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By Marva Marrow
Contributing Editor
Bladerunner shaken (not stirred) with a hefty dose of Laserama, Batman/Catwoman, tech-ish coolness and 1000 energized Singulars and friends mingled and tippled at the TwiistUp 5 extravaganza on February 12th at the Hangar 8 of the Santa Monica Airport. You had to be sooo cool and even luckier to snag a ticket to the party, which left 450 wait-listed wannabes out of the fun (maybe next time?). Singular magazine and SingularCity were media sponsors of the popular event, a great place to network for new jobs, new talent or new friends.
The event featured razor edge technology from innovative startup companies, with names like GirlGamer, eHow and Zannell, which made the cut from over 100 submissions, hoping for a top win in the evening’s competition. Totspot, which offers parents and babies a place to create a blog and webpage, won the evening’s public choice award — they received the most little “gem” votes in their cup — each person at the event was given a “gem” to bestow on their fave entry. That they were giving away free baby-sized sippy cups didn’t hurt their popularity. The superstar tech panel of judges awarded the evening’s top prize to Cogi, a phone call transcribing service. They were awarded free workspace, free hosting for their data and a personal introduction to a venture capital firm, for potential funding. Criteria for winning was “meeting an unmet need, solving a real problem and dominating their chosen space.”
The many small companies vying for attention, talent and recognition gave a good idea of the scope of ideas germinating in cyber space — and added to the fun and excitement of the evening. A number of the businesses aim to consolidate information from various social networking applications into usable forms. Others are developing new ways to work remotely — including the use of real robots that you can activate and manipulate to follow your ever move like a favorite dog, eliminating the need to sit in front of a computer while telecommunicating with colleagues or friends.
Other companies exhibiting have developed widely varying iPhone apps or other mobile apps which inform you of the output of your solar energy panels to knowing the nutritional content of items on menus in hundreds of cities, to enhancing the user experience of social networking and personal computing in other unique ways.
Servers carrying platters of delicious mini tacos, Korean style, were quickly assaulted by the hungry mobs and others in the crowd got their sugar fix from psychedelic looking (but not acting) cupcakes that looked like 50’s flying saucers. Other servers carried around day glo lit containers of flavored vodkas and drinks of all colors and concoctions flowed.
With the lights, lasers, music, laughter and energy, the whole experience was vaguely extraterrestrial. Tech is a huge draw, a beacon of hope and a uniting force for the coolest of the cool in Los Angeles. In spite of the fog machines and the roving lights that attempted to fool the senses, that fact was clear as sunlight at the TwiistUp party that February night.
Find out more about TwiistUp at www.twiistup.com
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Linda Sherman
