Gignal

Geo-location has undoubtedly been the tech darling of 2010, and we have probably only seen the beginning, many more “must have” geo-location services will rise in the years to come. And we intend to provide one of them - with Gignal.

We basically aggregate data from a specific location or tag - to show what people are talking about at events. There is no difference from creating an opinion in a physical environment to an online. You scan what people are talking about, you chose conversations to follow or participate in. And by tapping into to those conversations you get other peoples perspective from an event. You also have the chance to connect with the people you dig and thereby expand your network. In many ways you can get the exact same value from an event online as offline, since we communicate online even if we sit next to each other at a conference. The barrier for talking is some how lower online.

Now that was the simple version from a user perspective. From a conference organizer perspective we want to help reinvent conferences, by extending them with an online platform, that can strengthen, prolong and cultivate the event for participants before, under and after the physical event, making it a whole year experience - a conference 365.

We would love to hear your thoughts, ideas or needs on how a conference can become more valuable with Gignal, whether you are a organizer or conference participant.

Gignal at action.
TEDxCopenhagen
New Media Days
Danish Media Conference

We launched Gignal in closed Beta at New Media Days on November 9-10, 2010. 800 participants, 2 days, 3 locations - all around and about New Media.

This was an excellent case to launch since we had the opportunity to present and aggregate from more locations, all the social services that we support, on physical screens at the event, on Gignal’s site and through our widget on New Media Days website with their custom design.

New Media Days Testimonial.

For New Media Days Gignal was far the best way of visualizing a combination of social media services. It was an easy way to keep track on how the audience felt about the speakers, the food, the venue - and prevent problems, making sure our audience had a great time. At the same time our audience and people watching from home, could stay on top of the information flow - knowing what the fuzz was about at every single stage.
- Didde Elnif, Head of New Media Days.

New Media Days online stream, featuring check-ins, tweets, photos and video.

Gignal event analytics.

1. Foursquare - Checkin at a location and share it with your friends, including tips, special offers and photos.
2. Layar - Augmented reality browser/platform. Hold your phone in front of you and see where the nearest tweet is posted, where to buy Pizza - or what your search might be.
3. Lonely Planet iPhone City guides as we know them.
4. Google Maps - An oldie but certainly a goody.
5. CauseWorld - Do good while you turn your checkins into karma and donations.
6. Yelp - Search for places to eat, shop, play and get reviews from the local community.
7. Soundwalk - Get a real-time city tour on your iPhone based on your location - this is really cool!

What is your favorite geo app?

Gignal powered TEDxCopenhagen on November 30, 2010. Presenting social media buzz from Foursquare, Gowalla, Flickr, Twitpic, Yfrog and Twitter, from in and outside the conference.

TEDxCopenhagen testimonial.
“With Gignal you create a meta universe around your event and make it possible for people online to take part in the event through pictures, tweets and check-ins. This makes sense for TEDxCopenhagen with approximately 5000 people following the live web cast. And it’s cool to show it on a screen during the breaks at the event so the audience can see what is going on.”
- Laerke Ullerup, TEDxCopenhagen organizer.

TEDxCopenhagen online stream on Gignal. Featuring check-ins, photos and tweets.

TEDxCopenhagen event analytics.

Happy New Year wishes to everyone that supported us in 2010! Our first customers trusting our product. Savvy people sharing their thoughts and feedback to our vision. Event end users for expressing the value they experienced. All together motivating, challenging and driving us to where we are today.

We have come far in 2010, from an idea in January 2010 to our launch today, but we are still at the beginning of our journey. We look forward to experience where and how far 2011 will take us - hope you will join us.

All the best New Year wishes!
Team Gignal.

We are about to kiss 2010 goodbye, which is always a bit sad since time flies to rapidly, but it is also exciting to see what the new year will bring. For us 2010 has been a journey with detours, ups and downs, frustrations and thrills - a typical startup experience.

In January 2010 we made the first version of Gignal, because we needed it at NordicMeetup, which we co-organize. It actually looked very similar to the interface we have today, but not as stable and with less services. We took a heavy and costly detour by focusing on music events, but choose to trust our gut feeling and turned our effort back into tech conferences, where networking, sharing, dialogue and gadgets are key. In November we had our first conference launch at the New Media Days conference, followed by a Journalist Festival and TEDxCopenhagen. It was a much needed thrill to see 9 months of work in action, and to get positive feedback - a true energy boost.

In December we took Gignal back into the lab to focus on the lessons learned in November, adding more core value to our product, for conference organizers and participants. But the hardest part was to decide when enough is enough, and focus on wrapping Gignal up, with what we have for now. And from a developer perspective enough is never enough.

So though we are not close to provide our final vision with Gignal, we are very close to launch our first public version. We can now provide a generic tool, so you can create, aggregate and present your event, from geo-tags and tags, on Gignal’s site or your website and on physical screens. You can integrate our widget on your website, with your own custom design. And if that is not enough you can access our API and do your thing from there. We also offer event analytics, so organizers can learn and optimize their event based on online user behavior.

And due to the Christmas spirit we are wrapping Gignal up, by baking a new design, which we expect to take out the owen very very soon. But what we look most forward to experience in 2011, is going from a garage bootstrapping mode into a company state of mind, selling our service, being sustainable, and thereby continue to proof that we support a need, and that we actually make a difference to our stakeholders.

So that’s it for now folks - we look forward to feed you with much more event candy in 2011.

All the best New Year wishes from team Gignal!

And the winner of our logo competition is….. matacurut:

Thanks to everyone who participated at crowdSPRING.