Internet of Things

Today we spent most of the morning and into the afternoon packing up the kitchen and living/dining room as we are trying to get the house ready for the demo which is happening next weekend. I was pulling up some more baseboard and lo and behold found some more newspaper shoved behind the baseboard. This time however the baseboard seemed to be stuck in place with clear caulking, which made it somewhat more difficult to pull up. I think I know the cause  - around that time (1990) the federal government gave grants for “draft proofing” houses, so probably the old owners got a couple of tubes of caulking and put it down to try and reduce the gale force winds that whip through the walls. Problem is that the holes where the subfloor joins the walls are rather too large for caulking so the newspaper (The Toronto Star) was shoved in their to slow the air movement. “Hey if it was good enough for 1925” (when I think this house was built) “it’s good enough for us.”

I was pulling up some baseboard today in preparation for the new floor installation and tucked behind the baseboard near the front door was a Financial Post newspaper page from January 9, 1990. It was a Tuesday and some of the headlines include: "French advertiser Eurocom seeks international market;" "Japanese bring life to deteriorating British tire factory;" "Economist Wendy Dobson has international outlook." And my favorite: "Videonet arrives" - a story about how this Canadian offshoot of the American company Videonet will spend $2M in 1990 to introduce a range of services including banking, information, education and entertainment services using Bell Canada's Alex network. Interesting to see how this proprietary network never really got off the ground and was absolutely rendered inconsequential by the commericalization of the Internet.

Even thought I wasn’t able to attend this years Demo conference in Palm Desert, CA (which looks pretty good right now with our wind-chill this morning adding up to a balmy -27 degrees Celcius!). This year since I wasn’t able to attend I got online and used the live stream and facebook integration to see the presenters and get a real sense from the chatter on the facebook widget, what people thought of the presentations. As usual my hunches were right! There were a few demos that stood out for their value propositions (that is their approach to solve a customer pain point), and some which were not so good. Sometimes its just the presenter which is awkward; sometimes the product/service is something that you’d question the need for;  often a combination of both. I always like this conference as the pace and structure is different from most that you attend. It goes like this: there are sometimes 80 presenters over the 2 day event and each presenter gets 6 minutes on stage in front of all of the conference attendees to explain their product/service and demonstrate how it works. Hence the name “Demo.” This year it seemed like the energy level was a bit low compared to my previous visits and I won’t ascribe that to the economy, but maybe to the fact that Demo creator Chris Shipley is passing on the reins after this conference to Matt Marshall, co-executive producer. Here is a quick rundown on the morning’s sessions- Pixetel- adds voice and video interactivity to emails, plays in any browser. Users can also send as secure links / email. You can verbally and visually explain spreadsheets, drawings, designs, proposals… anything on your screen. This was something that people online in the chat seemed to think was interesting and even though has been done in other applications, its good to see it brought to email Rallypoint – End-end Enterprise crisis management platform, but through the demo, didn’t really get a clear sense of the service until almost the end of the presentation. Vokle-  This company’s service is about adding live communications to the web. It adds an ability to discuss news/submissions live sort of like a video chat room. [Might be good for an enterprise?] Gwabbit- We’ve all been there: cutting and pasting each line of a signature in an email to put into your address book. This service scans emails and moves contact info to address book with a single click, but isn’t this more of a feature than a service? Shouldn’t Microsoft buy them? CC:Betty- In an interesting approach to bringing some more innovation to the email application (since Gmail who has really changed the paradigm?) This service brings content and items from email to web interface (They called it Facebook for email). I think this could be a great app from a network point of view. Citrix-“GoView” – This company wants to make screen recordings so simple your mother could use the service. (Why is everyone so disparaging of mothers?) Its still not that simple to use. My mom would have walked away long ago. Zuora-  There are lots of Facebook apps and lots of Developers and the “Z-commerce platform” allows them to monetize their apps. But I guess the question is, how many people would want to pay for the apps? Document Depository Corp –  This application is all about managing important documents like Corporate Governance and legal processes. Important for sure, but didn’t get a sense of excitement from the demo. Home accounts – If consumers had this service before the credit crisis, maybe we wouldn’t be in such a state now. It gives applicants a sense of the most appropriate (re: money saving)  mortgage for their situation. They are independent and not funded by the banks so can give (hopefully) less biased advice. Zipadi- A publishing platform to convert paper catalogue to ecommerce site. Hmm, hasn’t this been done before? 7billion people- (weblegend) person sales tactics; can change tactics in real time. Click stream based analysis of behaviour and site customization. Neat and they demo’d using the Amazon site even though Amazon is not their customer. [How’d they do that?] Liquid media-personalize advertising not sure how it works- is it voice mail only? So a full slate in the morning and I will try to get a handle on the afternoon sessions as well.

