A Wider Net

DEMO, the mighty showcase of startup companies and products, places videos of the product demonstrations on their website. The fact that they do this, fearless of the possibility that it may somehow cannibalize the size or quality of their onsite audience, tells me that they “get it”. These videos make their event even more appealing. You can see firsthand, through the well-produced videos, that the Googles of tomorrow will be first seen by most people at Demo today.

Capturing video of your event used to be a daunting task. Now, it should be as second-nature as booking the hotel. Delivering the video has never been easier, either. DEMO chose to work with Brightcove, the video delivery platform from former Macromedia mastermind Jeremy Allaire. Not only is the Brightcove player a well-engineered feature-rich video player, but they make it easy to syndicate the content and repurpose the content across multiple websites. Like this:

I will admit, however, that it seems a shame that a show that is clearly dedicated to showcasing the cutting edge in technology, has not adopted a more progressive social media approach to their video assets. Specifically, why can’t we rate the videos, or comment on the demos? I would think the stream of comments would be extremely valuable to the companies that worked so hard to produce the demos. Also, I’m very surprised to see that they still make us look through every demo to see what we’re watching - there is no description on the page of what the company makes. So if you’re interested in new social networking pieces, you have to watch ALL of them to find what you’re looking for.

Regardless, there are a TON of exciting demos to see. I’ll try to highlight a few for you, although you can get complete textual descriptions be skimming the headlines over at Mashable - they managed to write about each company just before their product demos went live on the site.

EcoBranders offers a whole line of environmentally-friendly products. Some are great - they include plastic things made out of corn plastic, things made out of cork, things made out of hemp, and clothing made of cotton and bamboo (like the picture to the left which also features their most expensive product: a premium recycled slacker).

Some things are weird, like the recycled stone made from pulverized… er… stone. Not sure what the environmental need is there, but for the sake of Mother Earth we should stop buying virgin rocks and get the recycled kind. I guess.

I’m also not sure the recycled paper pens will pass muster with the shirt pocket. It just seems like a recipe for disaster.

It’s worth a look - there are a LOT of products made from all kinds of recycled and recyclable stuff. It will make you feel better. And it may help you satisfy your next event’s green requirements

Then it will have to include these guys: Experience Chocolate.

Custom chocolate tastings… I can think of no greater marketing innovation. At the moment.

I’ve already informed the marketing team.

Thanks to Corporate Meetings & Incentives Magazine - I’ve had this clipped and hanging around my office since it was published in the March issue. I’d link you there, but the article seems to have been removed.

Yep, it’s two bits of web jargon in one - a jargonlomerate. Your widgets, apparently, can have badges. And while you may be thinking (as I was) that you “don’t need no stinkin’ badges”, this free service from Yahoo is a nice way to promote the availability of your widget and make it easier for people to use it.

For example, here is a badge for a widget we recently built to keep attendees and prospects in touch with news about a consumer trade show:

I just watched all of the marketing videos of the Tenori-On I could find, and I may watch them again a few more times. This thing is mesmerizing to watch and delightful to hear. You can’t have one. They’re sold out already (for now). I do hope to see one soon, and eventually I expect to see them in performance pieces at trade shows and meeting openers.

This is no toy - it’s a powerful and pricey musical instrument. It seems to work on a very simply principle though - you create loops of music by pressing different lighted buttons corresponding to different notes. The lights in the buttons come to life and animate your music as you play, creating brilliant visuals on both sides of the device so everyone can see. It’s digital music meets performance art.

It was shown two years ago at Siggraph and is apparently ready for the masses. Of course, I would probably find that my rhythmically challenged fingers could barely get it to make sound let along music, but it looks sooooo easy in the videos.

It is certainly made to look a LOT easier than it is. This is also a good example of how effective web video can be. Not only do videos really sell products like this well, but 43,000 views on YouTube in a few weeks for free is a pretty nice way to get the word out.

Watch the videos and enjoy. Use headphones.

Catch some decent coverage here and here.

Image from Engadget.

Edit: It’s the iPhone without a crummy phone limited by a crummy network. What I don’t get is - 8 and 16GB of memory…. They just upped the video iPod to 160GB, which is cheaper. Sure, this is an amazing device - it has WiFi, and an internet browser, and YouTube videos, and a Facebook application, and a wireless iTunes store (Parents - protect your credit cards!). But 16G of memory? Is that a joke? Instead of playing movies an music you’re going to be spending your time managing space.

Ah well, nothing is perfect, and I’m sure this is why it has a battery life of nearly a day. It will be a high-demand item for corporate incentives - even more than the big-monthly-expense iPhone.

16G? (I’m thinking - Back to the Future’s Professor “16 Gigabytes??!?!?!?!?! How could I be so stupid?”)