DemoCamp9 Aftermath

Five demos at DemoCamp last night...

DictaBrain

James' DictaBrain demo had a great "elevator pitch" quality to it: Ever call your answering machine to leave yourself a message, just to get your thoughts out of your head? DictaBrain improves on your answering machine with a transcription service: Call in, leave your message, and DictaBrains super-intelligent monkeys will transcribe it. Login to the site later and post the text of your message to your blog, or save a copy to your local PC.

It looked like an interesting idea, though I can't help wonder how they're handling the transcription (rumor has it as a mechnical turk). If they catch on with a particularly transcription-needy niche (lawyers, doctors, the hard-of-hearing, etc.), I can see this really taking off.

InfoQ.com

InfoQ.com is a newish (launched in June) news site, targetting software developers, particularly focusing on a blend of Java, .Net, Ruby/Rails, and Agile audiences. To best serve each of their eclectic interest groups, the site uses a variety of Ajax-ified personalization tools.

I gather that Floyd has given this talk to mostly developer audiences before, especially those familiar with Java and his former site, TheServerSide.com (which no one in last night's audience seemed to have heard of). While the personalization tools are nice, I think personalization is a hard sell with this crowd (it's one thing to see the articles you don't care about "poof" away on your own screen, but does it have the same impact when it's the articles you care about and Floyd doesn't want to read?)

Mid-way through Floyd's talk, I had the "epiphany" that the Ajax "wow" moment has passed: You can't tell a crowd of developers that you "use Ajax for {blah}" and get a reaction anymore. We've either used, or decided against Ajax; we're not likely to be as impressed as we once were. (I still do this, too, but I need to stop. Now. It's past time.)

ConceptShare

Of the five demos last night, I was most impressed with ConceptShare, essentially a "BaseCamp for images" collaboration app. Much like BaseCamp, the idea is to share work-in-progress with a distributed development team, but ConceptShare is geared more to the design crowd than the developers.

The designer uploads a comp or concept sketch, and can open it up for feedback from management, other designers, or the general public. Somewhat akin to Flickr's notes, these comments can include drawn notes or text, which become stuck on a given image. In other words, instead of saying "third paragraph needs work", you can draw a bubble around the paragraph in question. I've done this by fax, and I would definitely prefer to do away with that.

They've also added a couple of slick features: Enter a URL and ConceptShare sucks in a screenshot; Workspaces can be opened to other Designers (so you can invite an "expert" to weigh on your work), or shared with the general public (for a quick, virtual focus group, say).

The interface was a fullscreen Flash app, but it was surprisingly snappy on the pub's usually sluggish WiFi.

Formulate - The eMail Company

Formulate had a seemingly simple goal: Online polls, surveys and other "fill in this form" work. It's a product they built for clients, so there's clearly a demand, but I was a bit flummoxed. From where I sat, the interface seemed daunting; I realize I'm not their target market, but I'd rather just use HTML.

Having recently worked on a survey-app for a client, I recognize that there's a tension between "this'll handle every possible form of survey question you could think of" and "this won't do everything, but it's easy to use." I guess I lean toward the latter.

Also, on a separate front, I think the presenter was hamstrung by the pub environment - we haven't figured out, yet, how to arrange things at the pub so that the presenters can see their laptop and the audience at the same time (basically, we lack the podium). It's my experience that you miss out on too much audience feedback when you can't see your audience.

Pursudo

Pursudo was supposed to launch at a DemoCamp two back, but a scheduling snaffu forced the Unspace guys to pull out. I first heard about the concept back at May's BarCamp, so I've been eagerly awaiting the launch since then. Pursudo is the inverse of the traditional dating site, and possibly, an eventual competitor for the MeetUp juggernaut.

Instead of the traditional "My name is Josh, and I like long walks on the beach..." the idea here is to put the event or activity front-and-center: "I want to walk on the beach - who's with me?" In this way, instead of staging a fakey feeling "date" with someone that you hope shares your interests, you share your interests first and, if things don't really work out romantically, at least you got to go on that walk.

Personally, I like Pursudo for it's non-dating applications. MeetUp works reasonably well for already established groups, but it's hard to build a new group around a new or experimental activity. Here in Toronto, we have a great, MeetUp-based Indie Roleplaying Group, but I'm not sure how visible or attractive it is to those who aren't already in the choir, so to speak. I could see using Pursudo to put together a group to testdrive a new game, say, that can shine on it's own merits, instead of it's "indie appeal".

Maybe I read too much Putnam in grad school, but Pursudo's approach to driving people offline, away from their laptops, struck a perfect chord with me.

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