It was another great night at 18th Web Innovators Group. I have not heard of an actual count but it was easily the largest turnout yet.

My favorite demo from the main 3 presenters had to be Totspot but Zeer and WebNotes both look like promising startups. Of the side demonstrations, it was great to see former colleague Michal Hlavac from local virtual world CreaturePark and to meet Robert DeFranco from 211me. I also had a chance to meet upcoming blogger Amanda Gravel of SocialHoneycomb – add her RSS feed to your reader.

Pictures: You can check out all of the pictures on Flickr. If you have pictures of the event, please add them to the Boston Tech Events group that I just started on Flickr.

Social Media: You can follow the event on (Summize) Twitter Search or join the new Webinno room on FriendFeed started by my colleague and FF star Hao.

Presenters: Please check out each of the local startups from the event last night.

• Totspot – Adam Katz
• WebNotes – Ryan Damico
• Zeer – Michael Putnam
• 211me – Robert DeFranco
• WordChamp – Daniel Blumenthal
• PaperG – Victor Wong & Roger Lee
• Creaturepark / Ingeeni Studios – Michal Hlavac & Henry Kaufman
• YouCastr – Ariel Diaz, Jeff Hebert, Matt Hodgson, & Brad Johnson
• LuckyCal – Sanjay Vakil
• Snipd – Alex Schliker
• Tikatok – Sharon Kan

The next event will be September 15th!

Mark your calendars, July is now the web networking month for Boston area.  It marks the return of the several premier tech events including schmooze-fest TECH Cocktail Boston 2, PodCamp3 Boston and the uber Boston web 2.0 event – WebInno18.

I will attempt to attend all of these…hope to see you there!

• Build Guild, July 8th, 6:30PM
  Salem Beer Works [ REGISTER ]
  The new kid on the block and my winner for the best use of Twitter to promote an event, Build Guild brings together the cream of the North Shore web design crop in one event.  I love an event that brings together the web, micro-brews and  my old stomping grounds.
• WebInno18 – July 15th, 6:30PM
  Royal Sonesta Cambridge: [ REGISTER ]
  Back after a short hiatus, WebInno is back with a jam packed list of companies including Totspot, WebNotes, Zeer, 211me, WordChamp, PaperG, Creaturepark / Ingeeni Studios, YouCastr, LuckyCal, Snipd, Tikatok
  
• NSWG, July 17th, 6PM
  The Grog (Upstairs) [ REGISTER ]
  Another great event for the North Shore weberati, the North Shore Web Geek event is a monthly drinking / networking event at the Grog in Newburyport set for the third Thursday of every month.
• PodCamp3 Boston – July 19 – 20
  Joseph Martin Conference Center, Harvard Medical School [ REGISTER ]
  Considered an “unconference“, the next installment of social media popstars Christopher Penn (no, not that one) and Chris Brogan’s PodCamp comes back to Boston. Check out the list of presenters already signed up for the show.  This show also takes the “open” concept to the next level by publishing their books.
• TECH Cocktail Boston 2, Boston – July 24th, 6:30PM
  Tequila Rain by Fenway [ REGISTER ]
  If you liked the PopSignal event earlier this year and are looking for the party side of Boston web networking, TechCocktail is your event.  Check out the photos from last years TechCocktail event.

There are actually quite a few events and conferences in the area this month and next month even brings the Mashables event series to Boston…am I not cool because I do not have an event attached to my blog?

The next installment of David Beisel’s Web Innovators Group group is scheduled for Monday night and based on the events from last week, this will be another big one. 

 
The view during the main demos at Webinno 13

The event brings together several local mobile and web 2.0 start-ups for product demonstrations and the obligatory schmoozing.  I’m looking forward to all of the demos but the Design My Room concept developed by Westborough’s Swatchbox Technologies is my pre-show favorite.

Web Innovators Group (WebInno14)
Monday, September 10, 2007 at 6:30 pm ET

Royal Sonesta Cambridge  ( Google | Yahoo | Mapquest )
40 Edwin Land Boulevard
Cambridge, MA 02141

Main Demonstrations

• Frame Media – Alan Phillips & Jon Finegold
• GoLoco – Robin Chase
• DesignMyRoom (Swatchbox) – Jesse Engle

Side Demonstrations

• Fafarazzi / Dirtlocker – Chris Keller & Todd Galloway
• SNIF Labs – Noah Paessel
• TheUpDown – Michael Riech
• GuitarStar (AdMe Corp) – Peter Eggleston
• Mobleo – Tom Boilard
• Oncero – Phil Kim

If you have not already, the RSVP page is located here.

Technorati tags: webinno, boston, cambridge, web 2.0, boston web 2.0, events, networking, blogs, swatchbox, frame media, go loco, fafarazzi, SNIF Labs, The UpDown, GuitarStar, Mobleo, Oncero

It was an excellent turnout at the webinno13 event last night at the Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge. As you can see by the picture above, this is no longer a small demonstration event but a small conference for the local web 2.0 tech industry. I have not seen a published number yet but the crowd was well attended by start-ups, job seekers and a large contingent of VCs including most of the Venrock Partners staff, organizer David Beisel’s firm.

On the main stage last night there were 3 very interesting local web companies including Nashua based Digital Brix which delivered as expected with their do-it-yourself flash game applications Glite and GBoss and Beacon Street Girls which is actually a very interesting offline book series (500K copies sold) brought to the web. Beacon Street Girls is about to launch a “girls only” social network and jump into the ring with other top Tween (9 -13) communities like Club Penguin (a bit younger target) and Imbee. The existing interactive site already has 20,000 members wordwide and over 300K visitors per month.

The surprise of the night was Windham, NH based BandDigs which creates online video channels and interactive applications for bands. The service is a very cool capability for up-and-coming artists but my concern before the show with BandDigs was that it appears to be just another band listing site. However, Gary Wheeler & Aby Alexander’s demonstration of their live streaming video and 50-person video chat application makes me wonder if there is a larger business concept that will develop from this local start-up? There is already a buzz right now around live video streaming sites like Justin.tv and Mogulus so half of their offering is timely but that chat application was very cool…I may even use it for an upcoming conference call.

I also had some time to talk with David Owens of local event recommendation service Zync which is bringing an interesting concept to “what to do tonight” by using predictive technologies to match you events based on the recommendations of people who are just like you. The site takes your profile and a series of questions it asks to match you with events attended by “like” minded individuals. I would love to have this technology on Needham, MA based TripAdvisor travel recommendations. The service is soon to be launched in Boston. Also, check out the graphics on this site – very slick…who is doing your design?

Finally, I spoke with Simeon Margolis from RPM Communications who operate the very cool Utterz and Foonz websites. These are very cool concepts from the mobile space that everyone should check out. I am sure that we will see one of their products at an up and Webinno event.

The next Webinno will be held on September 10th – check the webinno13 site for the details.

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Read more on Technorati

Other Blog Posts About Webinno13:

• WebInno13 Scorecard
• WebInno A Success
• Come See us at WebInno 13
• Heading to WebInno Tonight
• Boston’s most talked about Web & Mobile event
  Web Innovators set for July 9
• Early WebInno13 Blog Buzz
• The next level in gaming
• GPC’s WebInno 13 Preview

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Technorati tags: web, web 2.0, boston, boston web 2.0, webinno, zync, beacon street girls, banddigs, digital brix, game brix, gamebrix, events, internet, blog, blogs