DEMOfall07

A DEMOgod award is nice, but...

Jason Meserve — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 11:54:17 -0400

My favorite moment from this week's DEMOfall 2007 event: Patriots owner and matchmine backer Robert Kraft comparing his 2004 Super Bowl ring to a DEMOgod award:

Um, not quite! You can see the video of matchmine's technology and Kraft's comments here.

DEMOfall07 Day 1 videos

Keith Shaw — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:45:16 -0400

Day 1 of DEMOfall produced a number of interesting new companies, and we've got the videos to help you catch up on the best of Day 1, including: * Matchmine grows from Patriot roots Matchmine lets users take their tastes and preferences profile with them to multiple sites with technology spawned from the New England Patriots. Featuring Bob Kraft and the 2004 Super Bowl Ring. * Favorite five from Day 1 of DEMOfall My favorite five companies and technologies (other than matchmine) demonstrating on Day 1 of DEMOfall 2007. Companies include: Propel Software, MotionDSP, LiveMocha, Vyro Games and Ncursion.

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DimDim CEO: "WebEx is history"

Keith Shaw — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:49:30 -0400

Best opening line of a DEMOfall07 demonstration so far: "WebEx is history." Given by DimDim CEO DD Ganguly. Usually statements like that are audience-grabbing bravado, but after watching the DimDim presentation, the statement might have some grains of truth behind it. DimDim announced its free and open source Web meeting service. It has no software to download for attendees, and includes 2-way audio and video features for holding collaborative meetings. Even if the people at WebEx aren't shaking in their boots at this statement, the possibility of free Web meetings for consumers and other small business owners will definitely be appealing. Worth a look if you've been concerned about the costs of Web meetings.

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Start-up challenges Cisco WebEx

Cisco Subnet — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:09:07 -0400

The blogosphere is abuzz with Dimdim, a Burlington, Mass., start-up that the bloggerati is saying will be a challenger to Cisco's WebEx and Microsoft Placeware. The start-up is being launched at DEMOfall07, happening this week in sunny San Diego.

Dimdim is already swimming in a $2.5 million injection from Draper Richards, Index Ventures and Nexus Capital India.

Vccircle.com writes:

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Video everywhere at DEMOFall 2007

Jason Meserve — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:26:58 -0400

The Internet video revolution is in full swing here at DEMOFall 2007 in beautiful San Diego (social networking is too, but other than Flickr, I'm not a big social networks guy.) Here are the highlights:

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Mining ideas for money

Keith Shaw — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:04:08 -0400

At least three companies here at DEMOfall07 are relaying the concept that ideas are valuable. Fluid Innovation (its Virtual Ventures offering), Advanta's IdeaBlob Web site and the new spigit Enterprise site attempt this in different ways, but all are basically asking users to submit ideas, offer advice or comment on ideas in the hopes that the "wisdom of the crowds" will prevail and a good idea will emerge. Whether these sites succeed, of course, is all up to the value of the ideas presented. After its stage presentation, I went to the Ideablob site and saw that one of the "ideas" posted was for a combination mechanical bull / karaoke machine. Initially, finding a good idea by yourself seems a bit daunting, but the value of these new services is that the community at large begin to start vetting the ideas, eventually building value for the idea, whether it's a karaoke mechanical bull, or something that may eventually be developed. Rewarding participation in these sites is also interesting – Fluid Innovation offers rewards like "leaderboards," Spigit offers "virtual badges", and Ideablob offers a monthly $10,000 prize for the best idea. Guess which site I'll end up participating in?

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DEMOfall game: Count the iPhone references

Keith Shaw — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:43:42 -0400

DEMO executive producer Chris Shipley made a small joke after one of the presentations, asking audience members to start counting the number of demonstrators that reference the Apple iPhone. So far we're up to 3.... and it's only 9:42 a.m. Pacific time. I'm thinking at least double-digits by the end of the show, although we should also be counting the number of Facebook applications or references too.

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DEMOfall: Video moves to the desktop

Keith Shaw — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:11:35 -0400

One of the early themes here at the show is a bunch of "widgets" that allow users to search videos and other multimedia content directly from the widget instead of a browser. Both ClipBlast! And MetaRADAR showed off desktop apps that aggregate a bunch of video clips for viewing in the application instead of launching another multimedia player. I'm not sure if this will cause people to give up their browsers altogether, but it's an interesting trend developing.

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DEMOfall07 about to begin

Keith Shaw — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:34:58 -0400

We're about an hour away from the start of the DEMOfall07 conference here in San Diego, where about 70 companies will take the stage launching their products upon the world. If you can't wait until the news starts trickling out, take a look at some of our preview stories: * Enterprise companies launching at the show. * Tracking the 'cool stuff' at DEMOfall.

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Football team owners invest $10M in online community, ecommerce company

Layer 8 — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:38:19 -0400

The Kraft Group – owners of the New England Patriots -- is investing $10 million in series A financing in matchmine, a Massachusetts-based company whose genesis came from work done with the Patriots football team.

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