Folsom Street Fair Boasts More Than Color

Every year, San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair draws a massive crowd, so much so that depending on the time of day, it's almost as packed as Mardi Gras.

What I didn't know, despite the fact that I've been living in the city for several years, is that I'd find people lined up to be spanked, naked men jerking off in the middle of the street and clotheless women tied up to a street posts with rope.

I have to admit, I really thought I was walking down to a street fair with camera in hand to shoot a street full of food and arts and crafts stalls. "How long have you lived here?" a friend later asked.

Okay, so I didn't know. What I did discover however, was indeed art, just not the kind I expected. After passing my first naked man, I realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore, and had entered a different world, one which isn't public on Folsom Street every day.

While San Francisco welcomes the kinky, the folks in my circles tend to only dabble in all things kinky and naked at Burning Man once a year and that is in a wide open desert, not a street in your hood. Bare skin, tons of color, kissing, cold beer and creative garb - what's not to entice you?

Writes the Chronicle: "Step right up!" exhorted a man in the cadence of a carnival barker. "We've got the regular spanking bench, we've got the big chair, and of course, we've got the stocks." Photos from SF Gate here although I took a ton of my own. Even more can be found in my We Blog the World arhives.

DEMO: Much More than Products, VCs and Press

Amazing: Chris Shipley somehow gets IDG's mastermind Pat McGovern to dance on the DEMO stage this year.

As I stood there shooting from the floor in the front, I turned around as Pat was giving kudos to Chris and saw Jan Ziff and Allan Davidson to my right. Suddenly, a memory from twenty years ago filled my head -- as if it were yesterday.

You see, IDG was one of my first clients when I was a pup in the PR biz and the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards, which Pat attended in those days, was my first serious gig.

I met Allan and Jan at this exclusive D.C. event, the same one where I first met Pat, even though I had already been pitching his excellence to the business and broadcast press for months.

Looking at Jan and Allan and then back to Pat on stage, it was as if I was reliving my very first technology event. I could see every visual: the red and blue carpet, my perfectly manicured bobbed haircut and nails, my black cocktail dress, the standard for flacks at that time, the giveaway bag with the silver and purple tissue paper, the balloons, the silverware, Paul Gillin at my table who was then an editor at Computerworld, the trophies for the winners -- all of it.

It reminded me how small the industry really is....and how many of the old timers I first met twenty years ago are still around, even if they have reinvented themselves.

As traditional media gets shaken up, some have become marketers or developed products, some have moved from enterprise to consumer and then back again, or traveled around the world and are now running a startup, while others are now funding the kinds of companies they ran in the 90s.

Many of us are still 'in it' whether or not we thought we'd be in it for the long haul when we started in this business twenty some odd years ago.

This brings me back to Demo, the spirit of what it brought to the industry and still does and why I remain a fan. Demo isn't just about products, nor is it just about getting funding and or press for your launch.

Demo is about a community that has created a tradition, a tradition of gathering year after year to exchange ideas, collaborate, team up with potential partners, learn, grow and yes, build companies.

While it certainly attracts young start-ups and always has, it is still the event for 'grown-ups.' By combining wisdom of those who have been in the industry for 20+ years and the innovation and ideas from creative young entrepreneurs, great things can happen and ideas can flourish.

If you're one of those people who complain that events are not what they were or that you don't get the value anymore, then think about the power of traditions, consider the importance of face-to-face in addition to your online community, the result of smart networking and step up into a role that creates energy rather than waits for it to come to you. Step into a role that ignites rather than merely captures.

If you put energy, heart and ideas into your networking, trust me, you'll get energy, heart and ideas back....and quite possibly relationships that will help you create a new product, accelerate an existing one or start a new company.

While we're on the topic of tradition, below is a video of Chris Shipley, someone who has given a tremendous amount of herself to the industry over the years: Pat McGovern presents a much deserved lifetime achievement award to her. Chin Chin Chris and thanks Demo. Onward and upward.

Memories From This Year's DEMOfall

Below are a smattering of fabulous shots from this year's DEMOfall in San Diego.

Microsoft's John Nogrady and Don Dodge

Mark Pincus

Steve Wildstrom, Janet Rae-dupree, Renee Blodgett, Don Clark, Barry Rosenbaum & band member

(Taken by Demo photographer)

Local Dirt's Founder and CEO Heather Hilleren

Pat McGovern, Renee Blodgett

Neal Silverman, Pat McGovern

Answers.com's Shaya Loney

Laura Beck, Chris Shipley, Jon Pepper, Renee Blodgett, Janet Rae-dupree

(Taken by Demo photographer)

Harry McCracken

Lifetime Achievement Awards

Matt Marshall

Pat McGovern

Jan, Pat, Renee

Renee and Jon

DEMO Stage Crew

McGovern

Barak Berkowitz

Awards Ceremony

Answers.com - Shaya Loney, Bob Rosenschein, Renee Blodgett

USA Today's Ed Baig

Jam Session

Steve Larsen

Neal Silverman

Chris and Janet

Below are shots taken by Demo's photographer on-the-ground. Check out the full Demo flickr stream. My uploads from the event and on flickr - tagged DEMOfall09.

