CATEGORIES
- WEB STARTUPS
- WEB NEWS
- CONFERENCES
- VENTURE CAPITAL
- MICROSOFT
- WEB TECH JOBS
- YAHOO
- ADVERTISING
- VIDEO
- ALL TOPICS
- ALL COMPANIES
CONTRIBUTORS
- ADRIAN CHAN
- ALICIA NAVARRO
- ALLEN STERN-EDITOR
- CORSIN CAMICHEL
- DARREN HERMAN
- HANK WILLIAMS
- MARK DAVIS
- RICK TUROCZY
- SANFORD DICKERT
- SHANNON CLARK
September NY Tech Meetup Review w/video
Written by Allen Stern - September 4, 2007
Tonight was the NY Tech Meetup at Cooper Union. This meetup is the largest of all of the meetups and I am guessing about 450 people attended this evening. By a show of hands, most of the attendees work for a startup in some capacity which was actually quite shocking. Though coming from the corporate world, most IT workers don't typically go to these types of events.
Here are the presenting companies - click to view video (notes below by Meetup, not CN):
- Hakia: Search for meaning
- Collectors Quest: Where hunters gather
- jkn.com: Add comments inside any web page - no video, check out my discussion from last week
- DesignMyRoom.com: What it says
- Silicon Alley Insider: The Anti-Calacanis 2.0
- Animoto: Next-gen photo/music slideshows
- Gawker: Showing off something new
- Bookswim: Rent books NetFlix-style
- iminlikewithyou: Find, flirt, bid
Over the next 24 hours, I will post each video and my commentary. Takes a bit to upload each video so please bear with me. Here are my general thoughts on the meetup:
- Not sure why Alley Insider and iminlikewithyou received 3x+ more time than everyone else. This overage seemed to put undue pressure on the later presenters and most were cut off at 4 minutes. For example, Bookswim was cut at 4 minutes while iminlikewithyou had 6 minutes demo and 10 minutes questions. Hmm.
- If you go to an event - TURN YOUR *(%@(*)%@( PHONE OFF. Presenters work hard (at least some of them) to get ready for a demo, the least you can do is turn off your phone. It's lame and stupid.
- Great crowd as always - asked good questions, Scott (facilitator) allows only one question per person for the entire evening - this keeps the question hogs out of the game!
- GroundReport.TV will post their videos on Wednesday
- Meetup is hiring - check their site for more and review working at Meetup vs. Google
COMMENTS - Add New Comment
I think iilwy was given more time because it was the most interesting presentation of the lot. The bookswim guys didn't even bring a demo, they brought a keynote presentation. And it wasn't even tech guys giving the presentation. I'm glad they got cut off.
I'm tired of NY Tech Meetups, there isn't anything tech about it. Most of the presenters are business guys in khaki's. At least, Animoto talked about the tech behind it and iilwy was presenting an interesting full flash interface and not a bunch of buzzword speak BS.
I think you raise some interesting points. You are right that Animoto was the only one to step into the tech side, but I think the idea is with 5 minutes to show a demo, and then the second meetup hour is to meet the demo'er and ask the questions about the tech, biz, etc.
iminlikewithyou might have been the worst presentation of the evening in my opinion. Not only did he bring some "toy" for what reason I don't know, I walked away from it having NO idea what it does. Plus the demo was pre-recorded. I guess showing some pictures of women in bikinis and tight tshirts makes up for lack of ability to explain what a product does.