ForbesOnTech

"Plucky" Technologies From DemoFall08-- Infovell and HeyCosmo.com

I have my own special category of companies that appear at Demo and leave lasting impression. For want of a better word, I call my own unique category “Plucky Companies.”

            Plucky companies have the technological wherewithal to find one or more niches that are underserved by market leaders and then dig in and build.

 

InfoVell Goes Against Stiff Competition With Better technology

 

            And at the top of my “Plucky Companies” list from DemoFall08 is Infovell, whose deep web search engine can be found at www.Infovell.com.

            I had two lengthy conversations with the company and experienced one of the best overviews of a new technology I’ve ever had from a Demo presenter.

            Infovell’s technological proposition is very straightforward: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other search engine sites deliver topical results quickly, but most often fail to rapidly deliver information on a subject that hidden in the “deep web.”  Infovell discovers and delivers information from the “deep web” and provides its users with a good basic set of software tools for organizing retrieved data or conducting searches using more than limited combinations of words or superficial phrases.

            Infovell has several other features that demonstrate the plucky vision of its founders:  first it’s initially being marketed to specific categories of academic and life sciences researchers; Secondly, its founders recognize that there are huge opportunities with organizations such as HMO’s and business media for specialized search that yields results that are easily assembled, categorized and shared.

            Every time I saw a demonstration of Infovell’s search I immediately pictured it being offered on my HMO’s site (Kaiser Permanente) as a tool to better understand my specific health issues. I also thought it was a natural product that could be used on sites such as those run by Forbes Media or other investment related properties.

                        In the long run, Infovell will face competition from Microsoft and Google, both of which are working on deep web search. That competition will help this

Menlo Park,CA, Startup, since it creates an early acquisition path. My one suggestion for improving this product would be to add an Ajax-based set of publishing tools.

HeyCosmo—Making Event Planning and Personal Concierge Easier and More powerful

Also on my list of DemoFall08 Plucky companies was HeyCosmo.com, from Arsenal Interactive Inc. of

Sunnyvale

,

CA

. This web-based personal concierge and event planning service made it on my list because it delivers on promises made by earlier cratered giants like Cosmo.com.

            Hey Cosmo incorporates several services on one site and the sum of its parts—event planning and personal concierge services redefine several categories of services.

            As an event planner for small groups, HeyCosmo lets users, organize and create meet-ups easily with an email, server-based VOIP component called “Blast.” This feature turns my text-based invitations into VOIP-queries delivered in a friendly voice.

Key-pad based responses then show up on my event-related screen. The ability to delegate tasks associated with the event is well supported in HeyCosmo’s Blast module. It also creates real-time event reports showing the status of invitations,  and what tasks people have agreed to perform.

            The Personal Concierge module uses some of the same technology as Blast but adds the ability to create task related, follow-on queries. For example, let’s say you wanted to have dinner with a few friends at a Brazilian-style restaurant in a holiday destination site.  HeyCosmo’s personal concierge module would call restaurants that met your particular culinary tastes and ask their host or hostess if they could accommodate a reservation for x-number of people at various times. The restaurant host, or hostess  then pushes a telephone key corresponding  to availability and the results woare returned to the requesting person.  I also like a feature that generates a confirmation phone call to the restaurant after the person who requested the reservation approves the transaction.

            Arsenal Interactive’s HeyCosmo.com integrates enough features to make it a stand out among numerous larger competitors. Moreover, its interface ands the underlying power of its combined applications makes short shrift of complex, often vexing, tasks.

            Looking out, I think HeyCosmo has tremendous potential, providing Arsenal interactive catches the attention of Google, whose mobile information service cold benefit from this application. ‘There are several other regional licensing plays for HeyCosmo, including licensing by chambers of commerce for Seasonal or other holiday destination sites, or resort timeshare management organizations. 

           

            Talk about Pluck, HeyCosmo and Infovell have it to spare.—Jim Forbes 09/26/2008.

(Mandatory disclosure: before retiring I was the founding producer of Demo

Mobile

– now known as DemoFall—and co-produced the annual Demo conference held in in the first quarter of every year.)

