The Web Innovators Group (WebInno) is comprised of people engaged in internet and mobile innovation in the Boston area. We aim to support entrepreneurs, visionaries, and creative thinkers in the field by holding events which foster community interaction. Our regular meetings provide a forum for entrepreneurs from self-funded/early-stage startups to present new services to their peers, as well as an opportunity for everyone in the community to share and exchange ideas. Add our RSS feed to your reader, register for the e-mail newsletter, or check back periodically to learn about upcoming events.
Next Event:
Join us for the next Web Innovators Group meeting on September 15th, 2008 at 6:30pm in Cambridge. An informal gathering of people interested in internet and mobile innovation, WebInno is free and open to all in the community. If you are planning to attend, please sign up on our dedicated registration page.
Posted: August 11th, 2008 Comments(0)
Here in the middle of August, it’s almost hard to believe we’re almost a month away from the post- Labor Day WebInno gathering on September 15th at 6:30pm at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge.
The WebInno Summer Edition in July was a tremendous success in terms of turnout… so much so that many of our attendees had trouble hearing & seeing the Main Dish presentations. To address this issue directly, I am pleased that for the next event the venue will be significantly upgrading both our sound-system and will be adding additional seating near the screen and presenters. My goal is to continue to provide everyone in the Boston-area web and mobile community with a welcoming and engaging forum, and I appreciate your patience along these lines as our numbers have grown.
We’ll continue with the same format of self-/angel-funded startups demo’ing to the crowd in Main Dish and Side Dish showcases, and award an “Audience Choice” prize to the crowd’s favorite in their respective categories. Mark it on your calendars now - and please register in advance on our dedicated registration page to help us gauge the crowd-size and print name tags, etc.
If your early-stage startup is interested in presenting in either manner that evening, just reach out to me at david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com. Please include the name of your company/site/product, a brief overview and description, and a link to a live site or password-protected beta demo site. The sooner you share a heads up the better, as I’ll likely begin to make decisions the week of August 25th and announce the selections shortly after the Labor Day holiday weekend.
Posted: July 18th, 2008 Comments(0)
Wow… what a turnout we had for last week’s WebInno18. Don Dodge estimated that there were 800 people in the room and called it a “great Boston Web 2.0 networking event for upcoming startups.” Dave Laubner at 93South blog confirmed that it “was easily the largest turnout yet” and shared some photos on Flickr. The OnStartups blog posted some interesting analysis of the events registrants just prior to the meeting. And Amanda Gravel at Social Honeycomb said, “I just love the energy around emerging businesses and startups in this space and I had a blast seeing it all in action tonight,” expressing how “psyched” she was in a video.
Congratulations to Mike Putnam and the entire Zeer team for winning the WebInno Audience Choice Award. It was certainly great to see that the integrated mobile and web service resonated with the crowd.
The next large group WebInno event will be held on September 15th, so do mark it on your calendars now. I’ll open up the online registration again in a few weeks. Thanks for everyone’s great feedback on improving the event – we may be tweaking the format a bit to accommodate the increasing attendance and broadening interests.
Posted: July 18th, 2008 Comments(0)
As mentioned on Tuesday night at the WebInno large group event, I am continuing my series of WebInno Dinner Groups – gatherings of a dozen or so entrepreneurs and managers focused on a specific area who want to connect to discuss and share experiences about this topic. In contrast to the larger regular large WebInno events, these are more intimate sessions with an opportunity for in-depth discussion. The first five dinners were devoted to the topics “Widgets and Advertising,” the “Intersection of Mobile and the Web,” and “Virtual Items and Virtual Worlds,” “The Secrets of Social Network Platform Apps,” and “eCommerce 2.0.” The next one I am planning is to be focused on the topic “Monetizing via Ad Networks.” If this discussion-area sounds like a gathering which you would want to participate, please reach out to me (david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com) sharing a bit of your relevant background and interest. Depending on response and availability, I’ll then organize an evening for us to get together in upcoming weeks (likely in August).
Posted: June 30th, 2008 Comments(0)
It’s just over two weeks away until our July 15th Web Innovators Group meeting and we’ve lined up another great set of demonstrators for the event. As usual, the doors officially open at 6:30pm at the Grand Ballroom in the Cambridge Royal Sonesta, with the “main dish” presentations to the entire crowd starting at 7pm:
Following those presentations, each of our “side dish” demonstrators will have an opportunity to give a quick 30-second overview of their service to the audience followed by a showcase of their company at tables spread throughout the periphery of the room during the unstructured networking portion of the evening:
As a special treat, Webnotes will be providing a “sneak peak” of their soon-to-be-launched service which is currently in closed private beta, and will be exclusively opening the service to WebInno attendees the day of the event. Snipd will also be sharing a pre-launch inside look at their service.
Everyone who is interested in web and mobile innovation is encouraged to attend the free event. Please RSVP (and find additional details) on the event page (http://webinno18.eventbrite.com/) if you plan to join us so we are able to print name tags and appropriately size the room.
(My apologies to those companies which expressed interest in demo’ing but were not selected – we had another record number of applicants for this session, and all entries are encouraged to reapply for future sessions.)
Posted: April 09th, 2008 Comments(0)
As I’ve mentioned at the large WebInno events and on this blog, I’ve begun a series of WebInno Dinner Groups – gatherings of a dozen or so entrepreneurs and managers focused on a specific topic who want to connect to discuss and share experiences within their domain. In contrast to the larger regular large WebInno events, these are more intimate sessions with an opportunity for in-depth discussion. The first four dinners were devoted to the topics “Widgets and Advertising,” the “Intersection of Mobile and the Web,” and “Virtual Items and Virtual Worlds,” and “The Secrets of Social Network Platform Apps.”
