Homestead QuickSite (from: amywohl News)
Instant DEMO God
Today’s DEMO seems quieter with lots of demos that are less interesting or that miss their mark. (I think I’ll volunteer to give presenting advice for the next one.)
That makes the good ones really stand out. Homestead QuickSite, a new build=your-own customized web site service was introduced by a talented CEO with his own swinging blues music to accompany the visuals. He got two standing ovations — and he’s a shoo-in for DEMO God status. In fact, maybe we should just elect him to the DEMO God Hall of Fame now. The product’s pretty cool, too.
I also liked some of the new approaches to personal blogs like IMEEM which lets you kkeep everything — buddy lists, photo albums, and multiple blogs — in one place — and then decide how much to share with your friends. They also support broad communities (like the University of Indiana), so this has a bigger concept behind it that bears thinking about.
More about more products and people later. Now it’s time for more meetings.
DEMO Gods and Demonstrating Products
I’m at DEMO in Scottsdale, AZ watching the parade of products roll by. It’s hard to judge a product, even a great product, in six minutes. Nevertheless, some DEMO gods manage to give us a sense of what they’ve got and why it might be great, even in that brief time.
For many, the task is just too hard. Sometimes, if we know the product (or can catch a glimpse of it, in spite of the demonstrator), we long to jump up on stage and help out. We can’t. (You can see the audience detach, reading their e-mail, talking, sotte voce, to each other, or taking a nap.) Sometimes the DEMO Executive Producer Chris Shipley takes pity (on the audience as much as on the demonstrator) and summarizes what she likes about the product.
This is the best place for looking at new products in the computer business and as the consumer and business markets grow closer together, communications and computing converge, this is the best place to watch it happen.
We are always pulled between hot consumer products like In the Chair that lets you practice your musical instrument as if you were playing with a professional orchestra and business software like the new lightweight collaboration software from Jotspot.
With 70+ prodicts in two days there’s no way to actually absorb it all; you just try to filter, take good notes, cojmpare impressions with fellow attendees, and follow up later.