DEMO Fall 2012 – Day 1 – The Standouts
by
Bob Fine
I’ve had the pleasure to be at the DEMO Fall 2012 conference here in Santa Clara. Day one, as always with DEMO conferences, was overwhelming. More than 30+ startups presented in front of a crowd well over one thousand. Some were nervous, and some were bold, and they all put their best foot forward. But as with many things in life, some stood out better than others, partly due to presentation, partly due to the product itself, and occasionally both.
These are the companies that left a lasting impression on me that are very worth keeping an eye upon:
- Graymatics presented a very interesting image recognition technology with a demo showing tagged clothing on various people of varying web pages and presenting information on where to buy. All automatically. No setup on the backend.
- OnCam showed off the next iteration of video chat, calling out and challenging Google Hangout in particular, but with a slew of features that can allow a person, a company or a brand build a live online talk show with pay per view features and all. It was very cool.
- TruPhone was near the top of best products demonstrated yesterday. It’s a software based SIM card that allows you to travel overseas and when roaming, just download the necessary SIM card to get online. No need to go buy a physical SIM card and switch it in and out. A God send for the global business traveler.
- iBuildApp brings a WYSIWIG web-based interface to developing apps for the iTunes and Android platforms as well as HTML5 compatibility. If you have the idea, but don’t have the funds to hire a developer, this may be the platform for you to build it yourself. Think Legos for mobile development.
- Opallabs provides a web-based system for both small and large organizations to build an internal culture based on brainstorming. Though there are many ways to facilitate this type of information sharing online within a business, they’ve built a very user friendly, efficient process flow around facilitating your employees to share their ideas and have them built upon by fellow employees.
- One of the absolutely coolest demonstrations on day one came from a company called Mersive, presenting a product called Solstice. Through a software-based solution, Solstice allows anyone to make their video display (monitor, TV, etc.) part of the network infrastructure that can then be used by any device. It was really a game changer.
- Last, but not least was a great implementation of augmented reality with a strong dose of gamification from Cachetown. The first easy to identify application in this space is the virtual treasure hunt, but with a bit of thinking, the other potentials are very strong. Think real world Mario Brothers.
Look for a wrap-up of day two of DEMO in Friday’s e-newsletter.
Bob Fine is the founder of The Social Media Monthly.
