Preview of Office 2.0 Conference iPhone Apps

by Don Campbell
published on: 08/26/07 12:15:20 PM

Are you going to Office 2.0?  If you are, then you know that attendees will be getting a free iPhone.  If you are not, then you really should consider attending this conference.  I attended the first one last year, and it was well worth it.  Ismael Ghalimi and his team did an excellent job - it had great sessions, great presenters and a very nice venue.   The result was a fun and informative view the industry with respect to online productivity apps and companies, and a chance to meet many great folks.

This year, Etelos is the Diamond sponsor for the event.  And we have created the iPhone apps that will be used on-site by over 700 attendees on their shiny new iPhones!  

I'd like to give you a preview of the apps here.  These apps were developed on the Etelos platform in a matter of days.  A few more days for design and styling, and voila! - a very exciting set of apps that are going to be used by all the attendees during the event to:

- View the conference schedule, hotel blueprint maps, and up-to-the-minute schedule updates.
- Create a custom profile for sharing with friends and contacts
- Allow attendees to connect and share information including contact info, photos, and messages with other attendees, presenters and the press
- View event sponsors
- View speaker bios and photos
- Provide real-time feedback and ratings for the sessions
- Allow attendees to set up ad-hoc meetings with each other

Here are a few screens for the app:


I can't wait to see this in action at the event!  It's amazing how quickly this truly usable app was developed with the Etelos environment.  The prototype was created within a day, and then refined over the next couple of days.  We used elements of Joe Hewitt's iUI menus, and then re-styled them with a custom theme we developed for the Conference.  We added preliminary session schedule and sponsor information, and started testing it heavily.  The base app was developed so quickly that we started kicking around ideas for making things fun and interesting. We added the real-time chat (even store and forward if the person you send the message to is not available at the moment) the photo sharing - just snap a picture with your phone and e-mail it to a special e-mail address with your "tags" in the subject line, and you've contributed to the conference photo-pool.  

In true Etelos style, we will be making the source code for this app available after the event for our partners to take it, brand it as their own, adapt it to their purposes, and sell it in our marketplace.  We will also be offering free accounts for our Etelos CRM for iPhone and other apps to event attendees.

Its a great time to be a Web developer... I hope you'll be at the Office 2.0 Conference, and I hope you'll download this app after the show and see for yourself how quickly you can develop stunning Web 2.0 apps with the Etelos platform!