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"Time spent is the most important indicator of web 2.0," writes Nicolas. "It replaces page views, which became meaningless when pages are refreshed piece by piece (Ajax)." But time spent can be hard to measure. It is difficult to measure what a person is looking at, or interacting with on a page.

Nicolas' demo uses Google Web Toolkit to divide time spent between individual sections of a page. It tracks exactly what on a page a person is looking at and for how long by measuring the time each piece of a page is visible on the user's screen. This results in very detailed and useful data.

For example, using this method, marketers could see exactly how long a person looked at a specific product on a page, or how long banners were viewed -- imagine selling banner spots based not on how many ads are shown, but how long each ad is viewed by the average visitor. When combined with clickstream data, you can begin to imagine how useful the data could be for marketers.

Nicolas has banner exposure demo as well, demonstrating how his technology could be used to track the time banner ads are being seen by users.

This type of innovative audience measurement technology will become more useful as web publishers continue to embrace technologies like AJAX that make page loads irrelevant. Optimizing ad placement may be less about putting banners in the most visible spot, but rather putting banners in a post that will be viewed for the longest time (this type of audience measurement tool has similar implications for design and page layout optimization).

"Ask five different technologists to define the next phase of the Web and you will get five different answers. As we move beyond the community-driven focus of Web 2.0, the theories of what lies ahead are rampant and disparate. Will the next Internet revolution lie in semantic technologies or data portability? Search engines or user-generated content? Where does the enterprise fit? And how will big media adapt?"

So a couple of great sessions focused on the future of technology, which of course is right up our street.

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This is Version 0.6 of Magneto and so it's an early beta release. As such, the company doesn't recommend it for use in production environments. Magento does however come with professional and community support. Along with the usual e-commerce features (product input, shopping cart, single-page checkout, etc), some other features of note are integration with 3rd party apps and product tagging.

Magento Admin interface

Frontend Demo store

Add to cart function

ReadWriteWeb readers can receive a discount rate of $2,395 ($600 off the standard rate of $2,995 and $400 lower than the July early bird rate of $2795) by clicking here for registration.

Here is the entire agenda.

In addition, Mapstraction "fills some holes each provider's current offerings" - meaning if a certain mapping provider doesn't offer a particular feature that another one does, Mapstraction turns to open source solutions (for the most part) to provide the feature needed.

Those are the technical details, but what's really impressive about Mapstraction are the demos. Take, for example, this demo, a single page showing several maps. As you move around in one map, the other three also move simultaneously to reflect the changes that take place in the map you're using. This is a great way to view comparisons of the different mapping systems side-by-side.

Another feature of Mapstraction allows for tile layer support. This feature lets you toggle different overlays on top of a mapping provider's map, like this one. Clicking the links below this map let you toggle different overlays on top of the Google Map to see maps from 1950, 1912, and 1877.

This demo takes you to a full screen map where you can switch from mapping provider to mapping provider by selecting the name in the box displayed in the bottom-left corner. (Note: to exit the demo, you'll need to know your browser's keyboard shortcut to go "back").

Mapstraction isn't exactly new, having debuted back in 2006. It's currently in use in places like the UK's Nestoria, Mapufacture, Reuters Labs, and even powers a WordPress and MT plugin called GeoPress, which adds geo-tagging to your posts and pages.  However, we would like to see some more Mapstraction mashups - so if you've built one, let us know in the comments.

ReadWriteWeb readers can receive a discount rate of $2,395 ($600 off the standard rate of $2,995 and $400 lower than the July early bird rate of $2795) by clicking here for registration.

Here is the entire agenda.

The focus: over 50% is broadly in the Business category. Without looking at past Demo years, that looks like a shift: less Valley, more Biz.

Silicon Valley 20 (28%)
East Coast US 18 (25%)
West Coast US 10 (14%)
Central US 9 (13%)
Europe 7 (10%)
Asia 6 (8%)
Other 2 (3%)
Total: 72

The US focus (79%) is clearly self-selecting. A conference in London or Shanghai would look different. To have nearly the same number from East Coast than from the Valley looks like a shift. The Other West Coast (e.g. Southern California, Seattle) is not surprising as Demo is in San Diego.

