August’s Denver Edition of the New Tech Meetup saw a large crowd welcomed to an Auroria Campus enlivened with the return of students. The crowd was warmed up by a DJ and CU Law Professor Brad Bernthal’s offer of free legal advice for startups through the entrepreneurial law clinic at CU, which is now accepting applications for new clients.
Jeremy Slade presented first with CowPotato, an Android Application he has developed in partnership with Froogloid. The game allows players to shoot a virtual potato gun at virtual cows, earning points for each cow hit with more points awarded for cows further away. Slade showed a video of the work-in-progress game that should be ready by September for entry into the Android Developer Challenge. CowPotato represents Slade’s first venture into Android app programming. Froogloid has not decided whether they will attempt to generate revenue from the game.
David Rudder was up next to showcase Vpo.st, a flexible system for posting to social networks. Based on a response notification system to send out messages to multiple platforms in IT emergencies, Vpo.st allows users to send a message via voice or email to be posted to a variety of social networks including Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger. For example, a user would dial in, be authenticated based on phone number, record a message, and then select the social networks where the information should be posted. The voice transcription capabilities are powered by Twilio. For messages sent by email, Vpo.st will appropriately handle attachments based on the specific social network (e.g. creating a photo album for Facebook while providing a link in Twitter). The company is working to add additional posting options including YouTube and several Google Apps.
David Slaten next offered an introduction into Boulder Digital Works, a newly created dedicated digital education program at CU. According to Slade, most programs that provide some digital education focus primarily on a single element of the digital experience such as advertising or web design. The center, located on Walnut Street in Boulder, will initially offer a 60 week certificate program but also plans to provide executive education and shorter courses. Along with maintaining an interdisciplinary focus, the center also seeks to involve the community and businesses including having students complete a project with tech company partners.
Frequent Boulder presenter Dave Rogers stepped up last to showcase Local Bunny for the Denver audience. Local Bunny provides businesses the ability to auto-respond to Twitter messages from customers. For example, if some Tweeted “@BoulderTheater show times,” Boulder Theater could set up its account to automatically respond with a schedule of shows for the next few days. Rogers focused this demonstration on how merchants can interact with the Local Bunny website to set up its Twitter responses. Once logged in to Local Bunny, a business sets its basic information (location, website) and then specifies a keyword(s) including common variations and misspellings and enters the appropriate automated response. Local Bunny currently charges $99 per month per location for businesses and is working to develop a volume based pricing model for larger brands.
The BDNT is designed to provide a time and place for technologists and entrepreneurs to showcase the new technology developing in the region. The next meeting will take place at the Wolf Law Building at CU Boulder on September 1st at 6:00. If you seek to attend please register for the event here.
