I have been attending DEMO on San Diego since Sunday. The presentations have been lively and the six minute limit ensures a brisk pace. Having worked with startups for over 25 years, I was impressed by the maturity of the “demos”. The presenters manage to get their message across (frequently with a few jokes).
Many of the companies focus on “Web 3.0” (and one company claimed to be the first Web 4.0 company). Two of the most interesting companies provided solutions to the problem of user generated content: how do encourage users to continue to contribute without any income. They combined the web’s capability for distributed collaboration with micropayments. This combination could be very powerful, enabling user generated content to go to the next level: income generation.
Photrade (http://www.photrade.com/) has developed the infrastructure to permit photographers to share, store, protect and license their photographs to advertisers and web publishers. Photographers get paid for each view of their photos.
MixMagicMusic Service (http://www.mixmatchmusic.com/) provides all the tools needed for musicians to collaborate online. They can also communicate with fans and sell their works. It includes a Remix Wizard to permit fans to create music mashes.
However, some of the most interesting companies were not material companies, but more about that later
