DEMOfall Summary: Renee's Take

The last two sessions at DEMOfall were the most enticing for me, probably because they were less focused on the ‘enterprise,’ the companies had ‘friendlier, more engaging names,’ and a few could conceivably be partners or clients.

While some attendees I talked to didn’t think that the guys at Pie had a clear, easy-to-understand message, I seemed to ‘get it’ right away as a small business. The video while a little quirky, was amusing, realistic and frankly, ‘hit home.’ You betcha that I have spent countless hours if not weeks dealing with useless technical support for more devices than I care to mention.

Pie, which also has a great name, offers a desktop solution (product and service combined), which simplifies the installation, maintenance, and expansion of a home network and digital home environment. Its goal is to remove the complexity of managing a home network. I think the concept is great and would love to try it out as soon as its available.

SquareTrade SideBar is another compelling technology that aims to make online comparison shopping more convenient, and I would add, if it really works, faster. Notice that I have a soft spot for solutions that simplify my life, save me time and reduce the amount of time in front of a computer. Their SideBar automatically provides relevant comparison information on pricing, availability, reviews and seller information across multiple channels, including auctions, stores and classified ads.

Ben and Mena Trott entered stage left with Mena’s mother, to introduce their forthcoming blogging tool. A dialogue with Mena’s mom was used to highlight new features that simplify the blogging experience and make it more compelling for those not yet addicted to blogging, to write about things they are passionate about….in ‘mom’s case,’ pets. Target date for release is 2006.

Glam.com is a new shopping site specifically designed for women. The Glam.com team showed a preview of products for sale on Amazon and I have to admit, while Amazon is clearly a financial success, the UI was not designed with women in mind.

Glam.com is graphically presented the way women like to shop, with questionnaires to build a personalized profile and offers tailored to their preferences, whether that be views of clothing, accessories or styles that celebrities users relate to would likely buy. It’s kind of like a Vogue mixed with Google mixed with Amazon mixed with Macys Online mixed with a walk down Fifth Avenue. I like the concept. Whether I would use it or not on a regular basis is to be determined, but I definitely plan to try it out. Visually, its fabulous.

Simply Hired claims to have the largest search engine for jobs. A nice simple message that consumers can easily understand, however the key will be success rate. They index more than 3.5 million jobs from thousands of sources, including classified, job boards and company websites.

It appears that investors think there’s a huge market since $4.2 million has been pumped into the Company from numerous sources (angels and VCs), with the latest round closing in August of this year. I didn’t have time to get the scoop on their business model, but you can find out more at www.simplyhired.com.

Picture Marketing was the last company of the day that stood out in my mind, partially because I know one of the founders (Mable Yee, who I met at BlogHer), their lead engineer Tim is an amazing guy, their booth was in the middle of two of my clients, and they walked around with cool funky yellow cameras taking pictures of everyone throughout the conference.

It’s an e-commerce play, targeted to marketing executives who can now generate qualified leads from consumer and trade shows, sponsored events and retail locations. Their service centers on consumer photos captured at these events, using the interest generated by the photos to collect customer information which is then used to deliver very targeted marketing offers to consumers in a scalable and measurable way.

Unlike its competitors who clearly struggled with the search for a domain name not yet taken, they managed to grab a great one. I sympathize with these guys having had to go through this process countless times, but my my……listen to this line-up: Wishoo, PictureU, Yesmail, Revenue Science and Tacoda.

And then there are my clients Jingle Networks (the 800-FREE411 company) and VideoEgg (trial available), who were extremely well received. Press kudos and a couple of fun videos to follow within the next few days.

Tag: DEMO, Tag: DEMOfall, Tag: DEMOfall2005