DemoCamp 4 Review

Last night (October 29 2008) was the latest installment of DemoCamp here in Edmonton. It took place at the University of Alberta and there were well over 150 people there! Big turn out....I believe the biggest yet.

One of the speakers with a great application was electionbuddy. They created a nicely polished app around the simple idea of elections. What really astounded me was that the guy who created it is a student and is going to go to medical school. Hard to know if the code was clean but from the outside the application was well planned and easy to use. It was a hit with one of the Venture Capitalist type people who was there when he suggested that electionbuddy charge more for it. The guy was definitely getting alot of attention.

Another presentation was from a small company here in Edmonton, gskinner that has done an astounding job in Flash. Their list of clients is impressive: Adobe, Sony, AOL, GE, etc. I never knew that people like that existed here in Edmonton. Using Air and the Flash programming language they have been able to develop some impressive stuff. They have even been able to create something for Flash and sell it back to Adobe. They have also worked with BioWare on one of their games.

One of the worst applications I have seen so far is TheHistoryBooks. Around the idea of posting peoples history for a *small* fee. Seriously! Who Cares!! The guy who created it actually flew down from regina to present it. I believe he thinks it is still 1999 and the bubble hasn't burst!