DEMO has become one of my ‘must attend’ conferences. In fact I opted to attend DEMOfall08 over Techcrunch50 and the Web 2.0 Summit in NYC. Here are a few reasons I attend this conference:
See the presentations: The technologies and solutions provide insight on trends and innovation that add invaluable perspective for me that I can use for consulting and shaping our offerings. I’ve suggested to many vendors and start-ups that they watch the DEMO presentation videos and develop the same presentation format. At DEMO each presentation is 6 minutes and PowerPoint is not allowed.
Identify partners: For brands it doesn’t make sense to build most of the engagement technology that applies to their campaigns and business. Leveraging ‘off the shelf’ solutions and SAS components lowers risk and reduces time to market. In most cases provide greater quality and functionality than could ever be achieved in a reasonable amount of time and investment.
Discuss business: Its a great opportunity to discuss business with like minded entrepreneurs. Regardless of what kind of product or service we are providing we all face similar challenges. Staffing, innovation, leadership, outsourcing, funding etc., a few ideas can go a long way. DEMO attracts very experienced and qualified people that have been around the block a few times.
There were too many great solutions to discuss in this article; I will go into more detail on some in the near future. If you are a die-hard technologist, investor, entrepenuer or media/PR person I suggest you register for DEMO09 - I’ll see you there.
Angelsoft announced today their new release of their angel investor marketplace. I’ve heard the complaint that there was the application/quality ration was far too low on Angelsoft so they have built in some great crowdsourcing tools that allows members to rate both applications and portfolios. They have also reduced the number of applications, or how many angels an entrepreneur can submit an idea to. They have also included a Google mashup showing deals by location and they have a comprehensive listing of angel investors that you can sort and search through - that alone is a great resource. Unlike many Web 2.0 sites; its not free but if you have a great idea and have done the leg work its certainly worth the $250 to sign-up.
Web 3.0 is commonly associated with semantic web technologies. Semantic web is all self-describing data defined by facets, predicates and authority… listing to the experts at MIT discuss the power of the semantic web can be dizzying. How can a regular Joe understand this? Here’s a great video explaining Parallax, a browsing interface designed by David Huynh. It demonstrates contextual connections made across data sets using Freebase; a global knowledge base of structured, searchable, writeable and editable information created by a community of contributors, and open to everyone.
Consumer voice, user generated insight, word of mouth, whatever you want to call it - what’s the use of a web page if it doesn’t engage the viewer in a way that is meaningful? Slantly is a new opinion poll community and web service that makes it very easy to conduct opinion polls. Slantly provides the features to start, contribute, read and otherwise engage in debates. Slantly not only tells you what topics are popular, but also how people feel about the topic. I’ve included an example below.
Web 2.0 and social media technology is adding tremendous value in the workplace. Enterprise solutions for collaboration and social networking in the workplace are lagging far behind, work groups are venturing on their own to and using products like Basecamp, Facebook and Twitter. If you are interested in putting social media solutions to work internally here are some exciting Enterprise 2.0 solutions. Continue reading »
The Web 2.0 technology brings together people from around the world to do more than just socialize. Crowdsourcing is a way to put them to work and innovative companies are creating great ways digital professionals can harness the power of diverse talent and resources. Here are 5 ideas to get you started.
Naming - namethis: namethis makes the otherwise time-consuming process of finding a market-ready name quick and painless. Why spend time and money gambling on the ideas of a few, when you can have the market bounce ideas off of you.
1. Someone posts a product or service in need of a name
2. namethis members suggesting names and/or invest points in their favorites
3. After 48 hours of namestorming, the system applies business intelligence to select the winners
Small multi-disciplinary teams are proven to build the best web experiences. Agency segmentation of creative, media, marketing, technology often makes it impossible to build effective online solutions. It appears the trend is continuing in the wrong direction with agencies outsourcing technology. This means that creative and marketing think up the next great Flash microsite and send the cookbook to China or Costa Rica to get built on spec.
This makes Web 2.0 innovation impossible. New technologies and frameworks, open source code, opportunities like OpenSocial and creating portable content that can “go where people are already” becomes impossible. Additionally there’s the great partnership opportunities; imagine the brand manager that partners with the next Facebook or Twitter before it gets big?
“You have to have world-class creative but you have to have world-class tech folks who can translate that into conversations,” said Kvamme, currently a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s leading VC firms. “…technology is a critical component for success.”
An early pioneer in interactive media, Dean Whitney is a Web 2.0 and Social media technology evangelist. Start-up veteran, President of Garfield Group Interactive a Boston-based digital agency.