Chris and the Band

Laura Beck, Renee Blodgett, Ed Baig, Robin Raskin, Ann Revell-Pechar and Laurie Ann

Renee Blodgett, Neal Silverman

Pat McGovern and Chris Shipley dance

Group shot at the end of the Jam Session

The Demo Crew (by Rob Lee)

Zorap: Share it All with Friends From Your Own Customized Room

I spent some time hanging out with the guys from Zorap last week since their demo pod was immediately across from ours.

The Maine-based CEO was incredibly clever - he brought his three boys into his demo in real-time so the audience could see them navigate features on the screen. And if you can't find something to say about that smart marketing call, what's not to like about Maine?

But let's get to their product. Cool, simple, easy-to-use, Zorap allows people to gather on web pages in real-time. You can see and hear up to 50 of your friends at the same time and you can also share media like music, photos, videos, or things from the web such as YouTube videos.

You can get your own room, customize it by setting up your own color scheme, uploading a custom backdrop and specifying a custom size. Here, you can share your webcam, talk to your friends using either Push-To-Talk or Auto-Talk audio modes and send text messages.

You can also share things by dragging and dropping directly into your Zorap room or click a sharing button in the sharing pull-out. This includes photos, videos, slideshows, files and music.

Answers.com on Stage: What's Biz Stone's Real Name?

Client Answers.com was on the DEMO stage this past week. While most have heard of Answers.com, what seemed to be a secret and a surprise was how often people actually visit the site - it is now ranked 18th most visited site in the U.S. according to comScore. People also may not realize that that their community has now over 3.4 million registered members and a database that exceeds five million answers.

Above: Answers' CEO Bob Rosenschein

No one has taken their approach of combining community with reference under one roof. The former although incredibly useful, when offered as the 'only option,' clearly has its limitations.

Says product manager Shaya Loney after their presentation: "waiting on my laptop when I sat down afterwards were comments from family, friends, coworkers and former coworkers across the globe. They Skyped, Google chatted, Facebooked, Tweeted and emailed us - some even changed their IM statuses - all with messages of support. In Israel, some folks watched our presentation with their kids, seated around the dinner table. In New York, our colleagues gathered together at the office to view the streaming video."

This, my friends, is the power of community and the power of a fabulous team that makes a company sustainable.

Below is their six minute on-stage presentation. Kudos to Bob, Shaya and their home teams in both New York and Jerusalem.

Did you know that Shipley & Marshall could dance?

Chris Shipley and Matt Marshall danced up a storm on the DEMO stage last week. Nice touch for the transition and passing of the executive producer baton to Matt this year.

Raising a Glass to Chris Shipley

Neal Silverman raises a glass to the class of DEMOfall 2009 and to Chris Shipley for an incredible 13 years on the eve of her last day.

DEMO Jam Session: I Caaan't Get Noo Satisfaction.....

Below is a great video clip of a very happy DEMO 09 crowd dancing up a storm during the traditional Jam Session, which has been a tradition on the second night of DEMO for as long as I can remember.

More Startup News on the DEMO Stage

#Hashwork, who was in the "working smarter" group on the DEMO stage this afternoon, enables companies to take back a bit of control by getting their employees to use social media to engage with community, partners, customers and projects. Their tagline? Help cure anti-social business disorder. It brought a smile.

Your RSS feed can be part of your company community, i.e., jotbase.haswhwork/.....#hashwork rolls up public posts from your company's community, lets you know what is happening at any given time, and then the community can share comments and questions. I thought of Yammer when I saw it, except that you can choose whether to make your feeds internal or external. People from the outside can also connect, share questions and comments and automatically upload photos.

Phot.to's founder has a sexy Russian accent on the DEMO stage and dresses with style including great shoes. Okay, now for their news.

We saw all the various ways their tools can enhance images including the basics: redeye removal, blow removal, as well as fun photos and avatars. They also allow automatic photo upload to Facebook, Twitter and more.

Zuora is in the subscription billing and recurring payments industry. While their Z-Billing 2.0 and Z-Payments products make it fast and easy to launch new products, scale operations, and automate recurring billing and subscription payments, their pitch at Demo is a solution to save newspapers.

Says the founder, "free is killing the industry. With print circulation dropping at 10% a year, there's no time to waste." He shows us the 50,000 circulation paper La Jolla Village News on the screen. Today, they don't have a subscription model for their content online.

