2Lines Software
18Apr/080

Calgary DemoCamp 08

I spent last Tuesday at my first Calgary DemoCamp where I gave a presentation of PhoneTag Elite on a Nokia N95.

In case you are not familiar with BarCamps/DemoCamps (From Wiki):

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.

I was really impressed not only with the organization of the meeting but also the openness and candor of the participants and demonstrators. It was a great opportunity to display the capabilities of our company and also network with some great companies in the Calgary (and Edmonton) areas. Christian Idicula of CriticalMass out of Calgary provided a great summary of the presenters.

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10Apr/080

CTIA Wrapup

Well it turns out that PhoneTag Elite didn't take any major awards at the LBS Challenge . Our continuing curse, of always being a finalist never a bride came through again this year.

I have been involved in the competition for 3 years now and I think that by far this years applications were the most promising. The applications were solid and polished. Each of them looked ready to go to market and all of them included business plans.

Of particular note was a company out of California that produce a product called SpotJots. I'm testing out the product on my Nokia N95 now and it seems like it works really well. Most importantly the application is very fast and very clean. The design work on the site is great and simple. I'll post a full review of the site when I can.

Also another participant, Trapster , produced a user-generated speed trap application. The mobile device tracks its location and when a driver passes a speed-trap on the side of the road, they can trigger a message to the server. This uploads the speed trap to a central server and when any device approaches an existing trap it can send an alert out to the driver. Great idea. After meeting the founder, Pete Tenereillo, and going for a short drive I can attest that he probably created this app out of a personal need.

If you have some time follow-up with all the application that were displayed at the LBS Challenge. You can demo most of them by downloading the Where.com application to your phone. 2/3rds of the applications were run on this platform. I'm demoing the platform now and I'll send a posting out soon.

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