The focus categorization was a bit more open to question. This was based on a quick look at the site's front page. Initially we were looking at two categories only - Consumer or Business. Within Business we then saw two interesting sub-categories - Infrastructure (a product that becomes part of another product) and Professional (selling to individuals or very small businesses but with a primary purpose of making money). Lumping both Infrastructure and Professional into Business gives us 54% for Business:

Consumer 32 (44%)
Business 25 (35%)
Professional 7 (10%)
Infrastructure 7 (10%)

As Consumer services are mostly ad funded and advertising gets cut in a recession (and we clearly have a consumer recession in the US) this shift makes sense.

Doing this 30 seconds per site look at 72 brave new start-ups is totally unfair. They each deserve a rigorous analysis. However 30 seconds is often what you get to make an impression. Most sites failed that test. Many had me totally puzzled figuring out what they were offering.

The following got marked as "take another look". This is purely a quirky look based on personal interests:

• Usable - really, security that is user friendly? Sounds impossible, but worth a look. Great URL
• ffwd. Great URL for video site. But yet another video service?
• BeeTV. The only service I have actually used. (I thought Demo was launch only i.e. no existing services?)
• BestBuy - what are they doing that hits the innovation radar?
• Rudder - personal finance space is ripe for innovation.

What do you think? Is the nexus of innovation shifting from the Valley and from Consumer to Business? And if anyone has done a similar analysis for TC50, please share in the comments.

If you're not familiar with DEMO, it's a very slick conference where startup companies are selected to present to an audience of potential investors, reporters and others. It's been around for decades and has roots in the mobile world. All the major tech blogs now race to cover the scads of companies that launch there each year. It's also become very controversial as the media and tech landscapes have changed.

I like DEMO, though my wife reminds me that every one of the 3 times I've been there as a reporter and once with a presenting company, I've called home and said "why do I come here, I don't want to ever come to this again." It's too Silicon Valley for me, though I do love getting to see and meet many of the people I always do at DEMO. I feel similarly about reporting on this story. I just want to see what Kara Swisher has to say about it, because I'm guessing that she's going to explode with snark.

More details on this in a few minutes as I fill in my thoughts on the topic. I just wanted to post first on it because the behind the scenes wrestling match over embargoes, etc. is absurd. It's actually pretty funny that you read about this here first.

I hate the fact that most of this story is not about Chris Shipley, who has done a great job for 13 years running DEMO, even dancing on stage while she does it! Unfortunately, some big personalities have overshadowed Shipley's hard work at least in these parts and in recent times.

Photo of Chris Shipley CC by Robert Scoble

Michael Arrington's contention is that DEMO is a "pay for play" event that excludes some of the most important innovators by way of its nearly $20k price of participation. Arrington, who incidentally is a former employer of mine and whom I owe a lot of gratitude for help with my career's advancement, believes that his competing conferences (the TechCrunch 50 etc.) are superior because they are free for startups to present at. That's a debate that has raged back and forth but my personal opinion is that many startups have for decades been able to drop that $20k without too much hesitation. Those who can't can debut at different events, or on blogs. Scheduling the TechCrunch events at the same time as DEMO seemed an overly competitive move to me, but Arrington doesn't often put the words "overly" and "competitive" in the same sentence. He is winning, too, so that's hard to argue with.

Now DEMO will be taken over by Matt Marshall, who is ostensibly a blogger and seems like a nice enough man. He's also been a partner in Arrington's other major conference The Crunchies for the past two years. We at ReadWriteWeb were as well for the first year, but we declined to participate this year.

Michael Arrington is a very competitive man whom many people either love, hate or have both feelings towards. Many people live in fear of falling out of his good graces, but now someone very much within his good graces (Matt Marshall) will be taking over the conference that Arrington seemed intent on killing. Meanwhile, Arrington himself is out of the country in an undisclosed tropical location taking a much needed break from a lot of hard work and some really inappropriate backlash from psychotic people targeting him for his accumulation and perhaps use of power in the tech industry.

