Best of shows: Top 10 from DemoFall, TechCrunch50
CNET editors and reporters pick their top products from a week of more than 120 launches.
Note: CNET's judges for this article were Dan Farber, Josh Lowensohn, Elinor Mills, Rafe Needleman, and Daniel Terdiman.
Correction at 7:30 a.m. PDT: The current name for the GPS-based ride-sharing product is Mapflow's Avego.
More than 120 companies presented at this week's competing start-up conferences: DemoFall and TechCrunch50.
As usual with conferences like this, many of the products were either derivative or best described as cool, new features that will be commonplace in a year. But there were some breakouts--companies showing unique technology, or standout thinking.
CNET covered the two events extensively. After their conclusions, we gathered to compare notes and select our top products from both shows, the products that we thought differentiated from the pack through innovation, consumer need, business model, or some combination. These are our top 10 products, the CNET Best of Shows:
Fitbit
Small, wearable activity monitor and pedometer. Transmits your data to the Web, where you can track your activity and bring in friends to encourage you along. Fitbit was a runner-up for the top product launch at TechCrunch50.
Why we like it: We agree with Josh Kopelman: "Buying this is more of an IQ test than a financial decision."
Chances for success: High. Great idea, great design, great online component. And people need it.
Fotonauts
Beautiful and thoughtful photo sharing site. Being called a Wikipedia for photos, or a more modern Flickr.
Why we like it: Better sharing and management tools than we are accustomed to online; balances presentation controls with the social angle.
Chances for success: Decent. CEO has solid experience (former CTO of NeXT and Apple's application division), and cost of developing is not too high. Potential for viral growth is good.
GoodGuide
Online guide to buying healthy, green, and humane products.
Why we like it: Has great product data presented in a compelling and simple interface. And the timing is right; people care about this information.
Chances for success: Very good. Looks addictive and useful. Great business model. (Site has buying links to products.)
Hangout
Social network/virtual world with nice 3D interface and healthy revenue model, targeted at teens.
Why we like it: Technologically it looks sound, and the revenue model is weighted heavily toward product placement, which is becoming a major new revenue component for online worlds.
Chances for success: Unknown. You can build a technologically awesome virtual world and have no one show up. The key to success is getting the social model right and winning over a core group of alpha inhabitants who then pull their friends into the system. We haven't tried the product yet.
Mapflow's Avego
Uses GPS-equipped iPhones to match up people in cars with those who want to hitch rides. Not anonymous like hitching, though. You have to register with the site before you get or give rides.
Why we like it: High green factor. Brings efficiency to the perpetually wasteful act of driving alone.
Chances for success: Not too great, since it doesn't work until there's a critical mass of users, and that's a difficult problem to solve.
Plastic Logic
Has a new technology for electronic books. It's all plastic, as opposed to current e-books, which require glass screens. That lowers cost and improves durability.
Why we like it: Anything that makes e-books more book-like is a win, in our minds.
Chances for success: Good, if CEO has Jeff Bezos' phone number.
RealDVD
Finally, a legal product that rips movie DVDs to your computer. Has DRM to prevent more than a limited number of copies.
Why we like it: We need it, and existing solutions are too complex for the average person.
Chances for success: Medium. It's a $50 software app competing with free products. Plus, putting a copied DVD onto a second device costs $20. Ouch.
Swype
A technology for touch-screen devices that lets you drag your finger or stylus around an on-screen keyboard to type, instead of tapping. See the demo. Swype was a runner-up for the top product launch at TechCrunch50.
Why we like it:We tried it, and it's scary good. Also, the inventor is the guy who got the T9 input method onto 2.5 billion mobile phones.
Chances for success: Medium. The model is to extensively license this technology. Total addressable market is huge: every touchscreen and home entertainment device that uses alphanumeric input. But getting nonexclusive deals will be hard.
VideoSurf
Breakthrough video search engine that can identify people.
Why we like it: With the amount of video content on the Web expanding rapidly, we need a Google for video that doesn't just search tags, titles, and captions. VideoSurf actually gets into the files to recognize faces.
Chances for success: Unknown. It's demoware so far. We haven't played with it. If it works as advertised, then very high likelihood for rich acquisition.
Yammer
Twitter for business. Instead of "What are you doing?" the question is "What are you working on?" Yammer won the top prize at the TechCrunch50 conference.
Why we like it: As with SocialCast, we think it's the right technology for the time. The working class is becoming accustomed to using tools like this in their personal lives, and the answers to the question this product asks will be useful to people at work.
Chances for success: Medium. Barrier to entry in this market is low; the technology is not hard to build. But the movement of social technolgies, like this one, into the business world is inevitable.
For comparison's sake, the pre-show lists:
Top 10 to watch from DemoFall.
Top 10 to watch from TechCrunch50.