Prime Angus Filets: Links this Week 2-1-2008

Demo 08 was held this week in Palm Desert, CA. For those that do not know about DEMO, it is the high powered gathering where startups can demo to venture capitalists, press, and other influential technology elite.

Since my fortunes are used for mundane things like a mortgage and not angel funding, I simply watched the demonstrations online. Here are some of the companies that I will be doing further research on or using this year:

MOLI – Moli provides a powerful social networking platform that allows you to present yourself in different ways to different people. Namely, you can have your business side completely separate from your 4am debaucheries, “OMG, I can’t believe I did that” side.

Seesmic – Any TechCrunch fanboy knows that Michael Arrington loves Seesmic. They offer video communication and community with a Twitter approach. I am going to have clean up my office if my videocam is going to come out of storage.

Review2Buy – Have you ever been about to buy something at a retail store and wished you had access to your favorite shopping comparison site or coupon/deals site? Am I overpaying? Is this model the one that will breakdown after a week? Review2Buy answers those questions.

atlaspost.com – atlaspost enhances blogs by adding the elements of a geography-based social network. Bloggers can geo-tag their posts and can identify readers and content with common locations… and likely common interests and experiences.

VisibleMeasures – As Web video ads gain momentum, tools to manage and measure video advertising are in demand. Believe it or not, measurement remains a difficult sell for technology vendors to the advertising industry. The old world brand marketing, big agency and media buy approach still rules the budget. The focus is on frequency and reach metrics and not sales. I hope this helps to finally break that down.

StandoutJobs – There are many sites that help the job seeker network and promote themselves in a social network. StandoutJobs targets the companies that are recruiting and provides the latest social media tools necessary to attract the right hires.

There are many, many more exceptional small companies from DEMO this year and previous years that you should check out. I highly recommend bookmarking DEMO to keep in the loop on emerging markets and technologies.

Image of the Week

Concept art by Tyler West for Electronic Arts’ Godfather video game. For more incredible video game concept art, see the annual collections from IntoThePixel.com.

Check out other pictures and images on my Flickr photos.