Well another Demo has come and gone with a whirlwind of information and opportunities. There are a few things which I found at this year's session.  It seems like collaboration is no longer a nice to have but a feature that is really becoming standard when it comes to online products. Notably, Cozimo, LiquidPlanner and some others are taking it to a new level as they are allowing simultaneous work across multiple locations which points to the new, geographically dispersed nature of projects these days. And LiquidTalk allows simultaneous translation across differerent groups all within an IM client. Social media as a concept is also being rolled up into all products; so much so that Demo is going to stop having a separate grouping for these products. How's that for validation of a concept? Gadgets and devices are still around (even thought sometimes it feels like all the services are being delivered inside the browser). Livescribe's pen Livescribe's Pen. brings your voice (or any audio) to the printed page. Even translation of words into other languages! And for another audience alltogether (kids 4-8) Leapfrog's tag system (available Nationwide in June '08) gives little ones the ability to interact with books with audio and music with their pen-like reader. Green has to get bigger at Demo and the buzz around the pavilion was that having only two companies there representing the category was a real letdown. There have got to be more worthy companies out there (besides the great offering from Celsius and GreenPlug.) With the amount of monitors and cpu's buzzing over the sessions, there is growing awareness of the impact of this sector. Video is not just for broadcasters anymore and although we've know this for a while, there are a bunch of new tools out there (VisibleMeasures, TubeMogul) which help monetize and analyze online video for publishers, be they consumers or national brands. And of course, the web is a Web 2.0 (sorry couldn't resist) playground as everything is and can be, mashed up together. One service (Flypaper) even allows searching and viewing of flickr photos right from inside their application. Sprout brings the power of custom flash applications to a wider audience with their cool builder application which allows users to create cool flash apps right from inside their browser. No download needed. But my concern as always with these new services is how they will sustain themselves over the long term to support their rapid advancement and integration of really fantastic functionality. I have heard that funding for "Ad-supported" services has tapered off over the past 6 months or so, and if that is the case, what other type of subscription, transaction or other models are out there? For other views on this check out ZDnet and Rafe's column.

