Simplicity was the kickoff theme as we went through a wide variety of demos this afternoon; all the way from virtual desktops for the enterprise to teaching music over the web. Chris Shipley noted that: "Simplicity on the other side of complexity. Making really hard stuff simple." A real cool demo was Sprout, that allows you to create flash widgets without being a flash programmer. Simplify, Simplify He wasn’t much of a technologist, but Henry David Thoreau had the right idea. We make our lives easier, and arguably better, by using products that wrap complexity and capability in simple designs and interfaces. DEMO will continue to beat the drum for practical products that work well, hide complexity, and make our professional and personal lives more enjoyable. Demonstrations by: LiquidTalk, Inc. Podcasting- better connect and engage mobile workers. Enterprise- manages content like recorded conf calls in easy to use interface. Synching technology - supports BBerry. Prod managers can assign different types of content to different employees. Can be used by reps (like Pharma reps etc.) Zodiac Interactive Mobile content for the TV web- Mobile on demand. Send coupons to mobile phone. Can see content bricks on TV then can push to phone. Find new content. Not just on TV, but on Blu-Ray consoles etc. and an API as well. Voyant, Inc. Do it yourself financial planning. Review2Buy, Inc. Review a free mobile price comparison product. Wine comparison with winereview.com reviews. Acesis, Inc. Simplifies healthcare records keeping. Built on Flex and Adobe Air. Templated forms for doctors to enter information/ patient records. Can customize without professional services because in effect, it is user-generated content on a CMS. blist, Inc. "Worlds Easiest Database" online application that has a more friendly UI for non-programmers. Competitors are DabbleDB , quickbase etc. [name is: WeBLIST] Content Made Easy As consumer-generated content become de rigor, we’ll want tools and techniques to create and deliver better looking, more stylish and professional content. Whether it’s presenting materials at work, delivering messages to friends and customers, or distributing content, these products give individuals the ability to communicate like pros. Demonstrations by: Flypaper, Inc. "Tell stories that stick on the web" bridges gap between PowerPoint and custom flash development. Using templates users can create rich flash animations that they can then upload to the web. GoldMail, Inc. "Voiceover messaging" - uses rich messaging in custom branded player. Recipients get an email then a link back to the site where they can view the content. Simple easy-to-use creation tool, which you then basically do a slideshow with voice-overs. Not as rich as the previous company in terms of impact, but there is an email tie-in automatically. Sprout, Inc. Web-based drag and drop environment for building flash files using Flex. It integrates with other web services such as Yahoo maps, Ribbit etc. Can publish and republish to popular platforms such as Facebook and blogger.. Can change the widget and republish and it updates wherever you have published it. It’s Easy Being Green Over decades, the technology industry has had a profound negative impact on the environment. With greater awareness, the industry is also poised to have a profound positive effect as well. We’re watching for products, technologies and services that are responsible to the environment and sustainable in the economy, with an eye toward a future DEMOgreen event. Demonstrations by: Green Plug, Inc. Is there a universal power adaptor?? Will recognize the device and just charge it. They sell a chip for free, software on the product side and they both recognize each other. Shuts off power when device does not need it. Celsias, Ltd. First online collaboration site for climate change projects. Easy to put up projects on the site and easy to join whatever projects users want. Revenue Model: (in addition to Google Ads), they want companies to use it for CSR projects for 29.99/month. On Research: Turning Ideas into InnovationsSponsored by The Kauffman FoundationAcademic research centers are fertile ground for discovery of some of the Next Very Big Things. With the support of the Kauffman Foundation, DEMO is again reaching deep into the academic community to identify innovators working on some very big ideas.Panelists: Steven M. Barlow , PhD., Professor, SPLH Programs in Neuroscience, Human Biology, and Bioengineering Director, Communication Neuroscience Laboratories, University of Kansas Ronald Indeck , PhD., The Das Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Washington University, St. Louis Yannis Papakonstantinou , Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering, University of California, San Diego and Founder, app2you.comThis discussion with