SF Tech Sessions

October: Social bookmarking

Some websites are just too good to keep to yourself. Social bookmarking systems are gaining popularity as a way to share web pages, products, and tips with other people, adding the contributions of the crowd to your personal browsing and recommendation habits. A bookmark might be created to help you remember resource, share with a group of friends, or share with the world at large. This month’s SF Tech Sessions meeting takes place on Monday, October 30, from 7-9 p.m. at CNET in San Francisco and will take a look at different approaches to social bookmarking and their influence on search.

A typical bookmarking site or service stores a URL, title, description, and tags. You might see a thumbnail preview of the site, store a cached copy of the page at time of bookmark, or parsed elements of the page such as pictures and auto-classifications based on text. Some bookmarking systems have created special handlers for websites such as Amazon or Banana Republic, recognizing the activity associated with the bookmark and adding additional metadata to your remote annotation.

Speakers

Ma.gnolia users may join affinity groups such as web design, zombies, or WordPress. You can lurk in these groups, picking up focused news on the topics you care about, and possibly contribute a few findings of your own. Founder Larry Halff will present Ma.gnolia’s approach to the social bookmarking space at this month’s SF Tech Sessions.

Wists references bookmarks primarily by picture, allowing its users to quickly glance over a list of saved items. The site has been popular as a social shopping destination, helping groups of people collaborate on shopping decisions, wishlists, and recommendations. Wists promotes its technology through celebrity site Gawker Stalker and shopping blog Popgloss. Founder David Galbraith will present Wists’ approach to social bookmarking at this month’s SF Tech Sessions.

Kaboodle groups bookmarks into collections, allowing its users to solicit feedback from friends or the general public on a list of items. Kaboodle powers eBay’s My Collectibles service and its users like share potential shopping purchases (which dress should I wear to prom?) and travel recommendations (what to do in Maui?). Kaboodle parses a bookmarked page, pulling specialized bits of information such as a photo or price. Founder and CEO Manish Chandra will present Kaboodle’s approach to social bookmarking at this month’s SF Tech Sessions.

Event details

Monday, October 30
7-9 p.m.
CNET, 235 2nd Street, San Francisco
Add to iCal

Each speaker will have 15 minutes to talk about their product, its origins, and give a brief demonstration. You will have some time to mix with the speakers and other participants before and after the presentations, so don’t be shy.

Thanks to CNET for providing us a venue that can fit about 100 people. Attendees with an appetite are asked to donate $5 to cover pizza and bottled water either at the event or in advance using PayPal.

Please RSVP in the comments below so I may properly prepare the room and food for the event.

September: Enabling mobile communities

Summer starts late in San Francisco, and in honor of our warm October, we’re leaving the laptops at home and taking off for the beach with nothing but our cell phones. Most early efforts at building communities for cell phones in the US have centered around adding a mobile component to pre-existing real-world or web communities. The rest of the world has become comfortable with communities that exist primarily in the cellular sphere, and now startups here are hoping the US is ready to join in. Developers are creating tools that enable mobile communities, whether that means building communities around their own products or allowing you to create your community around any common bond.

Who

1. WAPtags is a mobile search and bookmarking site that is building an ad-hoc community around search results. Users can leave comments on sites, creating conversations and connections between visitors who found the site through WAPtags.
2. Twitter is built to let you take an online community - your friends, blog readers, or site visitors - and make a mobile community around them. Users can send SMS updates to Twitter which are saved online and can be posted to website or sent to friends’ phones.
3. TextMarks allows people to create instantaneous mobile communities based solely on text messages. Anyone can define a key word and choose an automated response when that keyword is sent to the system. But a community is created when users allow people to subscribe to the key word, then any subscriber to send messages to the group allowing anyone with a keyword, whether they know each other or not, to join in.

When

Wednesday, September 20, 7-9 p.m.

Where

CNET HQ
235 2nd Street
San Francisco

Each speaker will have 15 minutes to talk about their product, its origins, and give a brief demonstration. You will have some time to mix with the speakers and other participants before and after the presentations, so don’t be shy.

Thanks to CNET for providing us a venue that can fit about 100 people. Attendees with an appetite are asked to donate $5 to cover pizza and bottled water either at the event or in advance using PayPal.

Please RSVP in the comments below so we may properly prepare the room and food for the event. Thanks to Eric Lin of PhoneScoop for organizing this month’s speakers.

August: Media distribution platforms

New blogging formats are clogging online pipes and creating large bandwidth bills for producers of rich media formats such as audio and video. Many publishers decrease the quality of the media they share, hoping the smaller download sizes and video quality will reduce their bills, or increase revenue through the sale of high-quality versions of their work in other formats. A few new local startups are breaking down distribution barriers, helping small and large producers alike plug-in to new sources of bandwidth and load balancing.

This month’s Tech Session focuses on the new distribution networks changing the way we share personal content online.

Who

1. GUBA distributes video in Flash, Quicktime, and Windows Media formats to anything from a personal media device such as an iPod or PSP to your home media center and more. They sell DRM movies for Sony and Warner Brothers and are helping the MPAA warm up to digital content distribution. Bart Myers, VP of product and engineering, will present.
2. MoveDigital turns your media into metered BitTorrents, mobile-capable streams, and simple permalinks. The tool is used by Senator John Edwards and Rocketboom, among others. Development lead Gary Lerhaupt will present.
3. Red Swoosh uses P2P technology from up to 30 different peers to distribute large media files “faster than a web server and without bandwidth costs.” Founder and CEO Travis Kalanick will present.

When

Wednesday, August 23
7-9 p.m.
Add to iCal

Where

CNET HQ
235 2nd Street
San Francisco

Each speaker will have 15 minutes to talk about their product, its origins, and give a brief demonstration. You will have some time to mix with the speakers and other participants before and after the presentations, so don’t be shy.

Thanks to CNET for providing us a venue that can fit about 100 people. Attendees with an appetite are asked to donate $5 to cover pizza and bottled water either at the event or in advance using PayPal.

Please RSVP in the comments below so I may properly prepare the room and food for the event.