Reporting from cocktail parties has never been my forte, in part because I don’t mingle easily but also because evolution has yet to overcome the challenge of taking notes while holding a plate full or finger food in one hand and a glass of cabernet in the other. Nevertheless, here’s what I think I learned last night at the DEMO welcome reception held literally outside my room (by coincidence, not plan) at the Sheraton Hotel & Marina in San Diego:
Flurry claims to bring Blackberry-like features to a big pile of ordinary cell phones – and its evangelists know how to find journalists at trade-show cocktail parties.
Jajah Mobile has one of those free phone services that sounds like a great deal if you speak frequently with someone in a faraway land. I’d like to tell you about the company’s business model but it flew right by me because the flight here cost me the hearing in my left ear (temporarily, I hope) and see above note-taking at social events.
Moixa Energy wants to change the world by letting people recharge AA batteries using their USB ports. As the fellow spoke of saving the planet all I could think about was saving a bundle on powering the kids’ toys. Does that make me a bad human being?
Teneros has raised a boatload of money – $44.5 million so far – and is here to show off a disaster-recovery appliance that will reportedly keep everything up and humming over your entire WAN. Of course, this being a cocktail party and all, what I remember most from the conversation was a Teneros exec joshing his company’s female PR professional that perhaps she was out of uniform because she wasn’t wearing black, pointy-toed shoes like so many of the other PR professionals.
The marina was jammed with spiffy yachts from up and down the California coast and places like Portland, Ore., and Seattle. Tucked in among them was a beauty from … Topeka, Kansas? I knew there had to be a story there, but alas, a fellow can handle only so much while balancing a plate and a cocktail.
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