DEMO 09: It's the economy, stupid...

It's springtime in the desert -- specifically, Palm Desert, Cal. -- and it's time for the DEMO 09 conference, where companies large and small get six minutes each to show their new IT products and services. As usual, it's a mix of business- and consumer-oriented items, a total of 39 this time -- a big drop from the almost 70 last year, thanks to the sorry state of the economy -- blasted into the audience in three marathon sessions over two days.

For those who've never been to a DEMO conference, it's a seemingly endless series of those six-minute pitches. This isn't as grueling as it might sound; even though many of the presentations aren't of interest to corporate IT, they're almost all entertaining. And even the least interesting presentation is blessedly short -- in six minutes, they'll be talking about something else.

A warning for those who've never plowed through my not-quite realtime summary of DEMO sessions: I boil each six-minute product demo down to what's essential for corporate IT. True, everything gets short shrift, but I've included links so you can get more information on anything that sounds interesting.

And if it's still Monday or Tuesday, March 2nd or 3rd, you can watch the actual presentations online at demo.com/live from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. and 2 to 4:30 p.m., courtesy of BitGravity (see below). It's just like reading this report, only in real time and without the filter.

(And it turns out that Computerworld blogger Eric Lundquist is blogging live here at the show -- faster than me, slower (but longer-lasting) than the video feed.)

Here's the summary from the Monday morning session:

* BitGravity demoed the new high-definition version of its live streaming video webcast service. It's nice stuff, and supposed to be easy to set up -- just requires an HD camera, a Mac and plenty of bandwidth. The live version from the Demo stage had about a five-second delay between live and screen -- not bad at all. Available in April, pricing not specified.

* Ontier showed Pixetell, on-demand software that lets users create videos to attach to e-mail. Well, it's actually more like videos to replace e-mail -- the idea is to make creating a video as easy as writing an e-mail, with either a webcam or screen recording as video and voice recording as audio. Public beta scheduled for late March, subscription pricing not yet announced.

* Transformyx talked about RallyPoint, its system for managing communications during natural disasters and other crises. It's from a Louisiana company that got hit hard by Hurricane Katrina and born from that experience, so it's mainly aimed at filling in the human  holes in disaster recory plans: tracking employees, handling media announcements, making communications easier. Uses servers outside the disaster zone, and handles both e-mail and phone communications, so there's no assumption about what technologies are available to users. It's also organized by company structure so, for example, managers can easily see if there are messages from their direct reports. What Transformyx didn't talk about was pricing or whether it's a service or a standalone application.

* Vokle demoed an easy-to-use video chat service that works with no software installation (by which they mean "uses Flash in a web browser"). Allows group discussions or splitting off into private conversations. Yes, it's been done, this seems a little more useful for business meetings than more client-heavy approaches. (On the downside, the most obvious business for those "private conversations" is live porn. At least they'll never be without potential customers.) (Note: This company's site was not yet live when this blog was posted.)

* Technicopia showed gwabbit, an add-on for Microsoft Outlook that scrapes your e-mails to find contact information, then automatically adds the information into your Outlook address book with a single mouse click. In other words, it grabs the info that would have been in a Vcard for e-mail messages that don't have Vcards attached. No word on how it handles complex emails with multiple possible contact addresses, but at $19.95, it's cheap and you know if you need it.

* Cc:Betty demoed cc:betty, a service that automatically collects e-mail messages associated with a particular e-mail thread, then automatically organizes and annotates them and their attachments -- for example, photos are organized into an album, addresses automatically get links to maps, and dates are turned into downloadable calendar events. The company describes it as "kind of like Facebook for your e-mail," but presumably without the stalkers. It looks easy to use -- once your account is set up, just add "betty@ccbetty.com" to the cc: line in any e-mail. Currently in beta, basic service is free, premium features will be added in the future.

* Citrix Online had GoView, a hosted service for letting users easily record, edit and distribute recordings made of their PC screens. It's sort of like GoToMeeting (from the same people), only for capturing screen sessions. The video stream is automatically sent from the PC in real time and stored remotely, and editing and adding of titles happens at the host, so it may be bandwidth intensive. On the other hand, once a screen recording has been made and stored, it can be distributed by e-mailing a web address instead of attaching a large video file. Currently in beta and free.

* Zuora showed Z-Commerce for Facebook, a service that makes it easy for developers of Facebook applications to charge subscription fees. It's pretty slick for what it does -- handles subscriber signups, credit-card or PayPal payments, controls access to the applications and lets the developer see how many subscriptions he has sold. But automating the back end of a subscription process is the easy part; Zuora doesn't have any magic bullet for selling those subscriptions to Facebook apps.

* Document Depository Corp. demoed its hosted service that lets workgroups store and use documents online. The idea is that when a group is using documents, you want to have a central storage point, so things won't grind to a halt is someone quits, dies, or walks off with key documents. There are tools for individual users to manage their views of different workgroups, and the apps can even generate e-mails for meeting reminders. Pricing is typically in the $100 per company, $10 per user range, the company says. Specific vertical apps include corporate governance, contract tracking, private equity funding, legal negotiations and real estate negotiations. No details about how liability issues are handled -- we're talking about potentially toxic documents here -- but that name certainly sounds like your grandfather's bank, doesn't it?

* Home-Account had its subscription service for helping people pick the best mortgage. The service builds a user profile, then picks the best available mortage and makes specific recommendations for how the user can improve his credit score, then sends the user to the lender with a single click. No money comes from the lenders -- this is all paid for by the users. It sounds like an unlikely subscription service at $9.95 a month, but the company claims people typically refinance every four and a half years., and says an average user will save $165 per month.

* Zipadi Technologies demoed a hosted service that converts mail-order catalogs into websites. It's a clever idea -- using Adobe Flex, it converts the catalog's PDF files into a hosted website that has the look and feel of a paper catalog -- for example, when a user clicks on a product item, the view zooms in rather than going to a different web page. All the existing catalog design can be preserved, for better or worse. Video, slide shows and other media can be added, too. Free evaluation account, no details on real pricing.

* 7 Billion People showed its service for customizing websites based on how each user behaves. It all sounds pretty arcane when they talk about behavioral science and linguistics, but ultimately they're watching where customers click and generating custom Javascript that's injected so the customer will see, for example, technical specs instead of recommendations from other customers. Available now, pricing starts at $15,000 per month.

* Liquid Media demoed its "consumer-controlled marketing" system. The idea is that consumers can choose which advertisers can send them voice-mail messages. Free to consumers, who get access to a Web portal so they can pick the advertisers they want to hear from. Good luck with that, guys.

* eFormic showed CO2code, a clever system that lets companies market their efforts to be "green" with their products. The company prints a numeric code on the product with instructions; consumers type that code in at a website and learn how the company is offsetting the carbon emissions produced in the product's manufacture. Customers can even choose between multiple carbon-offset projects, such as solar power or tree-planting.

More to come...

Eric Lundquist: Lundquist's Five Demo 2009 Business Awards
Frank Hayes: DEMO 09: Getting smart
Mark Everett Hall: Without social networks products will wither and die
IT Blogwatch: Demonstrators demo at DEMO 09
Frank Hayes: DEMO 09: Getting weird with mobile
Frank Hayes: DEMO 09: It's the economy, stupid...
Eric Lundquist: Demo 2009 live blog of company presentations
Eric Lundquist: Five reasons why Demo 2009 still matters.
     ... more ...