the two academics went on a bit too long and I got the sense that audience was tuning out.Virtualization . . . Virtualization technology is at the center of more secure, more stable, more scalable IT infrastructure. These two products are leading that trend. Demonstrations by: Citrix Sytems Streaming virtual desktops- can roll out virtual desktops remotely with a instant on logon and no real difference than a physical installation. If users open a presentation the application is dynamically automatically provisioned to the virtual environment. StackSafe Virtualized pre-production testing. Trying to eliminate downtime in software applications. Cost effective staging and testing platform. …. In a Virtual World From virtual IT infrastructure to virtual entertainment . . . why indulge someone else’s second life when you can build a second, or third, life of your own? Demonstration by: SceneCaster First social media content creator to share within the browser in 3D. Sceneweaver creates new opportunities for 3D media on the web. Full in browser 3D experience. See it again for the first time You may think you know these products, but we invite you to take a closer look, as each demonstrator unveils a new aspect that brings new dimension and import to these emerging products. Demonstrations by: Livescribe, Inc. Smart pen - part of a mobile communications platform. Just begin writing on the special paper, and as you speak it records audio. You can scrub to the audio you recorded by just touching the area where you started speaking. It even does translation as you write! Books $5 each, 2Gb pen for $199. Neat! (see the video here- http://livescribe.com/smartpen/videos.html) Seesmic Can push video to twitter as well as seesmic.com. Their marketing material calls this "the twitter of video." Not too sure based on their demo (but a whole bunch of smart guys, including Arrington and Clavier have invested so what do I know?) MOLI, LLC "Next generation social networking sit" and can allow you to control multiple profiles in one account. Can permission each profile separately to allow access to each profile. Co-brand and whitelabel technology for Enterprises and SMBs. These companies can communicate with their customers. Can also add ecommerce as well (and the Moli doesn’t take a piece of the transactions!) Has reporting on visits, % gender etc. Also has video content. Like what else do they have? It seems like they have a lot of different pieces going on. Demonstration by: iVideosongs Brings innovation to music - "its all about the songs" they teach complete songs accuratelyIts about the people - the instructors present the songs as they were recorded. Original artists present the story behind the songs. Control - customers have complete control (non-DRM) to put it on their TV or mobile device.

The day is broken up into groupings and the first one is entitled: "We’re Not Just Conference Producers, We’re Customers"Every product we select for DEMO is intrinsically valuable. Each will find customers, from enterprise IT professionals at work to families and friends at home. Yet, in every screening cycle, we find a handful of products that we want or need for ourselves. Here are a few from this year's crop.Demonstrations by: TimeTrade Systems, Inc. Easy scheduling to market. Schedule Now button in an email gives opportunity for easy response to meeting requests. Web interface to make it easier. For the enterprise mkt. It is a Leading scheduler company with corporations like Schwab usingNeed to update web cal and integrates with Google Cal and Outlook, so you can see existing calendar options Iterasi, Inc. These days, can't save pages which are dynamically created- "Notarize" but couldn't one of the other app creators (or IE of FF) do this? How do they make money? Has search function as well. Can schedule a regular grab LiquidPlanner, Inc. Project management- capture and manage uncertainty on schedules. Can manage at product and the portfolio with prioritization. Has document and collaboration management and workforce management Citiport, Inc. Local (travel ) info, can interact and share info with locals. Not sure of the monetization or the competitive market for these services. LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. Tag Reading System- get kids 4-8 reading. Portable reader kids can use, download books and upload child use data. Works with real books. Tiny camera and can read print in books. can read along by scanning with the device, even works on the pictures. At retail buy the books and then go online and manage from a dashboard. Can upload data and see the learning path. Good demo and looks like fun (at least for parents!) http://Leapfrog.com/tag Skyfire Web-browser for mobile. Mobile on the phone is "so 1995" [What about the iPhone? What about flashlight?] It apparently brings the