Collaborative Computing, Protecting Your Smart Phone and Adding Fun to Planning Travel--More Great DemoFall08 Companies

Securing Your Phoneand, its Data While Making life a Living Hell for Thieves

Maverick Mobile Solutions’ Secure Mobile was one of the best mobile technologies at DemoFall08. Designed to protect strategically critical and personal information on your mobile phone, this company’s software thwarts cell phone thief’s efforts to rip off you data and adds a delicious dark twist to cell phone security. Unlike most cell phone security software, Secure Mobile doesn’t live in the SIM, but sits in a cell phone’s hidden mode and supports data replication, device tracking, data retrieval, mobile phone disablement and a clever feature called “Spy Call.”

            Secure

Mobile

is one of a handful of technologies I revisited in DemoFall’s pavilion several times. Every time I left their demonstration, I was smiling.

            What I really love about it is its abilities to mess with a thief. Specifically, once you use activate Secure Mobile from a remote device you can physically track your phone, see what calls and SMS text messages have been made and received, and remotely disable the device.

            But the frosting on this technological cake is a feature that remotely turns on the microphone and speaker of the stolen phone and lets you listen on to the thief’s calls or view their SMS and text messages. But wait there’s more!

            When you’re ready to escalate your personal war against the thief, you can send an SMS to the stolen phone that makes it play a very loud siren or customized message/sound. Secure

Mobile

will begin shipping in mid September initially for the Symbian mobile phone operating system and will be available on Nokia’s and Maverick Mobile’s website.

            Although mobile commerce has yet to take off in the

US

, it’s an important component driving sales of smart phones in most of the world.  I believe Secure Mobile will go on to become a Demo-launched technology that raises a new standard in an important technology.

Furthermore, it’s difficult to imagine why a mobile network operator would not offer this company’s technology as part of a premium or basic replacement policy. Organizations with enterprise contracts with network providers would be pleased not only automated back up[ of data on smart  phone, but also mechanisms that maintain the sanctity of that data.

Keep your eye on Maverick Mobile Solutions, they could be the DemoFall08 company to watch in the mobile category.

            But, I really love the idea of mobile phone technology that protects my data and which also allows me to also play with a theif’s mind and lifestyle!

TravelMuse—A new Way to Organize and book Travel

TravelMuse was another company at DemoFall08 I liked. Designed to help you organize vacations or ay other type of trip according to your personal needs, TravelMuse incorporates booking, social media, and organizational tools that let its users gain tighter control over travel.  I liked this site’s interface and capabilities, both of which are powerful and instinctive.

            Most of my travel plans today are of the “it would be really nice to go to…” type.

Like millions of other people if I want to take a recreational trip, I have to plan it months in advance and put up with the rigid structure of existing travel sites. What Travel Muse does that I like is that it lets me save and share the various disjointed things that motivate my desire to travel. A real world for example: I have a life-long interest in

Colorado

and

California

gold mining. Expedia can get me to

Pueblo

and

Saguache

,

CO

, very easily, but what they don’t do is let me readily share the hundred or so megabytes of historical research I have with someone I want to accompany me on that trip this fall. TravelMuse reaches into my address book and lets me share my arcane information very easily, communicating updates and other elements of my trip with minimal user intervention.

            But more importantly TravelMuse appears to be able to help me stay within my extremely tight budget and still have an enjoyable trip.

            The sheer amount of useful destination information onTravelMuse.com reduces much  guesswork in making travel plans. The reservation and booking side of TravelMuse is through Travelocity.

            My reaction to TravelMuse is very favorable. I wish it had been around a little sooner, before I was locked into my current arrangements for a fall trip to

Colorado

’s

San

Luis

Valley

and mining district towns on the west slope of the

Rockies

. Be that as it may, I have about 300,000 air miles banked and a compelling interest in castles in the

UK

.  I’ll probably try travel Muse to organize and plan that trip early in the spring of 2009.

