The WebInno group featured two main presenters. The first was for a product to let business people use mobile devices to learn about other business people they were going to meet. I was more interested in the device that projected the cell phone image than in the presentation.



Plum, the second presentation, won me over when the presenter showed how it could be used to "collect" web pages not just as URLs, but as a snapshot/archive, avoiding link rot. I started thinking about all the different ways that was useful and didn't pay much attention to the rest of the presentation. I'm sure the "official" bloggers will give details.



Schmoozing was definitely the high point of the evening. With shutterfly desupporting its c4p program, I had been looking for a replacement service that will ease printing of independently-hosted photos. I had even asked around. It seemed nobody wanted our money. I met someone from digibug. They want our money. PHP Gallery is already planning on using them in their next release. Having been busy with non-print improvements, I probably wouldn't have found out about digibug for a long time had I not gone to WebInno.



Ned Batchelder introduced himself, and I asked what he was working on. He showed me Tabblo. The service officially launches May 15, but some information about it already leaked out. Ned talked about how popular photo-sharing services don't work with text well, and how working with photos on popular blog sites leaves much to be desired. (I couldn't agree more; that's what motivated ourdoings.com.) He showed me how you could choose a layout, drag photos onto it, and put text in the empty spaces. No Flash player required, all JavaScript.



Families/groups can collaborate to build a tabblo. You'll be able to order posters (and I expect other memorabilia) based on your tabblo. They'll render an image of a tabblo that you can post to a blog, but in my mind the memorabilia are the real selling point of tabblo, which is important because that's where their revenue will come from.



Easy/fast online storytelling with large numbers of photos is the emphasis of ourdoings.com, so tabblo isn't exactly a competitor. But it's good to at least know of another site in the telling-your-story-with-photos space.



Other useful feedback: I should have business cards. I called myself the world's worst marketer, and one venture capitalist agreed. Another, after a two-minute tour of ourdoings.com, said it had "a lot of meat, but no sizzle." High-profile Web 2.0 bloggers would never write about it. Besides making me hungry for fajitas, this comment made me think. My idea for adding sizzle is to have an online, self-run demo that's easy to jump into. New users would see the compelling features without going through the register/login process, and have the opportunity to make their experimentation permanent at the end. Still, this doesn't require Web 2.0 technology, bright colors, or rounded corners. But I'm looking for the solution to fit a problem, not looking for a problem to fit a solution.



Despite the great usefulness of the schmoozing part of the program, I do think the demos could be a few minutes longer and include time for group Q/A and discussion. This would be an adjustment, not a major change. Overall, I think the WebInno group has put together a great forum.