{"id":238,"date":"2009-03-03T20:57:12","date_gmt":"2009-03-04T01:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/?p=238"},"modified":"2023-12-20T16:25:21","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T21:25:21","slug":"democamp-march-3rd-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/2009\/03\/03\/democamp-march-3rd-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"DemoCamp – March 3rd, 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note:<\/strong> This was published in a rush, and needs some tidying. Expect some cosmetic\/spellign fixes over time<\/p>\n

So, I’m sitting at DemoCamp ’09 in the Imperial Pub on Dundas. Right now. And I’m just going to shotgun my impressions, and what’s going on here.<\/p>\n

Now on to the presentations:<\/p>\n

BackType<\/a><\/h2>\n

There are two guys on stage right now who are presenting something called “BackType”. Essentially, it looks like a web application that allows you to search and sort comments on social media sites such as Digg, Reddit, WordPress, etc. Hmmm….apparently, they’re also planning on releasing a plug-in for WordPress that will allow your comments to be submitted automatically. Nice. Kind of lackluster presentation, but an interesting idea.<\/p>\n

Woop – they just got quizzed on the business model, and the crowd laughs. “Making money isn’t a huge priority for us”, is the response. Alright.\u00a0 Though apparently, they’re making money through their API somehow…not sure how.<\/p>\n

Dex<\/a><\/h2>\n

A business application.\u00a0 Big shift recently:\u00a0 individuals and companies are now on the same playing field – potential employees are now shopping around for work, instead of just employers shopping around for employees.\u00a0 So how do you market yourself?<\/p>\n

Social media?\u00a0 Some companies are going for it.<\/p>\n

Tim O’Reilly called this “the next big thing on the internet”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool.\u00a0 Tool scours the web looking for information on who you’re interested in, through social media, etc.\u00a0 Rates them on their “strength” as a customer, “opportunity”, etc.\u00a0 Tracks sales, opportunities, more…<\/p>\n

Maybe I’m missing something, but as a consumer, this sounds kind of creepy.\u00a0 I see a couple of business folk licking their chops.\u00a0 *shudder*.<\/p>\n

Actually, it sounds like this is for smaller businesses, with large numbers of regular customers.\u00a0 That’s not so bad.<\/p>\n

It’s a tool for the individual – your profile exists even if you leave your current company.\u00a0 This means that if you’re looking for a job, you can show your “baseball” card, which lets you show off your Dex sales stats, etc.<\/p>\n

Foodea.com<\/a><\/h2>\n

A food related website.\u00a0 Lists recipes, lets users rate them, comment, etc.\u00a0 As a user, you can add this recipe to your “Favourites”.\u00a0 Recipes can have back-stories, you can add photos and videos (great for folks like me who need to see cooking happen to pull it off).<\/p>\n

Lets you add ingredients from recipes to your “shopping list”, which is cool.\u00a0 In the shopping list, you can view more information on that particular ingredient (alternatives, comments, good prices, etc).<\/p>\n

“Anybody can edit it, anybody can add to it”…<\/p>\n

People can add their own food related articles, like on “Cupcake Camp”.\u00a0 Cool.\u00a0 Users can respond to these articles.<\/p>\n

“My Kitchen” is your central page\/hub on Foodea.\u00a0 Tells you about YOU, and what you’ve done.\u00a0 Shows you your Favourites, your Cookbook.<\/p>\n

Besides food, there are also areas for drinks!<\/p>\n

There is a “Market Area”, for food related businesses (caterers, food products, etc).\u00a0 These businesses can purchase profiles, which can be viewed and interacted with by the sites users.<\/p>\n

Imagespark<\/a><\/h2>\n

It’s an image searching and tagging web application.<\/p>\n

“Found”, “Visualize”, “Dropular” are mentioned as similar applications.<\/p>\n

Woop, and just as it started, it stopped:\u00a0 no Internet access on the presentation Mac, all of a sudden.<\/p>\n

Oh Mac.<\/p>\n

“Try shaking the cable” yells someone.\u00a0 Another yells “I blame the shitty DemoCamp set up” (he’s from Microsoft<\/span> It turns out that he’s one of the guys who’s running the show).<\/p>\n

Ok, back up and running.<\/p>\n

Interesting in that it displays images in a mosaic.\u00a0 The presenter mentions “inspiration” a lot…does he really mean “image theft”?\u00a0 Just curious.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, images can be uploaded, tagged, viewed by users.\u00a0 You can see what images are currently popular.\u00a0 Images get three “strikes” before they’re removed from public viewing (thus eliminating the element of “surprise porn”).<\/p>\n

Users can view one anothers libraries.\u00a0 It’s a nice web design.\u00a0 Smooth, clean.\u00a0 Very pretty.<\/p>\n

I like this feature: the “mood board”, which lets you group\/arrange images together into a mosaic.\u00a0 Reminds me of some notebooks I’ve seen from our designers in the Drama department.<\/p>\n