OpenACircle Blows Open the Concept of Collaborative Computing

While I’m on the topic of products with great user interfaces, OpenACircle.com just blew me away. OpenACircle.com is a collaborative environment designed for small and mid-sized groups. Unlike other collaborative software or web-based applications, OpenACircle.com is simple enough that anyone can begin using it within minutes and easily track presentations, conversations or other elements of a collaborative project. Up to three cameras and one desktop can be displayed onscreen at  once.  Adding users, including their video input is a snap and requires a minimum of user intervention.

     But what I really love about OpenACircle.com is its ability to archive information and its extreme flexibility, features that help groups track commitments to overall tasks or discrete projects associated with specific tasks or projects. As conversations evolve in this collaborative environment individual users have the ability of initiating and participating in one-on-one video sessions.

I’m unaware of any collaborative environment that has the same feature set as OpenACircle. It sets a new standard, it’s free, and it can be put to work in minutes.

            It’s not difficult to imagine OpenACircle.com quickly finding large groups of users in small business or medium-sized businesses, not-for-profits, college study  groups (where I think it would be an instinctive natural application  for law school or other specialized graduate school curricula).  The only problem I have with OpenACircle.com is trying to imagine a single category of people working on a common task that can’t or shouldn’t use it.

            And I’ll be among the  people that use it vey shortly as I organize a group of like-minded

California

amateur historians interested in studying post Gold Rush immigration patterns and related economies in 19^th Century

California

.

            There are a great many other DemoFall08 companies I intend to look at and write about  as well in the coming days.—jim Forbes, 09/12/2008.

new Approaches to Digital Media Highlights DemoFall08's First Day

  DemoFall08 companies danced their way to life on Monday by with launches of new technologies that provide consumers with easier ways to share and organize photos, effortlessly copy and transport personal entertainment files, stay connected with business colleagues, friends and family, and a locate and disable lost cell phones.

            And that’s just the top of the goody list of products that were launched on the first day.

            At the head of my list is Honolulu startup Blue Lava’s ILovePhotos, an application that redefines an raising the table stakes for digital photo sharing. Among the many things that make ILovePhotos stand out head and shoulders above other photo sharing applications are its superb interface, embedded intelligence and ability to help users make sense of the digital photos that now sit unused but stored on computers.

            The heart of ILovePhotos is software that recognizes individuals in single or group settings.  After loading an image, the user identifies individuals in the files by entering their name or other meta file information such as the location, time or event associated with the photo.  Blue Lava’s application is integrated with your address book to shorten data entry. Once basisc information has been associated with a photo the software then is ready to recognize the individual or individuals in the photos based on photogrammetric measurements of the subject’s facial characteristics. Thereafter, the person can be identified in future photos or in images that have been previously stored on a computer. This application also incorporates a feature that alerts identified subjects that a new photo they may be interested in has been located and can be sent to that person with little or no further user intervention.

            There is no other photo sharing software that has this program’s capabilities. The first time I saw ILKovePhotos,  my initial reaction wasn’t that it was just the best application for making use of stored photos clogging my external hard drive, but rather that it would make an ideal tool that law enforcement or other government agencies could use to identify subjects of interest and their colleagues.

            After watching this company’s presentation I don’t think there’s a single member of the audience that didn’t understand this privately funded company’s proposition.

            Phototrade .com is of another of the digital photo sites that emerged at this year’s DemoFall08 conference. What set this start-up apart in an otherwise crowded market is its niche;  an online drive in the sky that allows amateur and professional photographers  organize and make money on their photos.

            I like the way Phototrade.com provides a like simple mechanism for licensing photos including limiting how, where and when photos can be used. I also the think features that make it almost impossible to steal intellectual property and its support olf custom watermarking are important enough that other photo sharing sites should offer the same feature.

            There were two companies at DemoFall with technologies that let consumers send and manage the delivery of photos in off-site electronic photo frames.

