DemoCamp 21
July 29th, 2009
Toronto’s 21st DemoCamp was held last night in the Rogers Theatre. I enjoyed it: it was good to see friends, and great to see what’s going on in Toronto’s tech community. Here’s my rundown:
- Venue: better than the pub we were in the last couple of times, but banked seating (and no beer) just doesn’t feel right either.
- Jon Udell: I think his ideas about syndicating calendar information are a big deal; I was surprised there were so few questions (maybe because he was first up?).
- Saul Colt/Zoocasa: I was expecting a demo; we got slideware.
- Christine Renaud/ArtAnywhere: very polished Ignite presentation on a new web-based art rental business.
- Brian Sharwood/HomeStars: another Ignite about bringing social media to contractors. Enjoyed it—he clearly likes what he’s doing.
- Alan Lysne/Cascadia: live coding to show off a cross-platform app library for mobile devices. Very cool.
- Shaun MacDonald/MashupArts: in-the-web editor for birthday cards, greeting cards, etc.
- Dan Wood/WeGoWeGo: another “what’s on where” search engine; good demo.
- Ben Vinegar/Guestlist: best demo of the night—guest lists have been done before, but Ben (a former project student) has done a really nice re-think with some cool GUI features.
- Jason Roks/GuiGoog: the other best demo of the night—Jason coped with technical problems (including having to run on IE6) with good, if acerbic, humor.
Overall impressions: several A-grade presentations and good conversations. Our undergrads are doing their demos this morning (Wednesday, July 29) from 10-12 am in Room 1200 of the Bahen Centre at 40 St. George Street; everyone’s welcome to come and see them try to repeat last night’s success.
The GUIGoog presentation left me wondering where there’s any value. If people really wanted that Google would have already built it. I did a Google search for advanced search tools and http://www.eccellio.com did this before Jason Roks made his attempt. Did he copy it from their site? Eccellio has a different users interface but you can see that Eccellio seems to work easier and better. I doubt this will get any traction and the bad demo didn’t help. I tried the site and it kept breaking. I guess it needs more work.
Thanks for the kind words Greg. I’m sorry I couldn’t check out the student presentations the following day. Have you guys thought about doing them in the evening?
@Ben Evenings might bring out more of the local tech community, but they’re harder for project supervisors (like me) with small kids at home. If anyone wants to organize a StudentCamp in the off-months when there isn’t a DemoCamp, I’d be all for it…