{"id":418,"date":"2009-05-26T00:07:31","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T05:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/?p=418"},"modified":"2023-12-20T16:25:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T21:25:20","slug":"toronto-democamp20-presentations-humour-and-porn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/2009\/05\/26\/toronto-democamp20-presentations-humour-and-porn\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto DemoCamp20 – Presentations, Humour, and Porn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, at the Imperial Pub in downtown Toronto, was DemoCamp.<\/p>\n

The last DemoCamp was in March.\u00a0 It was my very first time attending DemoCamp,\u00a0 and I live-blogged the whole night.<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn’t live-blog tonight.\u00a0 I took notes.\u00a0 And now I’m going to do my best to relate what happened tonight.\u00a0 What worked, and what didn’t; what impressed, and what didn’t.\u00a0 You get the idea.<\/p>\n

So here we go:<\/p>\n

FreshBooks<\/h2>\n

http:\/\/www.freshbooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Presenter:\u00a0 Mike McDerment<\/p>\n

In their own words, Freshbooks is an “online invoicing, time tracking and expense service”.\u00a0 According to them, they have 800, 000+ users, and they’re hiring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, they were pleased to announce a “top secret reveal<\/strong>“.\u00a0 I, personally, was intrigued – learning something top secret is awesome:\u00a0 it makes me feel like part of a special group of trusted people.<\/p>\n

So, imagine my disappointment when the presenter tells me flat out that this “top secret” information was announced on their blog more than two weeks ago<\/a>.\u00a0 Not two minutes into their presentation, and I’ve already been lied to.\u00a0 Bad start.<\/p>\n

I’m going to bypass talking about the laptop problems, the poor presentation pacing, or the repeated calls for “who ordered the chicken fingers?” from the kitchen.\u00a0 I want to talk about this not-so-top-secret thing that Freshbooks was revealing.<\/p>\n

Basically, they were revealing that as well as being able to bill clients outside of the Freshbooks network with their service, they are going to allow Freshbooks users to bill other Freshbooks users…<\/p>\n

Then they showed a 1 minute video, where a bunch of blue nodes were displayed, with some connections here and there.\u00a0 As the video progressed, more nodes were added, more networks were formed….ahhh, I see what you did there.\u00a0 You showed me that by allowing networks to form on Freshbooks, networks…will form.<\/p>\n

If you Freshbooks guys are reading this, I’m really not trying to be a dick here – I’m sure your service is awesome, and who knows: I might use it someday.\u00a0 But your presentation tonight didn’t really tell me anything compelling, and the fact that it was initially wrapped in this awesome package of “top secret reveal” didn’t help your case.<\/p>\n

It’s a bit like unwrapping a big present labelled “awesome secret gift!”, only to find a tiny note in bad handwriting inside, telling you something you already know.\u00a0 Plus, you find out that everybody else already knew what was inside the box anyways.\u00a0 Maybe I’m being picky.\u00a0 Who knows.<\/p>\n

My main beef, was that I didn’t get a demo<\/strong>.\u00a0 I came to DemoCamp to see demos.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want to see things like this:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Not this:<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Both videos were on the Freshbooks blog post.\u00a0 One video rapidly gives me lots of information that entices me to investigate their service.\u00a0 The other awkwardly tells me almost nothing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Bottom line:\u00a0 interesting service.\u00a0 Failure to deliver top secret reveal.\u00a0 Weak demo.<\/p>\n

Employment.nil?<\/h2>\n

http:\/\/www.rubyjobfair.ca<\/a><\/p>\n

This wasn’t really a presentation – more of a time filler while technical glitches were ironed out on presentation laptops.\u00a0 Basically, it was an announcement that a Ruby job fair was coming up in Toronto.<\/p>\n

See the poster here.\u00a0 It says it all.<\/a><\/p>\n

What was interesting, was the notion that the job fair would follow the model of classic “science fair” poster board presentations.\u00a0 There would be booths, with poster boards up, and people to talk to.\u00a0 No laptops.\u00a0 No iPhones.\u00a0 Just people talking about Ruby, what they like to do with it, and why they’re passionate about it.<\/p>\n

Sounds like it’s worth a look.<\/p>\n

Reportage<\/h2>\n

http:\/\/www.wherecloud.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Presenter:\u00a0 Martin Dufort<\/p>\n