            YouGotPhoto is designed to work with Wifi-enabled digital picture frames; anx is is an “open” application; which means it’s not limited to digital frames made by one or two manufacturers. I also allows the user to send digital photos to multiple recipients with a minimum of user intervention. The company’s web site is: www.yougotphoto.com

            Trinity Convergence’s solution to image sharing for digital photo frames is another approach to this problem  I liked:  this Durham, NC,  company launched GLOOP, software that lets digital photo frame makers provide their customers with a mechanism for transferring and sharing photos in peer-to-peer networks without needing a personal computer, although the “manager” of digital imaging frame networks, does need a PC, to store and initiate image transfers. Features of an advanced version of Gloop also allow users to chat using VOIP technology and share photos using so-called “buddy lists.”

            Gloop also supports RSS feeds.

New Approaches to DVDs and personal video channels

            DemoFall’s first day program also had several ground breaking multimedia and video demonstrators.

            The one company that really caught my eye and made me want to subscribe was  

RealDVD, from Seattle-based Realnetworks. Why RealDVD is an obvious stand out is because it nrovides me with a completely legal way to save my personal DVDs in a format and file size that’s extremely portable. Priced at only $29.95 for one PC, RealDVD works with most popular browsers for the Windows operating system. 

            The interface for this application is intuitive and it links back to movie databases to provide DVD cover art to identify your stored movies. I also like the way RealDVD lets me organize and categorize my movies in whatever fashion is suited to y tastes.

            BeeTV (www.BeeTV) was another stand out.  It allows me to create and manage “personal channels” to create a highly tailoired viewing experience that’s tailored not to just what I tell it I want to watch, but also what I actually watch.

The net effect of this Israeli startup’s technology could be to create and maintain  a strong personal relationship between  he broadcast operator and the viewer.

It’s time to see some more companies and I’ll post again later.—Jim Forbes on 09/09/2008

Mandatory disclosure: I was the founding producer of Demo Mobile, the  forerunner of DemoFall and worked co-produced Demo with Chris Shipley.

DemoFall 08 Trends-- Watching Well Rehearsed Symphony Players Warm Up

My favorite part of Demo, which officially kicks off tomorrow morning in San Diego

is the day and night before the event.

            The day before the event begins has always reminded me of being able to watch and listen to a symphony orchestra, practicing the major elements of a favorite work.  Wandering around, you have the chance to say “Hi!” and chat with friends and colleagues from year’s past.

            You also get the chance to glimpse groups of hopeful entrepreneurs going through their on stage pitches, trying hard to get everything they think they need to say in six short minutes,

            It’s this part of Demo that I love the most. I’m most often awed the by amount of hard work entrepreneurs and others put into their presentations. And all the while the producers and staff of Demo, soldier on at a quick step pace, making sure everyone is kept abreast of what they need to do and when it needs to be done.

            I devote The day before Demo begins to meeting with demonstrators, watching them practicing their on-stage presentations, and then spending a few moments to think about what I’ve just seen and provide a little constructive feed back and small doses of humor to burnish the edges of demonstrators’ “I’m-presenting-on-Monday” jitters.

            I met with more than 100 people today in a little over six hours. And came away with the following:

            The 70-plus demonstrators are a good snapshot of the current entrepreneurial economy.

            There are a few important trends that emerging at DEmoFall08.

            Improving the user experience is as important as new features.

            Existing category leaders are being challenged by technological upstarts with products that exploit profit segments that have been underserved and overlooked. There’s money and exit strategies to be had competing against the giants.

            Apple is still attracting top-flight developers interested in expanding the capabilities of the iPhone and iLife software suite. There are a couple of outstanding new products for the Apple platforms that are must sees at DemoFall08.

If you’re following Demo on the web or at the show, pay close attention to products that let you control your data and provide new mechanisms to guarantee its privacy. This applies equally to physical and intellectual assets.

There are several demonstrators with new technologies that increase the capabilities of mobile devices and one company that has a devilishly wonderful for protecting your mobile phone.

            The current economy has not stopped entrepreneurs from developing products that are aimed at important categories in the enterprise space.

            One of the things I’ve come to enjoy the most about Demo is entrepreneurs who introduce products that reflect real world professions outside of technology.  And there are several at Demo who have first-hand experience with framing hammers, nail guns and cordless tools.

