Out&About: Taploid & Blipboard; GAFFTA Arts Fundraiser And UP Festival

Posted by Tom Foremski - October 5, 2012

Thursday evening was busy there were so many events, I could only make it to some of them. I popped into Taploid and Blipboard launch parties at the Phoenix Hotel. I had an interesting chat with Mike Barnes, co-founder of Blipboard (above, with Heather Meeker), which came out of stealth mode at this week's DEMO conference.

Here's a description of Blipboard from Elaine Fiolet at Ubergizmo:

...the application acts like a social map, where people can access information and alerts in real time about what is happening nearby. Users can tune in to people and places and get instant information about events, happy hours, restaurant specials and many other happenings posted by people and venues around the city.

Mike is originally from Birmingham, in the UK. He and his team used to work at Skype and the Microsoft acquisition allowed them to take off and build Blipboard, which is self-funded.

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Blipboard shared the party with Regd Snodgrass' "The Taploid" which is described by Tom Chereder at VentureBeat:

Taploid is a service that attempts to solve the problem of noisy social network feeds, while allowing people to view social activity data to learn more about themselves and their friends. In other words, it wants to be good at both tracking gossip and making it useful.

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I popped into The Warfield to see a presentation by the Gray Area Foundation For the Arts (GAFFTA) by Jake Levitas(above, with Josette Melchor) about the UP (Urban Protoyping) UP: San Francisco Street Festival & Exposition - GAFFTA on October 20. It's a fascinating project aimed at transforming the run-down mid-Market Street neighborhood. In the 1940s this area was buzzing with theaters and clubs and GAFFTA has been working hard in trying to revitalize and re-imagine this poor neighborhood.

On Saturday, October 20, three blocks of downtown San Francisco will become a living laboratory of urban experiments. This exposition will demonstrate the capability of citizens to re-imagine public space through creative applications of design and technology.
The festival will feature a showcase of 25 projects created by over 150 makers, as well as three stages of public performance and a series of inspiring keynotes and panel discussions around place-making, prototyping, and the future of cities.
The GAFFTA Stage on Minna Street will feature an immersive Audio/Visual performance environment featuring experimental electronic musicians and visualists such as Mark Fell of SND (UK).
The Intersection for the Arts Stage on Natoma Street will feature artistic performances and speakers such as Tom Kelley, Co-Founder of IDEO.
The Halladie Plaza Stage will feature local standout performers including Trolley Dances, Campo Santo, and Gamelan X.

...

I ran into Lynn Luckow (above on right) who used to be CEO of Craigslist Foundation, the charitable arm of Craigslist, which was wound down after ten years of operation. He now runs LikeMinded - Ideas for local change.

Here's a description:

Lynn Luckow introduces LikeMinded from NENtv on Vimeo.

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Also, I met Australian documentary maker Kylee Ingram (above, right), who is in town for a few days before flying off to New York. Here is one of her projects. Razing Hell | Indiegogo

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