WhereCloud presents Reportage, a Twitter client for the iPhone.<\/p>\n

A good presentation from Dufort.\u00a0 He kept it light, and brisk, and showed off the application instead of talking about it.\u00a0 That’s key.<\/p>\n

According to Dufort, Reportage is “a radical way of browsing Twitter”.\u00a0 He mentioned how most Twitter clients fall into the trap of porting the user experience of Twitter to their clients.<\/p>\n

What is interesting, is that Reportage introduces a new metaphor on top of Twitter:\u00a0 channels, or radio stations.\u00a0 At the bottom of the client is a “tuner”, which displays the pictures of who you’re following on Twitter horizontally.\u00a0 There is a red needle in the center of the tuner that shows you who you currently have selected.\u00a0 Simply flick your finger, a la iPhone style, and you can change channels to whomever you want to get Tweets from.\u00a0 Cool, novel metaphor, if not exactly radical.<\/p>\n

Instead of dealing with the massive stream of updates of who you’re following, Reportage simply shows the display pictures on the main screen, in the order that they were last updated.<\/p>\n

Beyond the interface, what was most compelling was two features:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. the ability to add Twitter users to a “favourites” list, that are distinct from the main stream.<\/li>\n
  2. the ability to temporarily mute users, to avoid embaressing temporary un-follows.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These are two excellent features that the Twitter web-interface sorely lacks.\u00a0 Sure, there might be other clients who implement the same features, but Reportage seems to do it very intuitively and gracefully.<\/p>\n

    Bottom line:\u00a0 I liked the app, I liked the presentation.\u00a0 If I had an iPhone, I might buy it.\u00a0 Why the hell not – it’s apparently going to have an intro price of $2.99 when it goes up on the App Store in a couple of days.<\/p>\n

    Flash Based 3D FPS<\/h2>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 Greg Thomson<\/p>\n

    This was a tech demo for a 3d multiplayer first person shooter, which looked a bit like the Interplay classic, Descent.<\/p>\n

    Written entirely in Flash.<\/p>\n

    My mind was boggling when I saw this go – Flash, Flash<\/em>, was cranking out 45 frames per second as it rendered the textured polygons in the demo map.\u00a0 It was fast, it was smooth, it was impressive.<\/p>\n

    Unfortunately, then it got a little boring for me.\u00a0 Once the initial shock\/novelty of seeing Flash do something like this wore off, there really wasn’t much more to the presentation.\u00a0 I got to watch Thomson navigate around the screen for a while, and fire some lasers\/missles, but that was it.\u00a0 There wasn’t anyone there to play against.\u00a0 The map was kind of bare.<\/p>\n

    The demo picked up again when Thomson zoomed out the camera so that it was directly over the player, and we could see in real-time how the program was intelligently choosing what to render, in order to save as many cycles as possible.<\/p>\n

    There was also talk about the multiplayer client, and how they had to write their own in order to deal with 20 updates per second.\u00a0 That was cool, but it would have been nice to see it in action.<\/p>\n

    Granted, the presenter told us that the technology had recently been sold to someone else, and that he was demoing it on their behalf.\u00a0 Also, he wasn’t there for investment, wasn’t hiring, or looking for contributers\/users.\u00a0 He was doing a tech demo, and that’s what he delivered.<\/p>\n

    Bottom line:\u00a0 AMAZING product – never thought I’d see Flash do that.\u00a0 It would have been nice to see some multiplayer action, but you can’t always get what you want.<\/p>\n

    WineAlign<\/h2>\n

    http:\/\/www.winealign.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 Bryan McCaw<\/p>\n

    WineAlign is a “community based service for reviewing, sharing, and discovering wine”.\u00a0 It promises to help users find “the right wine for the right price” based on user and professional reviews.<\/p>\n

    An interesting concept.<\/p>\n

    Growing up in Grimsby, I was surrounded by vineyards and wineries everywhere.\u00a0 Wine tours are arguably one of the primary tourist attractions of the Niagara region (along with that waterfall thing).\u00a0 In a wine tour, people drive from winery to winery, taste testing various wines, trying to find one that suits their palette\/mood\/occasion.<\/p>\n

    So right off the bat, I’m a bit skeptical of WineAlign – the people I know who are into wine go by taste<\/strong>.\u00a0 How can that be conveyed through a web application?<\/p>\n