As I announced at WebInno17, I am planning the next WebInno Dinner Group to be focused on the topic “eCommerce 2.0” This intentionally broad term can mean a number of things to a number of different people, and it would be great to gather a set of them interested in discussing. If this sounds like a gathering which you would want to participate, please reach out to me (david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com) sharing a bit of your relevant background and interest. Depending on response and availability, I’ll then organize an evening for us to get together in upcoming weeks (likely in May).
When: Tue, July 15th 2008 Time: 18:30 pm
As spring is slowly creeping in with summer only right behind, we’re holding the season’s Web Innovators Group event a few months from now on Tuesday July 15th. We’ll continue with the same format of self-/angel-funded startups demo’ing to the crowd in main dish and side dish formats and award “Audience Choice” prize to the crowd’s favorite in their respective categories. Mark it on your calendars now and feel free to register well in advance on our dedicated registration page, as this one will sure be a special event. And if your early-stage startup is interested in presenting in either forum that evening, just reach out to me at david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com. Please include the name of your company/site/product, a brief overview and description, and a link to a live site or password-protected beta demo site. The sooner you give me a heads up the better. See you in a few months.
Posted: April 09th, 2008 Comments(2)
It was great to see everyone come out for the most recent WebInno event last week. The feedback I heard was positive, not just on the size and energy of the crowd, but in particular with this event on the quality of the main and side dish demonstrators. So a special congratulations goes out to the Audience Choice Main Dish and Side Dish award winners Good2Gether and Yamli, respectively, as they faced especially tough competition for the audience’s favorite.
As usual, there were a number of attendee bloggers, both old and new, commenting on the event. Pito Salas, who attended the very first session with demonstrators back in 2005, was “quite impressed [his bold] with the attendance and the quality of the people presenting… The gathering was quite crowded and the buzz was very loud, lots of dynamic discussions going on all over the place, people trading war stories and comparing products. It was stimulating and fun, and I plan to go next month again.” Former Main Dish demonstrator Matt Douglas “hadn’t gone to the last few WebInno group meetings” but was “pleased to see some of the improvements that… had [been] implemented… After the main presentations, I had a chance to say hello to some familiar faces, and meet some new people. I was pleasantly surprised at how many new people were at the Web Innovators meeting last night.” First time attendee Cory Wallenstein said, “I got a chance to attend the Web Innovators Group in Cambridge last night, and it was an absolute blast! This was my first time attending, and the experience was very, very different from other events I’ve attended in the area… There must have been at least 500 folks in attendance… far larger than any other non-conference event I’ve been to in the area, but it didn’t FEEL like a large, impersonal event. It was very open and social.” And lastly, blogger Don Dodge recently gave a tip of the hat to the Web Innovators Group in his Boston startup events roundup.
Posted: March 19th, 2008 Comments(9)
We’re two weeks away from our April 2nd Web Innovators Group meeting and we’ve lined up another set of strong demonstrators for the event. As usual, the doors officially open at 6:30pm at the Grand Ballroom in the Cambridge Royal Sonesta, with the “main dish” presentations to the entire crowd starting at 7pm:
Following those presentations, each of our “side dish” demonstrators will have an opportunity to give a quick 30-second overview of their service to the audience followed by a showcase of their company at tables spread throughout the periphery of the room during the unstructured networking portion of the evening:
Everyone who is interested in web and mobile innovation is encouraged to attend the free event. Please RSVP (and find additional details) on the event page (http://webinno17.eventbrite.com/) if you plan to join us so we are able to print name tags and appropriately size the room.
(My apologies to those companies which expressed interest in demo’ing but were not selected – we had a record number of applicants for this session and all entries are encouraged to reapply for future sessions.)
When: Wed, April 2nd 2008 Time: 18:30 pm
I am happy to announce that after starting the year off in force with our January event, WebInno will continue the momentum in 2008 with our next get-together on Wednesday April 2nd. As usual, it will be held at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, and will feature a number of self-/angel-funded startups demo to the crowd in main dish and side dish formats with an “Audience Choice” awarded to the crowd’s favorite in their respective categories.
If your early-stage startup is interested in presenting in either forum, just reach out to me at david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com. Please include the name of your company/site/product, a brief overview and description, and a link to a live site or password-protected beta demo site.
If you plan on attending, please RSVP on our dedicated registration page so we can appropriately size the room and print name-tags. It should be another exciting event… see you in April!
Posted: February 11th, 2008 Comments(0)
Thanks to everyone who came out to the sixteenth Web Innovators Group meeting two weeks ago. Wow! We had quite a crowd… I heard estimates of around 500 people in attendance, but it was certainly a packed room nonetheless.
All of the people who joined us were there for good reason – our presenters proudly showed off their latest iteration of their services. In case you missed it (or would like to check them out again), the videos of the main dish demos for Urban Interactive, SpotScout, MakeMeSustainable are all available over at the @Bar blog.
The most exciting part of the night was the introduction of the “Audience Choice” award, given to the crowd’s favorite demo of both the main dish and side presenters. Since WebInno is devoted to promoting Boston’s Web and Mobile innovation community, it was only natural that we voted on the choice demo via mobile phone texting. Congratulations to both Andrew Rollert of SpotScout and Ian Manheimer of Glassbooth for winning their respective categories. This newly-enacted tradition will certainly continue at our next event.
In addition to our usual crew of bloggers providing a recap of the January’s meeting (like Greg Peverill-Conti, Chris Carleton, and Dharmesh Shah), there are a great set of writeups from some newcomers (like Melissa Chang and Deborah Block-Schwenk). Plus, Mike Champion snapped a few photos and BostonKnows “uttered” their own summary of the event.