It's all a big nasty Silicon Valley mess, and Silicon Valley is always fairly big and nasty. We'd like to see a bunch of successful conferences thrive and bring great technology into the public eye. We'd also like to congratulate Chris Shipley on her great work over the last 13 years and wish her the best in the consulting she'll continue to do.

Disclosure: DEMO is a current RWW sponsor.

You're likely to see a lot of press about DEMO over the next few days, we've posted a toolkit for tracking the event, but below are some of the arguments for and against the continued relevance of this high-profile event. The live video player below from BitGravity may make you want to turn down your volume but that's what it's like here at the event, too.

After interviewing hundreds of companies interested in launching products here at DEMO, executive producer Chris Shipley chose 77 companies to present. There's a wide variety of products being shown here and this is the 16th year the event has happened.

DEMO's critics

Many people are critical of DEMO and these tend to be the most common critiques.

• The high price of entry is limiting.

It costs more than $15k to present at DEMO once you've been selected. In exchange for that entry fee companies give one six minute demo of their product and a space in the crowded gallery. Critics contend that many of the most exciting startups today wouldn't have been able to pay such a high price to launch in their earliest days. The ability to pay to play does not correspond to the innovation a company offers.
• DEMO is antiquated.

There was a time when the press corps was small and there were limited opportunities for investors to find the most interesting startups coming to market. Neither is true today. Just like creating a company has been democratized beyond the ranks of those who can afford to launch here, so too has media expanded to include far more writers and reviewers than are walking the halls here in Palm Desert.
• It's not just startups.

Though DEMO presents itself as the place for brand new companies to launch, there are always a significant number of big companies presenting. This year well known companies like Symantec, Citrix, Leapfrog and Education.com are coming on stage. Many people are looking to discover the freshest of the fresh, the newest of the new, and cynics contend that big co's are just buying their way on stage.
• A lot of undifferentiated mobile stuff.

GrandCentral launched at DEMO 2007 and was promptly scooped up by Google. Other than that, if you're not interested in the finer points mobile and telephony, a lot of DEMO presenters won't interest you.

DEMO's continued relevance

I've considered the arguments above but am particularly moved today by the following reasons why DEMO is still relevant.

• Large number of diverse companies.
Executive producer Chris Shipley focused in her morning address on the intersection of many different market sectors. New, media rich consumer websites create new demands on hardware. Both software and hardware companies are here at DEMO. The business and consumer software markets are tied together by providing each other with innovation and motivation. Throw in some mobile vendors and you've got a unique and really useful mix of companies here.

Shipley says that the hundreds of companies she talks to each year in order to make her selections are all data points she uses to create her best forecast of where tech and markets are headed. I think she's in a unique position to do that.

• Good international presence.

There are quite a few companies here from Canada, a handful from Europe, some from Asia and a panel of startup entrepreneurs from Africa. There is heavy Silicon Valley representation here as well, but the international participation is important.
• Mix of startups and established companies.

While this is something that some are critical of, the participation of big companies at DEMO means that we get to see some really neat new products built by companies with substantial R&D and marketing budgets. Though the innovation offered by small stealthy startups has proven a game changer in recent years, the big guys are still coming up with some things that are fun to see and could make a big impact on the market.
• High production value.

There's a lot of mediocre conferences in this world, but DEMO isn't one of them. It's worth your time here to sit in the presentation room - not just lurk in the halls. The production values here are high. It's a classy operation. Things are in transition here and some kinks need to be worked out of a new approach for a new era - the new website, for example, is hipper than before but it's not nearly as pretty.
• This is a particular sector of the market.

DEMO is expensive, but so is hardware production. There's no shortage of software companies either for whom nearly $20k in total cost of attendance stings but is doable. Companies that have raised any money at all, including just angel funds, pay multiples of that sum each month in wages. Chris Shipley interviews hundreds of companies each year that are fully prepared to pay the DEMO entry fee.

