A Wrap on Demo 07 Innovations

In traditional DEMO style, the last night’s dinner was supplemented with a panel discussion among chosen journalists who largely cover the consumer technology space. The goal was to recap the last two day’s product rollouts and assess which ones – in their opinion – were worthy of mention, or not.

WSJ’s Walt Mossberg moderated the panel, which included Mercury News columnist and CBS radio host Larry Magid, Les Echos’ correspondent Laetitia Mailhes (thank god for an international perspective), Victoria Barrett from Forbes, and Michael Miller, PC Magazine's former Editor-in-Chief.

While they did address the “why it was worthy” in some cases, I would have liked to hear more insight into how the product or solution was going to solve a ‘real’ need in everyday lives. Perceived needs sometimes work but they are often less sustainable in the long run.

By this, I mean, a perceived need, i.e., we didn’t have a need for social networking, widgets, online blogs or TV on camera phones five years ago, but marketers created a need by pushing the ole comfort fix that new cool ideas and products can sometimes fill. Sometimes they last and sometimes, the trend dies after a few months or years.

Other times, it paves the way for a new paradigm altogether, a new way of living and doing things, much in the way the VCR and cell phone did, the iPod is still doing and online sites and blogs are changing the publishing industry. All of these are disruptive technologies that have altered our lives in significant ways.

The panel thankfully included women who were in a younger age bracket, since so many new consumer technologies being launched today fly past so many of us. We get that glazed look on our face and say, “why would anyone need to sell something from their cell phone while they're in their car or not next to a computer – couldn’t it wait an hour or two until they logged on?” or “why would I want to print a low quality photo that is an inch by an inch in size -- in real time?”

Then again, it’s the same group of us who can’t fathom spending money on special ring tones or watching a movie on a tiny cell phone screen.

I’m not a baby boomer, meaning, am young enough to still appreciate youthful technologies. I love photo sharing sites, have stayed up all night organizing playlists on my iPod and am a member of far too many social sharing sites. So it goes without saying that based on where you are in your life is going to determine what’s cool and more importantly what's useful to us or not.

What did the panelists like? Larry Magid mentioned both eJamming and Jaman, both of which I gravitated to as well. I spoke to The Deal’s Josh Jaffe who didn’t ‘get’ Jaman at all, partly because he felt it was too much of a niche market and would involve changing people’s behavior.

As a film lover, particularly eclectic foreign films, I’m a huge fan. There’s enough mindless but popular mainstream films that dominate cinemas and TV boxes. An independent film alternative in high quality resolution is both refreshing and compelling.

Victoria brought up ZINK since she felt it provided the instant gratification that so many people look for. An example would be the ability to print from a small device on the fly at a wedding for example, so that people had an immediate takeaway before they left the event. There are clearly many use cases for this, yet it doesn’t make me jump up and down.

Michael Miller, who was more representative of what is important to the enterprise and corporations, talked about solutions that were not so “me too,” like ZINK and Boston Power, which are both chemistry based technologies rather than software based. On the media sharing and information access sites, he referred to PairUp and Attendio, the latter of which I loved as well. (a site that customizes an event list for you depending on your interests)

Michael adds, “I want a mash up of all of these sites. Who wants to go to 6-10 sites every day?” Here here Michael. I agree and think that most "real consumers" do too.

When I visited the Attendio booth, the first thing I asked them is when they will be able to integrate their online service into my news aggregator page. In other words, make the high selected data I choose come to me rather than the other way around. They’re initially supporting NetNewsWire, which is a smaller market than mainstream PC users, but at least it is a start.

Victoria refers to Forbes’ recent Cover Story: The Art of Selling Out, which is about the trend of companies (and investors that drive this trend) flipping their feature to a large company and selling out early rather than building a real company. So many of the Web 2.0 stuff coming out of the Valley feel more like features than standalone solutions with enough weight to build a sustainable company over the long haul.

So, how many of the companies launching at DEMO this year were features versus products? Hard to say, since some are in the early stages and it is not clear right away what their ultimate goal is, except for perhaps a round of funding. Like every DEMO from years gone past, venture capitalists were in abundance. They even had a VC dinner one night ($150 a head), where over 100 VCs attended.

Of those present included most of the top-tier firms (from both the East and West Coasts), and August Capital’s David Hornik was running around interviewing attendees for his growing in popularity podcast. You can listen to it here. Yours truly talks about preparing companies for DEMO from a PR and marketing perspective. (if not up yet, check back in a day or two).

Walt piped up, “there’s a colossal amount of energy and effort going into mobile phones. It would be great if the carriers were not controlling so much of it.” The audience agrees and yeah, well, it continues to be an ongoing painful discussion among so many in my circle.

On enterprise “stuff,” Michael talked about Apollo, which launched on the DEMO stage on day one. “It could be a great development product if they can make it work on everything.” He also referred to the PortNetwork platform, which is an RSS play that brands popular media properties.

Thank God the iPhone didn’t dominate the conversation…..how unfair on the innovative companies who spent a lot of money to be at DEMO. Yet it had to come up of course, noting that it has been over-hyped given that there are some limitations and the fact that it is not shipping until June. Also there is the fact that phones are not and have not been Apple’s core competency or business and yet the iPhone announcement could be incredibly disruptive to the industry.

On the long tail and social networking related sites, Larry adds, “I’m not sure I believe in the wisdom of the crowds unless there’s a large enough crowd. I worry about an online review unless I know who the person is and how credible they are.” I think that is largely true for most of us, however it is not necessarily as key of a factor for teenagers and kids, even if they may be more likely to join or buy something if their friends suggest it.