Yesterday I’ve attended unConference Singapore, one of the biggest events I’ve seen here. It’s all about startups, mostly focused on social component of the web. I’ve attended 2 session and one startup show off in what host called American Idol style.
The day started pretty late for me so I’ve picked up first session after lunch. My friend Arul presented an interesting product which is already in focus - Crunchpad, an internet browsing device created by TechCrunch. Fusion Garage, a Singapore based company and Arul’s workplace is a creator of the software that runs Crunchpad. Software is a Linux that boots directly into a browser and let’s you do all you need only through browser. Looking at availability of software and media over internet that seems like an idea without drawbacks.
After that, we’ve attended Startup Pitch session where about a dozen startups showed off what they’ve into. All of them had about 6 minutes to present and then few minutes for panel of judges to give their opinion. It was interesting, and startups were in many ways inspiring. Let me go through all of them briefly.
eJamming – online collaboration tool for musicians, they can just plug in on net and play together like they are in the same room. Presented live and it worked well. This helps a lot people who are traveling or just wants to meet new people. Later on, same company will be releasing a site that will enable bands broadcast their performance live and get some money from selling it to audience.
CountSpin – auction website, simple idea. Site really needs redesign, and like one of the judges said, offering more products at same time or extending possibilities in other directions would be a win for them. Compare function is not working nicely too.
Frenzoo – nice 3D teen website where you can dress your 3D characters buying clothes or designing your own. Great presentation, very clean and clear on their key points. Congratulations, hope they will be big.
Genkii – no doubt Genkii is composed of talented individuals who will try to bridge art and social components into 3D world in order to create something interesting with their product. 3D world that they are bringing soon to iPhone was impressive, especially seeing it live on iPhone of Ken. Gankii is Tokyo based and they will release Sparkle, 3D virtual world probably during a summer of this year. Good luck!
Orsiso – ORganize SImplify SOcialize is AIR application which connects your multiple accountsand friends on social networks. Definetely great potential for wide-spread usage. As a judge said they need to easier clarify what is a benefit of their product. Their aim is to help you easier organize your social friend data by improtance to you, grouping your friends in circles. Glad to see some of the improvement from previous versions includes some of the things I was thinking it’s good. UI needs to get better still because having so many things out there first time user needs to be able to adopt it in a minute.
2359 Media – presented app called Singapore Malls. It’s now available on iPhone. They should put more info on website, together with links to app store. Basically app servers information about malls in Singapore, very detailed ones like stores, floor plans, search for discounts and much more. They’ve also created an ad network to leverage their application potential and making it also possible for other developers to use it in their applications.
iTwin – iTwin is a USB plug & play device that will enable you to connect two computers in peer-to-peer network without setting up any software or passwords. Simple and easy solution for variety of reasons. Judges nicely stated that they need more to point this use cases. Nice product.
Human Network Labs – one of the most interesting products at unConference. I’ve already heard about it before and I was glad I can see a presentation. HNL created a PixieEngine platform which is based on RFID chips that can be stick to any object. Once you have it in your surrounding using an application on phone or other device you are becoming aware of other objects and people who are using it. Connection between objects is transmitted over 1.5Mbps which is enough even for streaming a video. There is a lot of possible use cases for this product and it’s definitely on it’s way to become a huge success.
SocialWok – they defined it as Facebook + Twitter for Business. It’s a social network made private so it’s suits organizations and businesses. Clean interface is a copy of Facebook, more cleaner and has all the features of sharing statuses, links and media files. There is an interest for this in organizations I am sure, only thing as one of the judges noticed is, when you say employees to start using something they might not use it, so how you get companies to adopt it is going to be a big challenge. They have iPhone and BlackBerry client so that’s a big plus for adoption.
I hope I haven’t left out anyone, if I did it wasn’t intentional.
I’ve attended one more session after startups, about Django and Plone by Kenny Shen. Interesting introduction what Plone is, why it works and who uses it. Thanks on this to Kenny.
After that we went for a dinner, meeting more interesting people, having some problems with pub people but at the end great conference and very interesting day. I am glad I’ve met people I know and a lot of new people.
Thanks to e27 Singapore for organising this event and check out their website, there is a bunch of useful stuff, like interviews with people who were speaking at the conference.
Good luck with unConference 2010.
