Plug and Play Tech Center Expo 2007

Today's Plug and Play Expo comes on the heels of the the TechCrunch40. Saeed Amidi, the mastermind behind Plug and Play, has positioned the Plug and Play Expo as the venue for early stage companies in contrast to TechCrunch40's later stage startup presenters.

Another twist is that Plug and Play Expo used a rapid-fire 2-minute turbo pitch format for its 37 presenters (GetQuik was one of the presenters). It is an interesting exercise to distill long hours and lots of sweet into a 2-minute pitch format. All 37 companies finished were presented over a 2-hour period. Four companies, Twiki, Zipidee, Gigya, and BlueGem Security were choosen to present encore 10-minute presentations.

My personal picks:

- ScreenerKey: Interesting Idea Award. USB device that allows parents to set time limit for watching TV, using a computer, etc. Interesting idea. Many questions left unanswers:

- How do you get your kid from pulling out the USB device?

- How easy it is to override?

- How do you configure the settings?

Seems to be an interesting way to assist a parent in enforcing house rules for kids and teens. Kids are really good at technology to the point where they can probably outsmart the device. ScreenerKey is early stage, so it will be interested to see if the marketplace will welcome this device.

- TechDirt: Best Preso Award. Subterranean Homesick Preso. Mike Masnick, CEO of TechDirt, quickly demonstrated why he is smarter than 99.9% of the bloggers out there. He zigs while others zag. Mike has figured out a way to monetize the blogsphere and give an entertaining preso that defies conventional wisdom. Hopefully Mike's preso was captured and will be available for people to see for themself.

- Xpree: Most Innovative "Wisdom of Crowds" Award. Tons of sites now have voting mechanisms to understand best photos, videos, etc. Xpree brings this methodology to the mystical art of financial planning. Can the collective knowledge of a corporation provide superior financial forecasting than traditional Financial Planning & Analysis methods? Xpree is betting on this. The challenge for Xpree will be in getting early corporate adopters to get their employees to participate in the surveys in order that this corporate wisdom is accessible.

- Twiki: Now We Just Need to Monetize Award. Twiki is a corporate wiki solution that has gained widespread adoptions due to its starting price point: free. They are now monetizing their customer base with premium and professional services. Looks promising. They should be able to turn a fair share of loyal customers into loyal, paying customers.

- Gigya: Simplicity Award. Gigya offers a simplified way for software developers to distribute widgets. Although dragging and dropping a little JavaScript is not too hard, Gigya's "click to add" tool (think Feedburner RSS feed interface) makes it that much easier to add widgets to a multitude of platforms (Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle, etc.). Gigya also offers a revenue share solution if user's endorse sponsored ads.

The event was quick, clean, and professional. The Plug and Play team did a great job in hosting this event. Thanks to Plug and Play for allowing GetQuik to participate.