DemoCamp Vancouver Liveblog

What’s going on? From the wiki:

Unlike other iterations of DemoCamp, the Vancouver event covers all industries. Idea people will be presenting innovations on all things ranging from business to charity, high-technology to high-art. The purpose is to encourage a cross-pollination of industries and individuals in hopes that people engaged in unrelated endeavors might provide an enlightening perspective on the presenters concept. There is strength in diversity!

Tonight’s schedule:
* come in the door and post your demo idea on the board
* vote on demos you want to see tonight
* 30 minutes of meeting other attendees
* Presentations start at 6:00pm & run through until 6:30pm
* MC picks selections voted on by participants
* We will have 4 x 6 minute talks (time limit enforced, includes feedback)
* MC runs Speed pitching – 3 x 30sec pitches (or as many as time allows)
* Wrap up/discussion/hang out until 7:30pm
* Party moves to Six Acres (bar across the street)

Demo proposals listed on the wiki, pre-game:

Handi Mobility

MyBus is a Widset which retrieves Vancouver TransLink bus schedules. After downloading the Widsets application to your mobile phone and installing the MyBus widget you can enter any Vancouver 5-digit bus stop number and MyBus will retrieve the times the next buses arrive at that stop.

Gaboogie

Gaboogie is a Vancouver-based company. We’ve developed an alternative to traditional conference calling services. We’re different in that our users schedule their calls online and instead of dialing in and entering a PIN, Gaboogie automatically calls everyone who’s supposed to be on the call. We also have one-click recording and RSS syndication, a dashboard to manage the call and all kinds of bright and shiny ajax stuff happening in the app…

Demo proposals now going up on the “board”

Flickr photos are going up with the tag: DemoCampVancouver. I just talked to a couple familiar bloggers, Gene from Tinfoiling and Nancy from the Vancouver Blogger Meetup Group. After a brief chat with Kerry Anne from the Lipgloss and Laptops podcast – events are now underway.

All those who have demo ideas up on the board will be given a few seconds to make a pitch then the group will vote on those we’d like to see. I doubt I’ll be able to rattle off every topic but here’s my attempt.

From radical business management tools, P2P investing space, Sxipper – free firefox extensions, low-tech solutions for workspace management, modernizing conference calls, visual stimulation other than television, digital satellite networks for performing arts centers, and a few more that I’ve missed. I’ll get some links up when the demos being – now it’s time to VOTE!… and also a last chance to SELL your idea to voters.

The results are in and the presenters are – Dan, Kevin, Amin, and the Sxip team

First up is Dan Gibbons with Gaboogie, who has innovative conference call solutions – he’s actually been featured at the top of this post in the pre-game wiki notes. The system essentially signs you on then calls all other members of the call – they already have companies such as Mozilla on board and there seems to be a lot of interest. The back end is all built on Ruby on Rails and the basic concept is they make money by selling minutes by the bundle. They’re a small company and if you ask what the name means… well weird it just good. They’re not spending any money on advertising but are reaching out to the blogging community. They’re doing a live demo now – entering a participant’s phone number in the dashboard and sparking up a live conference call. Their system is all ajax, and rails – they successfully setup an “on demand” call and we can hear the participant’s phone ringing to the left of the room, success! TIME’S UP (Boris sounds the alarm)

Kelvin – Tools for Urban Living is up next with Kevin – a working prototype is held up, a snap open screw driver with a flashlight, 15 bits, a hammer, measuring tape, digital display, level, magnetic surfaces to hold extra screws – and all of this is in a device no larger than a first generation nokia cell phone. The tool is an all-in-one basic household aid, selling for about $30. TIME’S UP (Boris sounds the alarm)

Amin is here to talk bout Peer to Peer Investing – a video presentation begins. Basically if you need $10,000 to start up your project and your buddy can give you $100 he may also want product and involvement in exchange. It’s inclusive of peer 2 peer lending as well. Amin has a very strong investment background and refers to this as micro investing. This is all a little over my head so check out the website if this sounds like your cup of tea. TIME’S UP (Boris sounds the alarm)

Weston is now up to talk about Sxipper “Forget your passwords!” Sxipper is a free add-on for Firefox that lets you log into any website with a single click. It saves time by keeping track of an unlimited number of usernames and passwords as well as the personal data you share every day over the web. When you reach a login field on a site Sxipper overlays and remembers your passwords/usernames for you. You can even generate crazy-weird info for those sites you really don’t want tracking you or sending you spam. It will also remember that auto-generated crazy password for the next time you need one. Sxipper manages privacy and security with an encrypted store on your computer. Also, “for those of you that don’t know what crazy open ID thing is, Sxipper just made it so that you can play with it and not know what it is,” chimes Boris. TIME’S UP!

We’re now going to break off and give a chance to all those who had demo ideas up on the board who were not chosen. They will be asked to head up to the front of the room to make 30 second pitches. We’ll then all vote on who will be able to present their demo in full next time.

John just mentioned that Tod Maffin launched Todbits.tv today – he’s here recording and I had a brief chance to say hello.

Gene just made a brief presentation on text messaging financial transactions – he’s with Mt. Lehman Credit Union.

Boris informs everyone that this is the first of MANY DemoCamps, the next one will be in just a few weeks. The floor is now open to suggestions for what to do next time e.g. wine and beer mmmm and going low-tech like Dave’s podcasting presentation at Northern Voice. Boris also suggests presentation karaoke – where you get up to the front of the group and have to do a presentation with materials you’ve never seen before.

Keep up to date on the wiki – add your name for next time, add a short write up and anyone can participate.

Update: In after-hours chatting, Tod Maffin just sat down beside me to let me in on a cool new app – Flickr to Facebook. I just uploaded a photo of him on Flickr and he went in, clicked a button on his Firefox toolbar “Flickr to Facebook”. It sends the photo to the Facebook album of your choice where you can then approve it and tag. WAY cool!