social search service; collaborate anonymously w/friends, people of like-minded interest)
HighNote … Mobile (new, more social way to message; send free media-enhanced messages anywhere; add video, music, audio, pics, maps, custom buttons, iTunes)
Kuggaa … Cloud (subscribers create, edit, and enjoy their favorite mobile content across different device form-factors)
Life Is Better ON (ON Voicefeed) … Mobile (iPhone app for personalized voicemail messages; also sends & converts text-to-voice messages)
Manilla … Consumer (service for consumers to manage all of their household accounts, bills, finances, rewards programs, subscriptions in one place online)      
Marginize … Social & Media (adds social layer to the web; as you browse, discover what others have said about any webpage you are viewing)
MobileNation … Mobile (lets nontechnical people design & build custom apps for smartphones or tablets; drag & drop interface; no programming)
mSIGNIA (Dynamic Device Identity) … Mobile (safe, reliable device identity for accessing cloud services on Android smartphones & tablets, and available soon on iPhone, Blackberry, others)
NeuroSky (MindWave BrainCubed Education Bundle) … Consumer (intelligence, mental fitness, and game apps that monitor EEG brainwave activity; "exercise equipment for children's minds")
News360 (new app, for iPad) … Mobile (app that collects news from more than 1000 sources; uses semantic analysis to identify the important trends, and social graph to tailor your news stream)
Next Island  … Social & Media (first virtual world with real cash economy and time travel to Ancient Greece; played on a PC, with exceptional graphics)
Nimble … Cloud (Social Relationship Manager, connects your contacts, calendars, communications with social listening and engagement; integrates LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and email into a seamless environment)
Nuvyyo Inc. (JetStreamHD) … Mobile (box that lets you stream videos, songs, photos from your home network while you're traveling; converts any format, delivers true HD video, and adapts to Wi-Fi or 3G strength as it streams)
oneGoodLove.com … Social & Media (gay & lesbian dating site; proprietary matching algorithm focuses on matching perfect personality types)
PhotoRocket … Consumer (share photos instantly in one step to all your photo destinations; single click simultaneously shares to people, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites)
Pixable (iPad app) … Social & Media (free app for browsing Facebook pix; get notifications of the photo activity of the friends you choose)
Primadesk … Consumer (manage and backup online personal cloud data, no matter what the device)
Screenreach Interactive (Screach) … Mobile (real-time two-way interactive experiences between a smart device and any content, anywhere)
ShowUhow (product experience platform) … Social & Media (on-demand, video-based Product Guides for mfrs & retailers,  via smartphone, Web, and social media, for pre-sale education, installation, feedback, and repeat sales)
Silentale (SocialReplay) … Social & Media  (extract key strategic information through qualitative data & analytics of Facebook Page & Twitter accounts to assist in formulating marketing programs)
SocialEyes … Social & Media (social video service to instantly connect you to friends and groups of people who share your interests)
Thoora (Thoora for Tablets) … Social & Media (quickly curate and share beautiful, naturally search-friendly, and self-updating content for tablet devices; human- curated, topical pages that are always fresh and relevant)
TrendSpottr … Social & Media (search & curation service for Twitter, Facebook, and other real-time data streams; uses advanced algorithms and curation tools; filters, aggregates, and publishes top trending headlines, videos, images, phrases, hashtags, and places for any search term)
V3 (Stratosphere) … Cloud (400 virtual desktops in a 2U server))
Viafoura … Social & Media (split-screen video debate, gaming/reward sys)
Websense (Defensio for Facebook) … Cloud (FB security/protection)
Workface … Enterprise (customer-initiated engagement platform for human-to-human selling on the web; software that enables your sales people to build and manage customer relationships)
Zugara (Webcam Social Shopper) … Enterprise (advanced apparel visualization and social media engagement product  licensed to online retailers

Alpha Pitch Companies:
Dvmmy (Offers App)
Ecobe
iCaR Systems
infiniWing (KloudDock)
Outline.com
Speaku
The Geco

The Pitch Fest That Started It All Fires Up This Weekend: DEMO

February 25, 2011 / / 0 Comments

DEMOspring11 I'm pumped!  DEMO Spring 2011 starts on Sunday and runs through Tuesday, in sunny, warm Palm Desert, CA.  And, man, am I looking forward to the break! (After suffering through the snowiest winter on record in Minnesota; they say we'll likely hit 90 inches.) You can still register here.  Hope to see you there! Coolest thing of all this year?  A Minnesota company is pitching: my friend Lief Larson of Workface. Really stoked about that!

New For Me This Year: "DEMO Chatter" Box
Note the latest wrinkle for my DEMO coverage at the right. It's a social-media aggregation widget from my friends at FanChatter in Minneapolis (a Y Combinator startup), which captures all the conversation about DEMO in one place! (Multiple Twitter and Facebook feeds, and mutiple Twitter Lists, are coming in to the three tabs.) You can jump in and start posting, right there, after you connect your Twitter and/or Facebook accounts!  You just have to "Like" my company Facebook page first. That's the love I get for posting this great tool… :-)  It's the same technology some professional sports teams are now using on their web sites, as well as such other customers as the E!Online network, for red-carpet events like the Golden Globes, the Grammys, *and* this weekend's Oscar Awards — which we'll be watching live at DEMO after the opening reception Sunday night!  (That FanChatter box will be on Eonline.com all weekend.)

