After an evening mixer last night which helped to get everyone together DEMO08, as its name implies, was filled with lots of demos. Rather than review every single company that launched a product today I will give you a brief overview of each one. Overall, I was impressed by a couple of pen-like gadgets, a few enabling technology sites, a couple video sites and of course mobile products.
Here is a DEMO08 Day 1 roundup:
TimeTrade - offers a way for small business owners to keep track of customers and client and schedule appointments.
Iterasi - Offers a web browser plug-in that enables anyone access to time-based snapshots of a Website. Think of it like a personal "Way Back Machine" which could be used for competitive analysis or just for the joy of watching your personal site change over time.
LiquidPlanner - An online "smart" project management which takes a more flexible approach to project management.
Citiport - A social network for travelers similar to YowTrip as it looks to connect travelers with people on the road. It also is similar to a feature that TripIt just rolled out last week.
LeapFrog - Launched the TAG Reading System which was an impressive pen-like gadget aimed at teaching kids how to read and comprehend. It seems like a very compelling product as it looks to make reading an exciting adventure for kids.
SkyFire - Launched a free, downloadable Flash mobile browser that delivers rich web media, real fast. SkyFire tries to make your mobile phone act more like the PC Web and seems to be doing a good job at it. The demo was slick and made me want to try it but I already have an iPhone which does a pretty good job itself.
Fabrik - Launched Joggle a digital media storage dashboard similar to BlueString.
SpeakLike - An instant messaging client with real-time language translations. This communication tool could help bridge the gap between parties looking to chat but speak different languages.
STEPware Auto - This noise removing remote voice pickup system optimized for voice commands in while in the car.
NotchUp - puts a new spin on the typical job site by creating a marketplace to pay prospective employees for interviews. Cuts down head hunter costs by just paying for good employyees not for head hunters too.
Education.com - Offering a community dubbed 'webMD of education' launched 'school finder' which offers a resource similar to Cliffnotes for schools by aggregating school info to help parents to find a school for their children.
800Genie.com - Access the web from anywhere via voice activated promoted computers voice. Seems like it could be useful but the audio prompts seemed slow and annoying similar to any voice activated prompt you encounter while trying to contact an airline or other service provider.
Toktumi pronounced "Talk to me" - Enables anyone to setup a business phone network in
a matter of minutes. It helps to make your business to sound more
professional. Offers big buiness phone system for small businesses. I think this could be a very handy tool for anyone looking to start a business.
Avistar - Offers instant face to face communication similar to Skype for
the enterprise. You can do multi-user video conferencing over the Web and zoom into specific video streams. It looked crystal clear and could be a great product for anyone looking to face-to-face online.
BloCafe - A voice activated forum social network site for commercial use. Like 'old school' Web forums users can post responses to threads etc. Nothing really innovative here, unless I am missing something.
Movial - Looks to integrate mobile and social media. Enables users to share videos from your phone. Social communicator product sites on your of and mobile as if syncs your contacts. Creates an client for communication, content discovery and sharing via SMS or to other client users.
Ribbit - An online phone dashboard which enables anyone to manage their contacts. It enables anyone to manage your mobile voicemail like email on your computer and on your mobile phone. They offered a great demo which showcased the product, its open API and host of widgets which make it possible embed your phone into your startpage or other dashboard. A more thorough analysis to come soon.
LegiText - For on the go messaging and group creation for sending contact information and messages. LegiText helps controls message flow for SMS reminders and meeting - turns a smartphone into a business tool.
Vidyo - A video conferencing technology for high quality video conferencing over the Web. This could come in extremely handy for a decentralized workforce.
LiquidTalk - A mobile workforce management startup which supports rich media messages. It now supports the BlackBerry and iPhone. LiquidTalk, a Chicago-based startup, was a supporter of TECH cocktail 2.
Zodigo - Offers downloadable mobile phone content (podcasts, tickets, coupons, etc.). Zodigo also recommends content while on the go.