web version (not mobile version) to the phone. Supports JavaScript and all flash. Is it only Windows-based touchscreen phones? Fabrik, Inc. New apps on Adobe Air platform. Need for storage (40M ext hds shipped). How do I find my information? Provide a central location to see stuff, but leave it where it is. "Jaggle:" It virtualizes the location of your content; as well as ability to share stuff. Drag and drop from wherever the images are including music etc. Could provide a new way of thinking about peoples files; no more need to think of what PC or website its located on. SpeakLike, LLC Translation in chat window. Uses automated and human translators. Over time gets smarter and faster. Can do multi-lingual simultaneous translation. Pretty neat but question is with most of these hybrid services is how does it scale? STEP Labs Voice optimization for auto systems. Noise cancellation technology, but the demo didn't completely work. Needs a bit more work as the audio wasn't completely intelligible. NotchUp, Inc. Helps companies cost-effectively recruit. The best people currently have jobs, but they are not actively seeking new jobs. Lets recruits set an 'interview price' How do you get the word out to recruiters to use this? Can import LinkedIn profile. Probably pretty good for the tech crowd in the Bay area, but maybe limited appeal in other areas. Education.com Schoolfinder helps parents research schools. "Trustworthy" vetted answers to those questions 800 PBX, Inc. Personalized telephony service. With access to applications like weather and Yahoo. Speech recognition a bit like Jott? Commercial break with a Heinz commercial (Message in a bottle), which segues nicely into the next topic area called: Message in a Bottle"Well, maybe not in a bottle, exactly, but communication is the centerpiece of every modern application. These products drive to the vision of seamless, integrated communication capabilities for personal and business applications. Demonstrations by: Toktumi, Inc. Makes small business look big. Like an office phone system, but uses the PC with hosted services. But like a VoIP control panel, with more customization. Had some problems with the demo, getting the service running. Avistar Communications Corp. Video for unified communications. Can overlay web pages on a video call. Managing multi-party video. And also video enhancement Santrum Networks, Inc. ?? Movial Makes social media social. Integrates social media with telecomm. Instantly share social media with friends that are not connected on the PC. Ribbit Corp. Developers can add voice to their apps easily through APIs. Unified directory (through Plaxo). Connected to OpenSocial and pulls info about caller into the window for more detail. Interesting stuff; probably an acquisition candidate (remember GrandCentral?) LegiTime Technologies, Inc. Professional SMS client which improves utility of SMS for business Vidyo High quality video conferencing over general IP networks (because it was designed for the internet). Really impressive quality and a good review at GigaOm

Here is the schedule for the first day. People starting to arrive for first day's sessions. ['The number of iPhones here is pretty overwhelming, but I'd expect it with this crowd. ] Chris Shipley (Host and founder of Demo) gives a brief kick off talk: Her update on state of industry: ·         77 demos this week out of hundreds that applied; representative of the market and direction ·         Why 77? Not really driven by raw numbers, but only want to present best products and wide range of ideas ·         Can't just show Web2.0 products but it has to represent broader industry ·         All products are interrelated; Demo is about seeing connections where maybe none were apparent before. ·         All of us are driving new products and concepts, we create a new opportunity and put more demands on infrastructure or security etc. met by many of products here ·         More reliable CDNs, or security; whatever it is should be driven by customers ·         Software on the web often better than many of the business apps we use today; the general web and interface experiences have upped our expectation. Why the slow response and bad user experience from Enterprise tools like SAP? ·         We can get these web tools without a requisition, they are just available and people in the Enterprise are starting to use them as they help get work done more effectively (like Basecamp?!) ·         Communication- text, voice, video need to be part of all applications- seamlessly ·         We as consumers are challenging s/w and h/w providers to make it easier and easier. ·         We are defined by technology we use - but we need to drive good user experience for ourselves. The experience will matter more and more ·         How will you deliver experience to our customers?