More Startup Pitches Than I Can Count
I've been attending and reporting on major national tech conferences for more than a dozen years, as part of my continuing passion to get out in front of tech trends, and to do my other favorite thing: network. It's really what turned me into a blogger and part-time journalist several years ago. During this time, I've heard more than 1000 startup pitches — and I've been lucky enough to write about most of them, certainly hundreds. Twitter and live-blogging tools in recent years have only added to my output. Back in October, I did a post called My Adventures as a Connoisseur of the Fine Art of Startup Pitching that's largely about my DEMO experiences. 

DEMOswag-250wDubbing itself "The Launchpad for Emerging Technology," DEMO was founded in 1991 by Stewart Alsop and later acquired by IDG. It's widely regarded as the inventor of the startup pitch fest, and certainly has the longest, continuous track record. It's extremely well run — which, friends, makes a difference! — and remains my favorite conference of them all. The biggest benefit of DEMO for the presenting companies is that it attracts a large, prestigious press and blogger contingent, and generates some 200 million media impressions for the collective participants. And, of course, it draws investors, too, from around the globe (as are the companies). Startups pitching at DEMO events have collectively raised billions of dollars. Many of them are now household names, or have been acquired or gone public. The conference publishes a list of DEMO alumni companies, by event — but note this list is just for the recent years 2006-2010. It's interesting to look back and start at 2006 (when my unbroken string of 12 DEMOs started), to see names that are now quite familiar, but were just upstarts at the time.

I'll again be live-blogging the entire two-day-plus DEMO Spring 2011 program, which will include more than 50 startups pitches, with some great panels, speakers, and interviews mixed in — all hosted by DEMO's Executive Producer, Matt Marshall, Editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Watch this blog for my live-blog post, which will fire up in full force on Monday morning!  (Here's what my last one looked like: DEMOfall 2010 live-blog.)

Are you coming to DEMO Spring 2011? What are you most interested in? Mobile? Cloud? Social? Consumer Tech? Enterprise Software? Enabling Technologies?  (Maybe all of it, like me?)  Or, come on, is it just all about the killer networking?  🙂

Exclusive: Robert Stephens Talks About His New Role as CTO of Best Buy

September 9, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Earlier this week, I sat down for coffee with Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad, to chat about a number of things, and we decided to do an impromptu audio interview.  I realized later it was almost three years to the day when I'd first met Robert, at an event where he was honored as Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2007 Minnesota Cup reception at the University of Minnesota — and I blogged about that, quoting from his great talk. RobertStephens-BestBuyCTO I'd also heard him speak before at other local events, where he's always a favorite. I have much admiration for the man, not just because he's the spiritual leader of 25,000 geeks and has a real passion for technology, but because he's a marketing genius. What's more, he's really funny and entertaining. GeekSquad-logo I also find it fascinating that he began college as an art student, then switched to computer science (coming to the U of M for that, from his native Chicago). I've since seen Robert at many of our local tech "barcamp" events, MInneBar and MinneDemo, for which he and his employer of the last eight years, Best Buy, have provided much support. Hats off to them for that. (As Robert likes to tell it, "Geek Squad acquired Best Buy in 2002.")  

But, this day, I thought it would be a great opportunity to let Robert tell us about the new role I knew he'd recently been promoted to — that of Chief Technology Officer, reporting the CEO of Best Buy.  I knew something was coming, because he hinted so in a meeting with me and my colleague Steve Borsch during the summer.  BestBuy-logo-onstore_300w There was no Best Buy press release announcing his appointment, which I guess is common for them, but I actually confirmed it a few weeks ago when I hit Robert's LinkedIn page. (He told me he didn't want any hoopla around being named to his new role, that he'll be happy to get recognition when he has some results to talk about.)

We recorded a 21-minute interview, where Robert touched on an array of topics.  He talked about technology trends, and how his job is translating those into actionable intelligence for Best Buy.  He spoke about his developing relationships and partnerships with companies like Google and Facebook, and how he really finds Best Buy a dynamic place to work, giving him a "palette, and a canvas." He also tells the inside story about how was first asked to be CTO, involving a trip to New York with CEO Brian Dunn on the company jet to meet with Eric Schmidt of Google. Robert also talks about what motivates him, how he thinks more like a startup guy, but has the unique advantage of such big resources at Best Buy — and the abilily to open doors anywhere. "I have the best job," he says. "I get to travel the world and visit all these companies." He said over the next five to ten years, "we'll be exploiting the four screens." In that regard, he talks in particular about how one of those, TV, is coming into an new exciting phase. "I like sitting on the main chess board," he said.

But let's get to it… 

• Download or listen to my complete, unedited interview of Robert Stephens, CTO of Best Buy… (MP3)"

 

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