Voyant - An online finance planning site that empowers users to create their own financial plan. Online community makes it easy to meet like-minded users and share your plans in an effort to help each other reach financial goals.
Review2Buy - Order items on the go via SMS. Review2Buy is a compelling offering for anyone on the go as it enables anyone to comparison shop via SMS messaging by looking up products and services and then finding closest place to actually purchase an item.
Acesis - An innovative Adobe Air application to move health clinics to an digital data input approach. Acesis also creates a social platform for data forms for clinics and might also come in handy in other data entry related industries.
blist - Self-proclaimed as a database for the rest of us, blist offers a rich visual spreadsheet where every column can store a number of different data types (i.e. lists, photos, documents, links, ratings, etc.). blist also offers a page layout mode and a calendar view for anyone interested in putting a fresh look on their data.
Ecrio - Launched mobeam, a barcode reading gadget, which is like a universal coupon as it looks for all the deals on every item you purchase then helps to save you money on them without the hassle of having to manage actual paper coupons. It is a green concept as well but
I would like to see it available on all mobile phones (it is on some already) rather than a seperate device.
CellSpin - A mobile app for creating and sharing to any website with one click. It acts as a mobile dashboard for sharing various content types (videos, photos, music, etc) to your favorite social networks and to your friends.
Flypaper - Combines Powerpoint & Flash technology to help create solid Web slideshow content. It empowers anyone to create rich media page templates which can include any kind of media without the knowing how to code in Flash.
GoldMail - Enables anyone to email slideshow messages with video and audio. Looking to create voice over messaging thus launched a business e-messaging platform. I was underwelled by GoldMail as it seemed to really create a slideshow that can be emailed offers another form of spam.
Sprout - This Hawaii-based startup took the DEMO stage in Hawaiian floral shirts to showcase a powerful Adobe FLEX toolkit to enable
anyone to create an embeddable Flash widget. It enables anyone to build sophisticated content without laying down a line of code. Sprout also offers analytics and distribution channels for your widgets. I was pretty impressed with Sprout and cannot wait to give it whirl.
Greenplug - A startup looking to standardize power chargers and universal power adapters to attack the problem of having to carry lots of cords at once.
Celsias - Devoted to creating a platform for projects that help the environment and more specifically climate change. Green products will soon be offered on the site as Celsias looks to become a place of all climate change related projects and products.
Citrix XenDesktop - offers a virtual desktop for businesses and looks to offer desktops as a service.
StackSafe - Looks to combat system downtime staging and testing solution for IT operation teams. Copies IT environment to better test systems for QA teams.
Scenecaster - Offers a way for users to create and share 3D experiences over the Web. Launched Sceneweaver which now allows users to add links to anything in a 3D Scenecaster creation thus enabling users to link together scenes - like weaving scenes together - hence the clever name Scenceweaver. Scenecaster looks to be the YouTube for 3D on the Web.
LiveScribe - Aimed at creating a new kind of medium called paper-based computing LiveScribe offers a "super pen" gadget called the Pulse smartpen. The Pulse tries to help ensure you never miss a thing while in a meeting. This gadget enables anyone to capture text and audio for any word you have written with the pen and place it on the desktop and Web. It also translates text into other languages.
Seesmic - I reviewed Seesmic last week launched a new mobile video platform. With about 3,000 users Seesmic is posting about a video a minute. Seesmic has added the "follow" feature similar to Twitter which makes it easy to keep tabs on your friends. Seesmic has an open API which enables anyone to create new applications.
MOLI - A social network which enables anyone to create multiple profiles for one account (public, private or hidden profiles) to help users better control their profiles. MOLI can be used by small businesses to create storefronts with video, audio or text with payment collection options. It can be both an extranet and intranet. MOLI also offers up interactive content from blogs, videos and other forms.
iVideoSongs - Launched an on-demand music lesson download site. It is a great offer for anyone looking to learn to play an instrument. John Oates from the duo Hall and Oates is a founder and took the DEMO stage to show just what this video music lessons site is all about.