            As someone who just recently completed a major remodel, I’m encouraged by software that lets homeowners plan, manage and conceptualize addition or remodeling projects.

              DemoFall 08 kicks off tomorrow and I’m waiting for Chris Shipley to strike the baton on her podium and dance her way into thew two-day program. I’ll be there with an 11-hour charge on my portable, a big fat wireless data pipe and a plan to make several posts.  Got a question about products at the show?  Drop me an email at the link on my blog or ping me on twitter.—Jim Forbes on 09/07/2008.

What It's Like to Produce a Demo Event-- making Attendees and Demonstrators Happy

Putting together a Demo show is a little like trying to pet an anxious panther stuck in a hurricane.

The job begins up to ten months before the event when you first meet entrepreneurs with new products and continues with final selection in the weeks before program, company information as well as the final agenda are due at the printer.

            The hardest part of producing an event like Demo is picking companies. Ironically, Selection is also the most enjoyable part of producing Demo. The easiest technologies to pick are those which are the most disruptive. Or, those that simplify tasks that seem overly complex.

            Some of the most difficult selections are companies with products that simplify existing tasks. However, to me these were some of the most important companies selected to show products.

            Let me give a specific example: in late 2000 I became aware of a small company in Dana Point, CA, that had a technology for pushing operating and other software updates to mobile computing devices. Other more established companies had fully developed platforms that did the same thing, but this small company had an incredibly efficient technology that was virtually transparent to the consumer and which could be easily implemented across multiple platforms. I selected the company in the weeks before our program went to the printer and worked with this company on their presentation.

            The company was Digital Transit, and it was acquired by another company in a deal that came together in the Demonstrator’s Pavilion. Today, this company’s technology is used extensively by Hewlett Packard for updating.

            Looking back at my Digital Transit example also gives me a chance to talk about an intangible part of company selection: trying to figure out if the company has a valid exit strategy or if it’s doomed to whither on the technological vine. I was pretty confident that Digital Transit would be quickly acquired. It was a good assumption on my part.

            What set Demo apart for me was the ability to travel to go see companies that might not otherwise have made the trek to our office. Good company selection means that a producer has to be visible not only in

Silicon Valley

, but in other technology venues, worldwide. Throughout its long history, there’s been no shortage on non-US companies at Demo.  By and large those companies have been indentified by event producers such as Chris Shipley or me getting on a plane and schlepping through Asia, the

UK

,

Australia

,

New Zealand

, or

Israel

.

            Venture capitalists in the

US

and elsewhere have been quick to get their companies to pitch Demo producers.  But, as many VCs have discovered, companies are picked based on their technologies, not on the pedigrees of their founders or financial backers.

            One more thing.It would have been easy to make better numbers on my event by stuffing the show with more demonstrators. That would have been the wrong decision and by limiting selection to “game changing” companies producers enhance the value of the event for general attendees, demonstrator companies and most all the press (which includes bloggers).

            Once a company has been selected the real work begins.  Every company is given a Demonstrators handbook outlining expectations, rules and milestones. Also, demonstrator companies are told to review videos of previous demonstrators.

            There’s a significant amount of hand holding throughout this process, which I believe goes a long way to making a Demo event that’s as memorable for the demonstrators as it is for the attendees. To not spend time working with demonstrators on their presentations is a huge mistake. It can irreparably damage a brand and create a bad experience for attendees, the press, as well as  demonstrators.

            Once the final segment is over, it’s time to take a short breather and start selecting companies for the next event.

            Next week could be a watershed for entrepreneurs and young companies.  Combined, There are about 200 companies launching at Demo here in

San Diego

and at TechCrunch50 in

San Francisco

.  The total number suggests to me that no matter what the outcome of the forthcoming elections, now is a good time to be a technology entrepreneur.

            It’s been five years since I retired, but I still miss producing Demo events.  If you want to show me your company’s technology email me  at the address listed on my blog, or look me up at Demo.—Jim Forbes 09/04/2008.

Mandatory disclosure: I produced and co-produced more than 12 Demo events and segments and wrote and edited the two printed monthly versions of DemoLetter and DemoWeekly, an online newsletter.