While there's no concensus about how newspapers and magazines should charge, he says, perhaps it's a trial, i.e., free for the first 7-10 articles and 10 cents an article thereafter? He says, it's time to find a way to monetize online content. ZCommerce enables you to ecommerce a website, such an online newspaper, so you can tag which articles are premium content and what sections are free.

NativeTung is enabling the global commerce movement online. Although the Internet driving down the cost of information distribution to zero, local and regional businesses still struggle to leverage their websites to engage international audiences around the globe. NativeTung enables websites to create multi-language content channels that maximize global audience reach and engagement easily and quickly.

Glam Media's Samir Arora demoed their latest: Tinker.com, which allows you to stay on top of the latest buzz on Twitter and beyond, as well as create your own.

You can create or follow an event stream by choosing a keyword and you'll be the first to hear. what's an event stream? An event could beanything: the Oscars, a new iPhone release, a movie premiere, a book launch, or a Superbowl party.

You can also embed Tinker on your own site or page, which allows you to promote an event, movie, book or website launch, create a conversation directly on your site, and share that buzz with your users.

New Product Unveilings at DEMOfall

Micello, which is on the DEMOfall stage in the first session, is about "mapping" for people.

They provide an indoor location-based service for mobile devices by extending a map inside locations, such as convention centers, shopping malls, college campuses, airports, and theme parks. We see a demo that brings us into the Stanford Shopping mall. They show a navigatable map with interactive services in the context of time and place on an iPhone which they're announcing today.

Viaas, also in the first session, is a cloud based SaaS (Software as a Service) system for video monitoring and security, which provides secure remote access and archives.

They enable bandwidth shaping which allows cameras to use more bandwidth. People can install multiple cameras on their existing internet connections. It wouldn't be video monitoring if you couldn't get real time video monitoring in real-time, so they include that as well.

The real value, the founder says on-stage is to "to understand what has happened in the past. You can see multiple events across cameras. You can also drill into single events from a single camera. After a single click, you review the video. You can then see the videos displayed over time, as events, so you can mark what you have discovered and then accumulate these events as you go through an investigation."

Fuze Meeting is browser based and built on top of virtualization, so there's nothing to download and nothing to install.

Fuze Meeting is a web conferencing tool that allows you to conduct online meetings rather than travel to far off places. They have integrated social services such as from Twitter, Gmail, Facebook and others, into a mobile devices.

With one click, you can invite attendees into a meeting, take a link from your meeting and post it to Twitter or other services to show what you're doing or working on. You can also integrate images into a meeting. Fuze Meeting is $29 a month, based on an annual subscription.

TravelTrac integrates smart phone with custom content so you can share your adventures as they happen from friends and family to any destination worldwide. They claim that few people share travel commentary online and their mission is to change that.

TravelTrac allows you to update a trip from anywhere anytime and you don't need a cell or wireless connection to do it. The three travel categories include: MotoTrac, which allows you to keep friends posted on your off road trips and 4x4 vacations worldwide 24/7/365, TrekTrac, which is an interactive trekking journal and adventure travel sharing utility that integrates wireless remote technologies and dynamic multimedia to allow you to share your travel adventures, and lastly SailTrec, an online sailing forum and sailing journal that lets you keep friends posted on your sailing adventures aboard and abroad.

From the trip's home page, you can calculate distances and updates with every position that you submit. Additional features are dynamically integrated so that travel journey entrees and photos can be updated automatically. Photos can be displayed in thumbnail view or you can display them as a slideshow. Video is supported and they'll be adding the ability to post to Facebook and Twitter as well.

Tungle shows their system for documenting and tracking your daily calendar activities.

Without forcing you to switch systems, they accelerate the environment you’re already familiar with by allowing you to sync with Outlook (with or without Exchange), Google Calendar, Apple iCal and Entourage for Mac.

dotSyntax shows us the latest from their Digsby product which integrates email, IM and social networks from one app.

Think of it as a multiprotocol IM client that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber with one simple to manage buddy list. They also have a social networking tool that alerts you of events like new messages and gives you a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to.

What they're launching today is a new Twitter, client which they say, has been "designed from the ground up." It is designed with the oldest tweets on the top, so instead of seeing the tail end first so you can view it as a conversation. You never have to mark tweets as read, Digsby does it for you to reduce the chance of you ever missing a tweet.

Once you start to follow a lot of people on Twitter, it becomes very cluttered, so they have designed a one column client that allows you to group the least important people in one column so the most important conversations flow to the top.

Digsby also allows you to search easily and it includes automatic photo upload, URL shortening and spell check. There's also a snapshot view for casual users who wish to just see the latest in their timeline.