    It seems that WineAlign is hoping you can discover the perfect wine based on user submitted reviews, along with professional reviews, and make up your own mind based on that information, plus on its local availability and price.\u00a0 OK, that’s fair.\u00a0 I really don’t expect a web app to waft the aromatic bouquet of a 1984 Merlot through the screen.<\/p>\n

    What was most interesting about the presentation wasn’t actually the service (I don’t really drink wine, or alcohol for that matter).\u00a0 What interested me the most was his experience that “1 blog entry was greater than $10,000 of public relations”.\u00a0 Traditional PR didn’t work for them – they had to rely on advertising their service through the ether of the social web to get where they are, and it really paid off.<\/p>\n

    Bottom line:\u00a0 cool service, nice design.\u00a0 I probably won’t be a customer anytime soon, but that’s because wine isn’t really my bag.\u00a0 Relatively decent presentation despite technical glitches (being unable to see half of the screen was kind of a bummer), though the use of the phrase “critical mass” became so frequent that I started to forget what the term actually meant.<\/p>\n

    The Legend of Zealot, Anarchist, Robot<\/h2>\n

    http:\/\/adam.goucher.ca\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 Adam Goucher<\/p>\n

    This ignite presentation was essentially a rushed retelling of this story<\/a> from Adam Goucher’s blog.\u00a0 I’ve got to hand it to him – it’s not easy to tell a story in front of an audience when you’re constrained by the 15-second auto-advancing slides that define an ignite presentation<\/a>.\u00a0 So, big kudos.<\/p>\n

    Anyhow, if you read his original story<\/a>, you’ll get the gist of his presentation.<\/p>\n

    The bottom line is that he tried to deliver a good message:\u00a0 there are many ways of doing things, and there is not necessarily one right way.\u00a0 Or, in his words, “everyone is good in their own way!”.<\/p>\n

    According to Joey DeVilla, Goucher’s presentation “pulled down the pants of [his] mind”.<\/p>\n

    Pizza Break<\/h2>\n

    Dinner was served.\u00a0 Again, strangely, the DemoCamp audience was served highly eclectic pizzas:\u00a0 feta cheese, mushrooms, fried onions on dough, with a massive slice of ham on top.\u00a0 Anyhow, no complaints – I dug the pizza.<\/p>\n

    Killing Time<\/h2>\n

    Through various microphone noises, the audience was signaled to sit back down again for the next round of demos and ignite presentations.<\/p>\n

    This effort was sabotaged almost immediately with network problems.\u00a0 So the audience was held in rapt attention as MC’s Jay Goldman<\/a>, David Crow<\/a>, and Joey DeVilla<\/a> attempted to kill time.\u00a0 Some relatively pornographic jokes were rapidly fired off by DeVilla, while Crow and Goldman bravely grimaced and glanced towards their lawyer.<\/p>\n

    Toronto WebTV Meeting<\/h2>\n

    While network problems were being solved, there were some announcements put out, including a “Toronto WebTV Meeting” for people who are interested in internet broadcasting, or web video.\u00a0 The meeting is at 7PM-10PM tomorrow <\/strong>(May 26, 2009) at 692 Yonge St at a restaurant called the Arrabiata<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    ExtremeU<\/h2>\n

    Another announcement was about “ExtremeU”, a 12 week startup school that was looking for people to enroll.\u00a0 We were told to visit http:\/\/www.extremevp.com<\/a> for more information, but that website doesn’t seem to contain much more than a logo and an email address.\u00a0 How disappointing.<\/p>\n

    Sausage Party<\/h2>\n

    DeVilla took advantage of the ensuing lapse of announcements to propose an idea for an iPhone app:\u00a0 Sausage Party.\u00a0 The application would attempt to gauge the current male\/female ratios of the clubs nearest to you.\u00a0 Believe it or not, in time, that idea might sell.\u00a0 As of yet, I don’t think enough GPS smartphones are out there to make such an application that accurate, but in a few years…who knows.<\/p>\n

    TicketTrunk<\/h2>\n

    http:\/\/www.tickettrunk.com<\/a><\/p>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 Adil Dhalla<\/p>\n

