Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Ottawa DemoCamp 7 is happening on Monday of next week, January 28.  On tap are:

• 'Protecode Demo' - demonstration of a tool that unobtrusively detects, logs, and identifies external content during software development. This tool is used to automatically create records of Intellectual Property ownership and licensing attributes of external code (eg Open Source modules or snippets) that enter a project.
• Distributed Musical Instruments. Software that will allow MIDI files to be replayed on different sound modules. This will be a demo of an entry level process leading to a system creating a Virtual Musical Sound Studio.
• 'The Traveler IQ Challenge' - Demo of a viral marketing app gone wild. In June of 2007 the TIQ was launched on Facebook to promote TravelPod, since then it's been launched on Friendster, TravelPod, TripAdvisor and virally on 4000 other syndicated websites. The TIQ has now taken a life of its own generating millions of monthly unique visitors and driving significant traffic to TravelPod.com.
• 'JohnnyVoIP' - Initial beta of a social communications platform tool that is currently available on Facebook allowing users to forget about downloading, installing, and finding their friends - just click on a link.
• Internet Business Logic - A Wiki and SOA endpoint for business rules in open vocabulary, executable English. - Flash Demo Preview
• iotum - iotum's conference calling application for Facebook.

See you there.

Mesh '08 is coming to Toronto in May.  The drums are already beating.  One of the new features this year is MeshU, "a one-day event featuring small workshops about the tools, knowledge and expertise for startups, Web designers and developers - every from S3 and Ajax to UI and cloud-computing."

May 21/22 at MaRS in downtown Toronto.  I'm going to try to make it this year.

Russell Shaw thinks that Yahoo! Voice will probably escape the headsman's axe in the upcoming round of layoffs, mostly because it seems to be flying under the radar. He writes:

The first impression I get from this overview of Yahoo!’s priorities is that the company doesn’t consider Yahoo! Voice a precious asset with the potential of being a significant financial engine. Nor does Yahoo! consider Yahoo!Voice of being a drag on earnings and corporate mindshare.

That's the sort of mindset that leads to bean counters looking at spreadsheets feeling comfortable with casually stroking the line out.  Yahoo! Voice lovers might want to let the folks at Yahoo! know how they feel about this product.

Stefan Constantinescu, editor at intoMobile, has written a round up of all of:

• Nokia's product launches for 2007, with photos
• Nokia's acquisitions
• the NokiaWorld 2007 show 
• his expectations for 2008

It's a nice posting, with pretty photographs of all the devices.  And it concludes with the following:

I’m about to say something that will probably shock all those who know me, something that will probably make my friends at Nokia call the Finnish Department of Immigration and have me deported, but my favorite phone of 2007 is the iPhone.

Ouch!

Bernard Lunn's analysis of which businesses are viral, and why is a good read. One of the points he makes about communications applications is an especially good one:

Only Communication is a sure fire viral success. It only works when it is a genuinely new form of communication (webmail, social networking, microblogging). You cannot launch a web mail or social networking site today and expect viral adoption. But when it is a genuinely new form of communication, the viral adoption is stunning in its speed.

Bingo!  That's the reason we chose to build our applications on the back of Facebook's API, rather than try to build yet another social network.