DEMOfall Conference in Review

DEMOfall includes great technologies for domainers, and a few well named firms.

I spent the prior week in San Diego at DEMOfall launching a fresh product (VirtualVentures.com, which I’ll write regarding at a later time). For the unitiated, DEMO is the world’s premiere technology launch conference. It’s held twice yearly in the U.S. and a couple times a year in other countries.

This year’s DEMOfall included some really cool technologies, from Web 2.0 businesses to business applications to a cool 3-D slot machine.

So what does this have to do with domain names? A couple things.

First, there was a really useful but incredibly simple technology that may appeal to domainers. If you have a modest firm built around your domain business, then you are probably frustrated by scheduling meetings with your co-workers. Without a system like a Microsoft Exchange Server, it’s hard to figure out when people are available to meet. I’ve used Salesforce.com to synch calendars, but that’s a pain. The solution is Tungle, a peer-to-peer software application that allows you to easily view other people’s availability in calendaring programs such as Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar. Tungle is getting ready to release its next version, and I recommend registering to get in line.

Second, I always look at the names of firms and their domain names with a critical eye. I was pleasantly surprised by the names of many DEMO firms. They made sense and, for the most part, didn’t include difficult spellings or “Web 2.0” spellings.

Some of the better ones include CashView.com, a hosted cash management service, and coComment.com, a site that aggregates and tracks conversations.

Of course, there were some names that weren’t as simple. Examples are Phreesia.com and Graspr.com. If someone told you those firm names, would you be able to spell them and find them online?