    In a nutshell:\u00a0 TicketTrunk wants to be the TicketMaster of the little guy.\u00a0 It wants to make ticketing super easy, so that your grandmother could set up an event, and sell tickets, without too much of a hassle.\u00a0 TicketTrunk also wants to stop charging ticket buyers for service fees, and instead place flat fees per sold ticket on the ticket seller.<\/p>\n

    Ok, cool idea.\u00a0 I know some theatre people who might be interested in becoming users.<\/p>\n

    The only problem with the presentation:\u00a0 it wasn’t a demo.\u00a0 It wasn’t an ignite.\u00a0 It was a talk.\u00a0 5 minutes crawled by for me as Dhalla described<\/em> how his application worked.\u00a0 A single slide showing the TicketTrunk home page was all we got.<\/p>\n

    Yikes.<\/p>\n

    Anyhow, TicketTrunk might be something I recommend to my theatre friends.\u00a0 Their $1 flat fee to ticket sellers per ticket sold might be a bit of a problem for non-profits trying to keep ticket prices down, while recouping costs…<\/p>\n

    Bottom line:\u00a0 a service worth investigating, if anything just to see what Dhalla was talking about.\u00a0 Non-existent demo.\u00a0 Weak presentation.<\/p>\n

    digiTweet<\/h2>\n

    http:\/\/digitweet.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 Mano Kulasingam<\/p>\n

    An open-source Twitter client for Windows, built on top of the Microsoft Presentation Framework.\u00a0 They’re looking for contributers and feedback.<\/p>\n

    Unfortunately, this demo’s thunder was stolen almost completely by Reportage.\u00a0 In comparison, digiTweet’s interface looked a bit cluttered.\u00a0 There was an interesting UI concept of adding people you’re following to different categories, and then having those categories be colour coded when viewing your stream of Tweets.\u00a0 Not exactly groundbreaking, but it distinguished it from Reportage.<\/p>\n

    Another distinguishing feature was that digiTweet is an open source project.\u00a0 Kulasingam was very open and inviting to everyone to come and contribute, and give feedback.\u00a0 That’s always good to see.\u00a0 Kudos.<\/p>\n

    Bottom line:\u00a0 product needs some polish (though granted, it’s only a month old!), but it’s got some interesting ideas.\u00a0 Pretty good presentation.<\/p>\n

    Rypple<\/h2>\n

    http:\/\/www.rypple.com<\/a><\/p>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 David Priemer<\/p>\n

    Rypple, to put it in their own words, lets users get “quick, specific and private feedback from trusted advisers and co-workers.”\u00a0 It’s an anonymous feedback system, with some pretty sophisticated metrics.\u00a0 It’s used by average home users, as well as large companies such as Cisco Systems, Rogers, and General Electric.\u00a0 Rypple was also recently featured in The Economist magazine.<\/p>\n

    So, Toronto startup-wise, Rypple is doing pretty well for itself.<\/p>\n

    Presentation-wise, these guys know what they’re doing.\u00a0 They jump right to it, and show off their app like pros.\u00a0 They’ve clearly done this a bunch of times (and they’ve probably gotten tons of Rypple feedback on their presentations!).<\/p>\n

    I don’t know what else to say about Rypple.\u00a0 It was a solid presentation for a solid service.\u00a0 What was most surprising to me, was finding out that Rypple is developed using GWT<\/a>.\u00a0 That caught me by surprise.<\/p>\n

    They’re also hiring.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Bottom line:\u00a0 a solid service, and a solid presentation by pros.\u00a0 No wonder they’re doing so well.<\/p>\n

    The Social Real-Time Web<\/h2>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 Ilya Grigorik<\/a><\/p>\n

    Grigorik gave a good talk on how content published on the web has a half-life of about 50 minutes.\u00a0 He said that this is driving publishers insane, because the social web produces “more content in a day than a major publisher produces in a year”.<\/p>\n

    He also said there is data to show that social networking is a more popular Internet pastime than pornography<\/strong>.\u00a0 You can imagine the gasps, snickers, and muttered jokes.<\/p>\n

    Besides StumbleUpon, time is a critical element for social web content.\u00a0 What’s on Digg right now, won’t necessarily be there an hour.\u00a0 Probably less.<\/p>\n

    Grigorik stressed that since time is such an important factor in getting your content out there in the social web, it is necessary to have real-time metrics to give you feedback on how your content is doing.\u00a0 He said that the old model, of looking at metrics for past posts, is not good enough – in order to boost the popularity of content, you must engage with your audience.<\/p>\n