The rise of the fringe startup as web hero is a really important part of the internet story. It's also just a part of the story of a whole technology industry that's thriving in many different ways. DEMO helps tell another important part of the technology story.

• There is some awesome stuff here

All thinking aside - I am in awe of some of the products being launched here. There's no arguing with that.

Thanks for checking out our coverage of DEMO. I'm going to sit down with some startup founders and talk tech over the next few days, but I hope you find this and our previous DEMO toolkit post interesting and useful.

Buzzd, a provider of local real-time search information for bars, clubs and restaurants, won the jury, audience and community awards under the 'early stage' category.

Buzzd is finding its way in the Mobile Web world via partnerships with Citysearch, Helio, Flavorpill and Time Out New York. There's a good demo of how the service works here - but basically it allows you to find an event near where you are, then 'shout out' to friends to meet you there. There is a social networking component, whereby you can meet other users at the events. Here is a screenshot from the demo:

Other winners at the MobileMonday Awards included mobile search service Taptu (see ReadWriteWeb's review of Taptu) and open source email and messaging company Funambol - who both won in the Emerging Community category. Local Spanish favorite Kimia, a rich media content provider, took out the audience choice.

We've embedded the demo video below because the product is likely to be one of historic proportions and we thought our readers would appreciate the opportunity to see it.

The video below gets into the action with live screens of the Telescope about 25% of the way through. A basic discussion of the technical requirements, with engineer David Fay, starts about 80% of the way through (sorry, the FC video player is awful so now time stamps are available). Full screen view, in the bottom right, is pretty good.

It's been a busy day on Read/WriteWeb, with Alex Iskold managing to find time to file multiple reports from DEMOfall 2006 in San Diego. Here are his posts from today:

• Widgetbox: A Chat With CEO Ed Anuff
• USBCell does away with chargers
• Lirix innovates in music advertising
• BuzzLogic innovates in social influence space
• RingCube launches Mojopac - pure portable computing magic
• Presto - photos for people who are not online
• Tribeca Labs bring interesting twist to photo space
• Dash Navigation launches first truly connected automotive navigation system

Alex Iskold's own company, AdaptiveBlue, is also presenting at DEMO - debuting the Firefox extension blueorganizer. It's already gotten a rave review from Techcrunch, with Marshall Kirkpatrick writing:

"Social bookmarking is a crowded space, but for people who seek a well constructed tool that balances an intuitive user experience with features to please the power user, Blue Organizer may be a very good option. The beauty is in the details in this one."

As for my own highlights from Day 1, I love the sound of MojoPac - which allows Windows users to save their entire PC onto a USB or iPod. Also I think BuzzLogic is doing some cool things to track social influence on the Web.

See our list of DEMOfall 2006 presenting companies for full details of the 70-odd products chosen for DEMO. Thanks Alex for the excellent coverage and I can't wait for Day 2!

Photo: b_d_solis

Until now, online music advertising has been a somewhat unsolved - sometimes controversial - problem. Today Lirix unveiled at DEMO an intelligent and elegant solution to the problem, called AdLirix. It is a smart, context-sensitive advertising solution that will allow musicians to make money off their music in a fair way.

The ads are inserted between tracks, never interrupting the user experience. But more importantly, the ads are contextual - because they are based on the lyrics of the songs! The advertisers bid to place ads in an auction fashion, but they are not charged unless their ad is played. The system also rewards artists, because even if their music is pirated - they will be paid because ads play. All and all it seems like a well thought through and elegant solution.

Here is what DEMO staff said about Lirix:

‚ÄúProtected by a recent patent, Lirix‚Äôs dynamic ad-insertion platform delivers targeted, dynamic advertising in streaming music and enables interesting new business models for over-the-air digital music services. The Lirix platform offers particular benefits to MVNOs, which can now supplement branded phone service with a potentially richer ad-supported music service offering as well.‚Ä?