On Friday, I stopped in to check out Mashable’s Exhibit Hall / Party at Touch.   This is apparently the only exhibit hall for Internet Week so I think everyone in the NYC tech scene decide to stop by because the event was packed.

Whenever I go to one of these events, I enjoy a little chuckle to myself when I think of the conferences I’ve attended for my day job.  There’s typically a host of software providers, or a featured software provider, trying to sell any doohickie or widget they can stuff down the government’s throat.  I’m often the only person in the room under 40 and always the only one in the room with a spike of hair running over the top of his head.  For one of the more enjoyable conferences, NYC’s GovTech, the NYTimes tech blogger, David Pogue, gave a great, but revealing presentation about all kinds of new things on the internets — Skype, iPhone (1.0 not 2.0), etc.  It sometimes feels like stepping back in time.

Mashable was about as different from my day job’s conferences as one can get, but maybe it was a little too far in the future?  The event was hosted at Touch, a faux ritzy lounge / club that most people probably think of when they think of New York bars.  That’s right kids, plush couches, and a freakin’ DJ!  The only problem with this is that whole “Exhibit” part sometimes got kind of tough.  People were yelling over one another, and the exhibit area was packed, even during the first hour or so that I was there.  Not a bad bar scene, but again, the exhibit was kind of lost in the mix.

Don’t get me wrong.  I completely enjoyed myself at Mashable’s Exhibit Hall.  A bit of free food, (not free) beer, and internet geeks in the same room makes for a good time. Maybe they just needed a bigger space?

Rather than talk about the event, I decided to do something similar to what I did with the Columbia Venture Community article and review a few of the companies and websites I saw yesterday.  (If anyone else wants to review some of these sites, feel free to do so in the comments.  Yes, you, my 10 readers…):

NameThis - NameThis is another Kluster product and seems very similar to the Kluster site.  NameThis offers allows you to crowdsource the name of your company, product, or, well, anything.  My initial impression with the site is that I’m not in love with the wooden deck-like header overlaid horizontally on the vertically striped background.  It kind of hurts my eyes, but doesn’t keep me from being able to quickly figure out what this site’s all about.  They do a great job of using the most important screen real estate with the important functions of the site - naming competitions.

I ran into a few stumbling blocks when I tried to use NameThis though.  And by that, I mean, I can’t log in to use the site really at all.  I tried to log on to NameThis using my Kluster email account, the log on kept failing, but there was no message to tell me what was wrong.  I decided to “forgot my password” and had an email sent to me with a link to reset my password.  When I reset my password, I was taken straight back to the original log in screen as if there was another unannounced error with the system.  Grrr.  I can log in to Knewsroom and Kluster so I don’t think it’s me.

I can log in to the site and see the current naming competitions, but I can’t participate.  It’s too bad too.  The concept of this site is so simple and easy to understand that I want to participate, you know?  Just the tip, just to see how it feels?

One last thing about Kluster, they seem like they have found a system that will really be able to churn out products.  It seems like they’ve put together three different applications over night so I bet we can expect more.

edopter - edopter was probably my favorite site of the event.  Even better, Matthew from edopter was probably the easiest person to talk to of all the participants.  Great site.  Great people.  Good combination.  I don’t think I’m a part of edopter’s target market, but I can completely see the type of people who would love this site.  In fact, I have a friend of mine that I’m sharing the link with once I finish this post.

For the most part, the site design is great.  I came away with a few ideas for updating the Enter Venture blog design (whenever that will be) .  They do a really good job of focusing your eye on big, clear images and text, which makes for a fun browsing experience.

I do have a few complaints: Some of the graphic design makes it a bit difficult to scan for elements on the site.  The buttons blend in with the rest of the background and text a bit too much — for example, the log in button on the home page.  The search bar also suffers from a similar problem but looks more like a button than an input field.

Concertattack - ConcertAttack has a great, clean site that addresses the popular music / artist / fan / concert market.  I should be feeling great about ConcertAttack, but here’s the thing…  Haven’t I seen this site before?  Or some variation of this site?  I’m certainly not someone who would use the site.  There definitely are a lot of people who would — just check out the activity on the site.

My worry for them is how are they really, really going to stand out?  Something tells me the fans of these sites are pretty fickle.  Concertattack must do one or two things better than anyone else, it’s just hard for me to know what those things are.

VideoClix.tv - VideoClix was a crowded by people so I knew there was something worth checking out in them.  I just watched the demo of their product and can now see why it was so crowded.  VideoClix has made video interactive and clickable for more information and product suggestions.  While watching a video of Steve Harvey, you can mouse over the video for an indication of what’s clickable.  When you click on the video, a small sidebar slides out with more information about Home Depot, sandpaper, Steve Harvey, etc.

The product doesn’t yet seem perfect from the demo, but it’s a certainly on its way towards a really new and interesting viewing experience. I look forward to my beta invite to see more.

Rubicon - Hmm.  Rubicon.  I was at  first excited about Rubicon.  This might be something I could use in the future.  I have a blog.  At the point that I have more than 10 readers, I might want to put ads on this blog.  Unfortunately, I never found myself wanting to get started.  They do some sort of ad network optimization thing where we all magically make tons of money, or “mad cash”.  All I wanted to do is figure out what they could do for Enter Venture.  Instead, I filled out a form, that took me to their “User Interface” (I should have known to bail out here), then another set of questions, and really, I stopped there.  It was clear that this wasn’t something I wanted to use.

After writing the above, I decided to give Rubicon one last try and at least view their 3 minute demo.  Instead of a demo though, I got a voiced over sales presentation.  I think they’re really stretching the use of the word “demo” (short for “demonstration”) here.

MotionBox - MotionBox was another company and site that I really liked.  Put them in the edopter bucket.  MotionBox seems to have found a niche in the family video sharing space.  Their site uses all kinds of language and images that target the “Hi Mom, the baby did x today!” audience.  MotionBox’s user account screens look the best of any of the sites I saw at Mashable.  They’re well organized, have subtle design touches that compliment that organization, and they make it extremely easy to use their system — right down to the short but instructive step-by-step guide that’s just perfect for their target market.

Unfortunately, it’s ridiculously hot in my apartment right now as NYC just got slammed with a heat wave so I need to wrap this up here.  MotionBox deserves a more extensive review, but I’m (thankfully) short of any sample baby videos at the moment and don’t expect any soon.  Maybe then I’ll give them the full test.

Thanks again to Mashable and all of the event’s participants!

Posted in Entrepreneur, Events, New York City, Reviews, Web 2.0