I had planned to give an extensive report on companies I liked on Day #1, using my abundant Twitter entries as my notebook. This is difficult, because I cannot access Twitter this morning. Instead of railing about that, I'm going to try from memory to name the companies that impressed me most. Since I've been waiting for Twitter for over half an hour I'll be shorter than I wanted to be.
Here are some of the ones that I think will endure and change the marketplace in social media. Links are too sites:
- Livescribe of Oakland, CA has created a magic pen that may change the world for a few reasons. The device is a record, optical recognizer and translator. It uses regular paper that has been treated. You can copy the paper or make a PDX. If I'm interviewing you, I use the LiveScribe devise and write down a single word to remember the section. After the talk, I tap on the word and get a recording f what was said at the moment I write down the word. It translates between English, Spanish and Arabic as well as other languages. Which means I could use it to condust a conversation with another person who speaks none of the languages I speak and LiveScribe serves as a translator. The 1 Gig version is priced at $149 from their site in March and retail deals are allegedly imminent.
- Seesmic Maybe it was seeing friends Loic LeMeur and Cathy Brooks presenting that got me so excited, but I think not. Seesmic got it's start in the last half of last year simply by using Twitter (on good days) to attract it's 1st 2000 enthusiastic fans who have been spreading the word ever since. Seesmic is a clean, simple video producing platform that gives you a 5 minute maximum for content. The company introduced two new feature: (1) the ability to track conversations on each Seesmic post and (2) mobile capability, which I think greatly enhances the appeal of the service.
- Skyfire Is a fast, tight mobile browser. In the demo it let you click and watch Videos and all sorts of stuff that today feels like your wwatching paint dry while waiting for. If it is that fast and clean in the hands of real people in realtime environments, then we all want it. At least the "we all" that have become mobile devoce dependent and see the day when that device is our primary computer on the road often travelled.
- iVideotunes Is a music teaching system. People more musically adept than me say it is really great. But it scored a high note for me at DEMO because they brought John Oates of Hall & Oates onstage to demo it. He sang a few bars of "She's Gone" and then joined n on the DEMO jam session last night, whoch I skipped because I'm getting on in years and I need my sleep.
- SceneCaster introduced DreamWeaver, which allows people to easily embed virtual reality elements into a flat website. You can also use the 3D technology to wander from scene to scene by clicking on doors. I think that the promise of virtual world technology is still nascent. It's nice to see it starting to move beyond the realm of SecondLife into other applications.
- GreenPlug Green technologies are just starting to come into the marketplace. This is the best and most financially viable I've seen so far. GreenPlug is really a chip the creates a universal AC/DC power adapter than (I think) goes into the cord. Fr mobile users it means you'll have one charge chord for the 97 devices you travel with. For the planet, it means less electricity usage. For the company, I think it means money and lots of it.
- Flypaper of Phoenix lets anyone create a Flash Demo without programming which should appeal to anyone who wants to look cool online. The core tools are simple drag and drop that you can customize. PowerPoint was introduced in 1987. It hasn't much changed. Flypaper may be the one that finally kicks it aside.
- Vidyo is a teleconferencing system that lets people using disperate technology to all videochat in HD Quality. I liked it, but am not convinced that it is "more better" enough to replace Skype. They would argue they are after different customers: workgroups, collaborators, but it remains to be seen if the market will agree.
- Voyant is not a social media company and I wasn't really that fond of its presentation. But it allows a simple personal finance management system that I need and I think a whole lot of other people need. This product should be acquired by the Quicken folk at Intuit and hopefully soon.
I'm out of time. Please realize that this list is incomplete and is focused on social media. I hope the Twitter gods will allow me to report on the morning session of DEMO Day 2 which starts in 20 minutes.
