It's Graeme - sorry for the long hiatus - but I'm back and have lots of interesting new ideas to share with our friends at CoolBusinessIdeas!

I recently attended DemoCamp 17 - an event in Toronto attended by software developers and other entrepreneurs (well, actually mostly software developers) looking to share their new apps with other geek-minded people and to attract VC money from some of the angel investors in the room. Yes, they truly are geeks - the typical overheard conversation usually sounded like "how long have you been on Twitter?" or "I love the new Apple SDK".

Each participant gets up in front of the assembly and gets 10 minutes to pitch their idea. It's that simple. Sometimes the demo works, and the creator presents a compelling case for his or her product. Sometimes it doesn't. But the crowd is forgiving, and it makes for a fun evening.

A few ideas pitched were:

PlanetEye.com - this contextual travel experience site is way cool, and has already attracted funding and development support from Microsoft. The demo was really interesting - the concept is to use geotags to add pictures to pretty much any location in the world. It's not just another Google maps, it has a clear tourist orientation and a unique interface. The site is live in beta - check it out.

GigPark.com - a social networking site designed by tech geeks, for tech geeks! Designed to help owners run small technology based businesses, it fosters the sharing of contact information for professional service providers (lawyers, accountants, etc.) and networking amongst its members. Cool. Up and running now.

A smart (and young) developer named Kaitlyn demoed her new app - AskItOnline.com. She conceived it, planned it, wrote the code and generally made it happen, by herself, and while holding a full time job somewhere else. It's an online survey application, similar to surveymonkey.com and questionpro.com, both of which she felt didn't have a sufficiently user-friendly interface. It a great tool - a trial account is free, give it a try.

Graeme Spicer is a Canadian trendspotter, ethnographer and observer of all things retail. As Director of Retail Strategy at DW+Partners he spends his time consulting with leading retailers; presenting at conferences across North America; lecturing at OCAD, Canada's leading design school; and reading too many blogs. Graeme can be reached at graeme.spicer@gmail.com.