The last afternoon sessions are hard as a lot of people have mentally checked out, so it is hard to keep peoples attention. Some guys came out and smashed a server with a sledgehammer (that got people's attention) as well as one with a dog (yes, a real live dog) that fetched the presenter's slippers. (?) A couple of  highlights include Yoics which can connect formerly 'unconnected' devices like cameras and your pc to a mobile device. Not Business as Usual Forget heavy-weight applications, complicated deployments, and astronomical capEx bills. Software is getting out of the way and letting businesses small and large get things done. Demonstrations by:  KonoLive Instant collaboration. Keep working with the same applications you are used to. Immediate feedback from collaborators. Can see comments all at once of one at a time. Everyone's feedback stays on the same page. With Video, comments stay on the timeline. CHALEX Corp. Manage lifecycle of an asset from creation to deletion. Secure environment with SSL to upload images if required. Comments on each file and workflow. This is pretty boring and the interface looks pretty basic compared to some of the more flashy stuff I've seen here. Huddle.net This is funny, the guy has a Dilbert tie on. "Work sucks, but work with friends is better." Simple low cost collaboration solution. They have a Facebook app that embeds their workspace .  Open APIs so other developers can build on top of the collaboration features. Rove Mobile, Inc. Have 5000 customer for Mobile s/w for enterprises. PC mobilizer for consumers; see your desktop from your mobile phone. Access all files from your PC, wherever you are. Download and use right away, don’t have to learn anything new. Can also do things like edit files in photoshop right on your mobile (but really why would you want to?) But you can remote login to Support other PCs Catalyst Web Services, LLC Web based suite of integrated apps for SMBs, email, calendar, contacts, collaboration. Their suite works the way SMBs work. Unlimited user licence. Can define profiles for all levels. You can edit a excel document without installing excel.  No licences, no per seat, just pay on the amount of space used (10GB plan free for a year promo) Sterna Technologies, Inc. BPS - Business Positioning system. Basically a dashboard for how the business is doing (and some predictive features for seeing upcoming forecast) Strange demo; had a dog on stage to fetch his slippers. Cute dog, but not clear why he was on stage?   The Infrastructure for Next-Generation WebToday’s Web delivers applications and services in type and volume well beyond those initially imagined by those who designed the protocols, laid out the infrastructure, and conceived the use cases that would be the modern Web.  These new applications are stressing the capabilities of the Internet, so new technologies are coming to the rescue to retrofit the Web to support next-generation applications.Demonstrations by: Asankya, Inc. Real-time media content delivery. Optimizes real-time traffic on IP.. Can do HD and live streaming. Prioritizes packets to that experience don't drop. Multipath technology to deliver better experience. Can also handle two way traffic. Optimizes upstream capacity as well. Can be used for video conferencing or broadcasting. Launching new network (Hypermesh network). Can also deliver to home theatre (working with CE companies) Kaazing Corp. Technology behind stockmarket. 20 year old tech, but reliable, and scalable. Web is 1 way communication (but you can fake it - like meebo). True 2-way communication platform. If you have to send  a msg to 100k users you have to send it 100k times; theirs can send one message. Can turn anyone of the nodes into servers. Not sure I really get this one… the demo didn't really go across that well Nirvanix Guys brought a server onstage and smashed it with a sledgehammer… Cool! Distributed storage in the cloud. "Storage Delivery network" Media transcode built into the service so you could serve a handset as well. Freedrive uses them (free 1 GB storage) Facebook app. Transcode automatically to flash to play in the browser. "Akamai + Storage + service." Squidcast Can deliver high quality video over the internet. Guys are doing a parody of the Mac/PC ads, complete with music. PC guy looks lame. With current services, can't send big video files. Start with browser; create a package in Squidcast; and type email address of recipient. Drag video straight to browser. Click send. Completely free because they use a portion of users resources. Cloud computing environment. Yoics, Inc. Take network connected devices and make them available on the net.  Secure client that looks like an IM client. Converts a PC folder to a virtual web server. Dedicated secure connection PC to PC. TVersity- you can access this music app over the web. Can view your PC files on mobile device. Can also access devices such as cameras. Can unplug and replug device somewhere else and it will still be live.       Search PartyThe search market is moving in two directions:  one leverages human know-how to curate content, the other tunes smart algorithms to identify and categorize content into discernable results.  We explore both as viable means to find the needle of information in the haystack that is the repository of the Internet.Demonstrations by:  Delver Takes social search to a new place. Gets results from your personal network. Problem is that results may not be authoritative because your friend may not be the best source of info on "non-social" topics. HealthPricer Interactive, Ltd. Aggregator of health care products. Expedia of health products. Comparison shopping service. "No body owns health shopping space." Need vertical expertise of how people purchase and the products. They don't transact, but they refer and can track data and clicks through their site. Eyealike, Inc. Copywrited items search on the web.  Find images (faceial recognition), and video as well. Problem: Studios can not identify their material in User Generated content and sharing sites. A variety of techniques to identify the content. Extracts visual information from the content. Kinda creepy the way it can zero  in on content really effectively Silobreaker, Ltd. Gives ability to put context around context with a variety of tools, like trends. Neat network diagram and ability to drill down in search. Definitely a hit with the geeky search crowd. Circos.com, Inc. Extracts opinions from authoritative sources to organize searches. Search with a brain and a heart. Creates a guide - results that match the preference with a rating. "Me-Centric search." Jodange, LL Provides a sentiment analysis of commentary on the web. Problem: Too much information, but difficult to find what you want by keyword. Track opinion and sentiment about topics.

