Leaving Internet World is kind of like leaving Disneyland: You’ve seen a lot, done a lot, and probably had fun, but you don’t feel the need to go back for a long, long time.
In fact, Spring Internet World, held last week at the L.A. Convention Center, was the physical embodiment of today’s tech market: crowded, often confusing, often useful, with so much activity and attention-getting devices it was often hard to focus.
One oasis amid the madness was the enigmatically named Club Dot, an exclusive club sponsored by Smalloffice.com, a Malibu-based company with a big red dot for a logo. The VIPs invited inside the velvet rope were treated to free food and drinks, a piano player, a massage and afternoon martinis. Definitely the place to see and be seen.
“CEOs and presidents will spend substantially more time here than in their own booths,” said William Curtis, chairman and chief executive of Smalloffice. In fact, BizBuyer.com CEO Bernard Louvat was staked out at a Club Dot table for quite some time.
Smalloffice runs a site targeting small businesses, offering focused content on such topics as obtaining business loans and defending yourself from employment discrimination suits. It also provides a business-to-business marketplace for the procurement of products and services. Instead of luring passersby with goody bags filled with items unrelated to the company, Club Dot reflected Smalloffice’s focus on fostering interaction between businesses.
“We’re creating a community,” Curtis said. “We’re in the business of building a community and offering products and services. So just like on our site, we’re doing the same thing in here, getting everyone together under one roof.”
A deal sealed last week with Internet service provider UUNET will allow Smalloffice to offer an office supplies ordering and management component to its site, reflecting the company’s goal of providing small businesses with resources easily available to larger companies but often hard for them to afford.
“There are 32 million small businesses with a strong skill set, but with what we call ‘pain points’ like (human resources), banking and finance, and legal,” Curtis said. “We’re not here to help the small business in whatever the business has as its strong point.”
Women on the Web
With the tech industry being traditionally dominated by men, it was surprising to see plenty of women working booths at Internet World. Boosting the profile of women in the local tech community is a primary goal of the L.A. chapter of Webgrrls, an international association of women in tech.
L.A.’s Webgrrls ran its own booth at Internet World, but raising the profile of the 550-member local girl-power group was not the only reason it appeared at the show.
“We’re here to hit up some more sponsors and to recruit women executives for our board,” explained local chapter President Kris Kahrs. “Women usually keep a lower profile.”
After just two years in the local market and while coexisting with major groups like the Association of Internet Professionals, Venice Interactive Community and the L.A. Regional Technology Alliance, Webgrrls has still been able to recruit enough members to place its local chapter among the four largest Webgrrls chapters in the country. (New York, San Francisco, and Seattle are the others.)
“It must be because of the Digital Coast, it’s so hot now,” Kahrs said.
Webgrrls plans to continue and grow its series of inexpensive tech and business training programs, mentoring groups, on-the-job apprenticeships, networking events, and a bustling e-mail network in which any member can ask a business or tech question and receive a quick answer from an expert from the group. While the group focuses on attracting women members, it doesn’t discriminate.
“We do have a couple of guys,” Kahrs said. “We say that’s fine as long as they understand our mission: It’s the women first.”
From the Techie Fashion File
If you’ve ever wished you could wear your computer wherever you go, Charmed Technology wants to grant your wish.
This year, the Beverly Hills-based company plans to release some wearable electronic devices it claims will make computer use easier and much more personal. The company’s first offering will be fairly practical, a wearable badge that exchanges business-card information between users. Once both badge-wearing parties spend a certain amount of time talking face to face, their badges automatically upload the other person’s digital business-card information. The initial marketing efforts will be targeted at trade-show use.
Future offerings are reminiscent of James Bond fare, melding fashion and function: a lapel-pin microphone, earrings with speakers, and glasses with a small screen projection allowing users to see what’s going on around them while operating a tiny portable and wearable computer through a wireless keyboard and mouse.
“People say, ‘That’s so cool looking, can I buy it?'” Charmed co-founder Katrina Barillova said of the company’s prototype devices on display at Internet World. “They’ll say, ‘Can I do my homework at the beach?’ And the answer is, absolutely.”
Staff reporter Laura Dunphy can be reached at [email protected].
Site of the Week
www.jackpot.com
At Jackpot.com, users can win up to $1 million, but it might just be advertisers that hit the jackpot.
Idealab’s newest company adds another online game site to the current swarm, which includes Iwin.com, Iwon.com (a search engine with a prize component), and scores of others. Jackpot, however, has a unique advantage for advertisers.
Using a slot-machine format, Jackpot avoids the traditional images that pop up on slots cherries, plums, the number seven, and the like. Instead, users find themselves rooting for advertiser logos, such as those from CarsDirect.com, PetSmart.com, and DVD Express, to pop up.
Three logos in a row can bring anything from one measly point, to a car, to $1 million. A $1 million prize is given away each month.
The drawback and it is a big one is the laborious registration process that involves entering passwords and installing programs in order to actually play. Winning one point after 50 spins hardly feels worth all the trouble, though users don’t have to pay to spin the dials.
Just like the real thing, this slot machine is addictive. But unlike the real slots, the set-up process is so laborious that only the most persistent players will care to see it through.