    So, for example, if I finish this blog post, it might get mentioned here or there on Twitter, other blogs, etc.\u00a0 My WordPress analytics might not tell me much about that.\u00a0 But that information, what other people are saying about my article, is important.\u00a0 A service is needed to help find where other people are talking about you, so that you can engage with them, and keep your content relevent.<\/p>\n

    Makes sense to me.<\/p>\n

    Anyhow, I believe the service that he’s talking about is in development, and is looking for beta testers.\u00a0 See here for more information.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Startups:\u00a0 How to Get Press<\/h2>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 Ali Asaria<\/a><\/p>\n

    Interesting presentation from this guy.\u00a0 It was rapid fire, and I couldn’t always tell when he was joking or not.\u00a0 He was self-deprecating the entire time, which was sort of endearing, but it clouded his overall message.<\/p>\n

    Which was this: in his experience, good things happen when you stop trying to get press.\u00a0 Fire your public relations team.\u00a0 Just go through the social media ether!\u00a0 Twitter is the key!\u00a0 One day, he put up a Twitter post about his company, and 6 hours later he was on TV.\u00a0 Go figure.<\/p>\n

    Other tips included “find a style of converation that works for you”, and “talk to the community, and let the press listen”.<\/p>\n

    Anyhow, it was a pretty good presentation.<\/p>\n

    Surprise Guest:\u00a0 BumpTop<\/h2>\n

    http:\/\/www.bumptop.com<\/a><\/p>\n

    Presenter:\u00a0 Anand Agarawala<\/p>\n

    BumpTop is a new take on the desktop metaphor of modern operating systems.\u00a0 Basically, it makes your desktop more like a real <\/em>desktop.\u00a0 Items can be stacked.\u00a0 They have weight.\u00a0 They can be thrown around.\u00a0 You can navigate around in your desktop, and look closely at things.\u00a0 It’s actually really cool.<\/p>\n

    What’s also really cool, is that this guy showed this thing off at DemoCamp a while back.\u00a0 Push came to shove, and eventually, he did a TED talk<\/a> about it.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 Talk about snowball effect.<\/p>\n

    While it’s a cool idea, I don’t think I’ll be installing it anytime soon.\u00a0 I like my desktop just the way it is for now.\u00a0 Still, I always like seeing new, wild ideas.<\/p>\n

    Also, this guy didn’t know he was demoing until a few moments before he went up.\u00a0 Remarkably, the demo\/presentation went really smoothly.<\/p>\n

    Bottom line:\u00a0 neat idea, neat product, but not something I’ll rush out and install right away.\u00a0 Great presentation.\u00a0 This guy is clearly going places.<\/p>\n

    It’s Over!<\/h2>\n

    All in all, an entertaining night.\u00a0 Good people, good food, and some pretty interesting presentations.<\/p>\n

    Feel free to post comments, complaints, corrections, support, corroborations, etc.<\/p>\n

    And now….time for sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Today, at the Imperial Pub in downtown Toronto, was DemoCamp. The last DemoCamp was in March.\u00a0 It was my very first time attending DemoCamp,\u00a0 and I live-blogged the whole night. I didn’t live-blog tonight.\u00a0 I took notes.\u00a0 And now I’m going to do my best to relate what happened tonight.\u00a0 What worked, and what didn’t; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,44,79],"tags":[254,256,264,265,253,266,260,241,240,126,244,243,242,257,250,245,251,262,258,249,246,261,248,259,255,263,247,252],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-science","category-internet","category-technology","tag-adam-goucher","tag-adil-dhalla","tag-ali-asaria","tag-anand-agarawala","tag-bryan-mccaw","tag-bumptop","tag-david-priemer","tag-dc20","tag-dct20","tag-democamp","tag-democamp20","tag-democampto","tag-democampto20","tag-digitweet","tag-flash-3d-fps","tag-freshbooks","tag-greg-thomson","tag-ilya-grigorik","tag-mano-kulasingam","tag-martin-dufort","tag-mike-mcderment","tag-postrank","tag-reportage","tag-rypple","tag-tickettrunk","tag-wellca","tag-wherecloud","tag-winealign"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prmTy-6K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3245,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/3245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeconley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}