Not really.There were the requisite B2C startups and also a lot of Enterprise or B2B companies in this session, but an interesting comment from Chris Shipley in that there is currently a category for “Social Media Companies” which will be dropped in the next event as this is becoming not a separate category, but integrated into every product that will be demo-ing in the future. The Revolution Will Be Broadcast on the WebThe demand for rich video content places big demands on content producers and the networks that distribute their product. It also opens the imaginations of individuals to become creators as well as consumers of video content.Demonstrations by:   BitGravity Make internet powerful for delivering media. Experiences that rival television but are compelling because they are interactive. First broadcast quality content delivery network. Live video streaming HD, affordable and scales. Flash client , not download. Can use it as a DVR. Fast channel change as well. Good demo. Cozimo.com Collaboration of filmmakers and clients. Markups that are designated by contributor, can chat and respond. Quite a few attributes and features. Can step thru all notifications on the timeline. xtranormal Gives avatars new life. From templates can do things like a talk show with avatars. Has preset actions and this is all in browser! And you can scan in pictures and map them on the avatars. "Movie making in a box" Capzles, Inc. Social storytelling - empowers anyone to create multimedia stories. Time-based emphasis. Can be used by consumer brands to tell a story.  The Social WebIt’s redundant, really.  Since the first pages were linked, people have been the driving force of the Web.   The difference is that today, people – rather than pages – are the center point of every application.  The Web really has become the greatest social experiment ever attempted.Demonstrations by: HubDub, Ltd. Prediction markets, aggregation and social networking. Weird demo start with props (entrails and magic 8-ball). Predictions or forecast on how news stories will develop. EG who will get the republican nomination? Given $1000 virtual dollars to make a prediction. Can will virtual dollars. Users are news participants. notebookz.com, Inc. Connects users to others research on the web. Place and tools to discover others research on the web. Goes out and looks at other collections of information on the web. Sort of like del.icio.us but allows cutting and pasting as well of text. atlaspost.com Social mapping network. Putting houses on a google maps mashup   And the Revolution Will Be Paid for by AdvertisingYou thought you’d escape advertising by shifting your viewing from television to the Web.  Think again. And as Web video ads gain momentum, tools to manage and measure video advertising are in demand.Demonstrations by: Liquidus Corp. On Demand Marketing. Production and distribution of video to channels. Pulls images from the web in turns them into flash videos. TubeMogul, Inc. Ratings for video. Content creators can upload video to the site and the metadata. Can then push it out to the video sites in one click. Saves time in uploading etc. provides a single dashboard for tracking/stats. Can analyze demographics of audience. Helps provide more metrics for doing deals to get advertisers for content on line. Visible Measures Corp. Measure behaviour of internet video audience. Can see what people do in each video like replay, rewind or leave the video. Good for advertisers to see also how other sites pick up the videos and blog posts feature the ad. Can also see geo-location who is seeing the video.   At your ServiceTechnology should just work.  But, of course, it doesn’t.  We’ve become incredibly dependent on technologies that are inherently frail.  Whether an IT profession responsible for maintaining the infrastructure or you or me needing to keep our own computers running, we’ll all be gratified to see new scrutiny paid to the important area of product service and support.Demonstrations by:   support.com Remote support. Pc health check does a scan of the pc to look at where problems exist… What about if the PC is offline and they have to download the app? Gives a report using traffic signals and  colors. Then gives a huge list of things that could be fixed. Looks a little overwhelming at first, but gives a description of what each would do to fix. Pathworks Software Corp. Customer service. Application called help stream. Customer service is hard to do cost-effectively. Looks like aggregation of web results, community and KB. Its also Free  !?…Not sure how they do this… SupportSpace, Inc. Community based tech support market space. Community can then engage experts based on their profile and rating. Can do desktop sharing.  A Different Spin on ServiceService is also what we do for others and this demonstrator is all about helping people find volunteer opportunities in their local communities.Demonstration by: good2gether, Inc. Reinventing philanthropy. People want to get involved and it makes it easier to recruit the volunteers. It is free and the local non-profits can sell ads. Can share to facebook and email invites out to others. Hyper local content that can be monetized with partners. Connecting people.  

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?

I got in today after a bumpy ride into Palm Springs due to the remnants of some bad weather they had on the weekend so some coverage of some of the companies presenting here this week. A few that I will be talking to include a content delivery network startup called BitGravity for a while (and also Squidcast which allows users to share HD video in a P2P environment!) and definitely Ribbit which allows developers to add voice quickly and easily to their applications. It "lets you make and receive multi-protocol calls via Flash-based phones, provides speech-to-text message transcriptions and provides an open message management environment - all built using Ribbit’s open APIs. " I will have to ask them about their business model... Giga Om's NewTeeVee has some Day One coverage here. Demo is trying something a bit different this year; along the lines of CES they are trying assemble some companies around the "Green" concept; but there are only two of them this year. Sounds like they are going to start up a potentially new conference in the future called "DemoGreen" but have to wait and see how that pans out. My question is around the whole impact of this show. Given that it is in the desert and most of the companies here are using electricity to power their demos, could the show have considered some offsets to somehow mediate their impact on the environment? Aren't most shows doing something like this now?