I think I could use this.<\/p>\n

There are some desktop applications provided to help you capture and upload images to ImageSpark.\u00a0 Pretty cool.<\/p>\n

Woop – some problems uploading.\u00a0 I feel bad for this guy.\u00a0 It’s a cool app, but his stuff is breaking.\u00a0 Gremlins, probably.\u00a0 He just said that they built it in 3 months – wow… pretty good.<\/p>\n

Sub-note – concerning Bacon<\/h3>\n

There seems to be a lot of talk about “bacon” here.\u00a0 I’ve heard two bacon related questions here.\u00a0 Inside joke?\u00a0 Geek humour?\u00a0 Bacon’s great, but I have no idea what’s going on.<\/p>\n

Pizza<\/h2>\n

“Pizza” isn’t a presentation.\u00a0 They’re serving it.\u00a0 So I’m going to eat some.<\/p>\n

Woop – spoke too soon, the buzzards are descending, and I’ll probably have to wait to get a chance at a slice.<\/p>\n

After Pizza<\/h2>\n

Wow, I guess pepperoni and cheese just doesn’t cut it with this crowd.\u00a0 Some pretty exotic pizzas here:\u00a0 layer of veggies, layer of feta cheese, mushrooms, and a massive slice of ham on top.\u00a0 Not bad.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, back to the demos…<\/p>\n

Kontagent<\/a><\/h2>\n

“Contagion analytics” – viral analytics for Facebook applications.<\/p>\n

A platform to let developers track and optimize their social applications.<\/p>\n

Think of it like Google Analytics, but geared towards Facebook apps.\u00a0 In particular, Facebook games.<\/p>\n

Whoa, apparently, a recent Waterloo dropout created a game on Facebook, released about 6 months ago, and is making 7 figures.\u00a0 Holy smokes.\u00a0 Apparently, this is pretty common, too.<\/p>\n

Two things that Google Analytics doesn’t show you that Kontagen does:\u00a0 How to filter by age, location, gender, number of friends, etc.<\/p>\n

Privacy-wise, my hair is standing up, just a little bit.\u00a0 Probably just a reflex.<\/p>\n

Shows you “virality” – a statistic on how Facebook applications spread…\u00a0 for example, on the demo that’s being shown, women are shown to see more viral on this particular application.<\/p>\n

How many Facebook invite notifications are sent, acceptances, rejections, ignored, etc…<\/p>\n

They’re apparently working with Google on integrating with OpenSocial, they’re funded by Facebook…they were 1 in 5 companies who won Facebook Funds money.<\/p>\n

That’s all for the Demos…now for Ignite Presentations<\/h2>\n

Ignite presentation concept:\u00a0 Standard slideshow presentation, but adds constraint:\u00a0 20 slides, and the slides have to auto-advance every 15 seconds.<\/p>\n

Leigh Honeywell<\/a><\/h2>\n

Hacker spaces…places in Toronto to do geek stuff, like hallways at a conference.<\/p>\n

Hackerspaces.org<\/a>:\u00a0 How to create these spaces.<\/p>\n

Lots of interesting hacker spaces all around the world.<\/p>\n

There’s one in Toronto:\u00a0 Hacklab.To<\/a><\/p>\n

Nice presentation, pretty big applause.<\/p>\n

Amos Latteier – N8R TxT<\/a><\/h2>\n

A location-specific nature haiku by SMS.\u00a0 Cool – you send a text to 416-662-3408 telling it your location, and it sends you back a haiku about where you are.<\/p>\n

Hilarious!\u00a0 Already, I love this.\u00a0 I’ve added it to my phone contacts.<\/p>\n

It’s pretty interesting how this thing works – Python, and a pastiche of web-services (Google Maps, other geo-location stuff….).<\/p>\n

There’s also an iPhone client that detects your location automatically.\u00a0 Awesome.<\/p>\n

Interfaces<\/h2>\n

Interfaces are changing over time.\u00a0 They’re going towards “ubiquitous, wearable” computers (hey, my CSC301 group sort of wrote a paper on this!).<\/p>\n

Remember the command line?\u00a0 The behaviour that this enforces is one of recall – you need a wealth of commands in your head to make this thing work.\u00a0 Plus, the response is disconnected from the input that you gave it.<\/p>\n

Remember Douglas Englebart?\u00a0 Mouse, keyboard, GUI, etc.\u00a0 This was the next step after the command line (though command line can still rock, right Wolever?).\u00a0 GUI gives back an indirect response; the mouse cursor moves, but now you’re proxied<\/em> by your mouse.<\/p>\n

Enter the NUI (Natural User Interface) – an interface with objects with a particular affordance.\u00a0 Think Microsoft Surface.<\/p>\n

This is a trend toward Gestural computing.<\/p>\n

General tip:\u00a0 little animations or “polish” on your interface qualifies as part of the interface affordance<\/em>.\u00a0 Don’t just write them off as showing off, they make the interface pop, and can help your users “get it”.<\/p>\n

Varun Mathur – Web 2.0 Startup Lessons<\/a><\/h2>\n