14 DAY TRIAL // Geeks sure love their tech demos and a good product is not going to need much to get them interested. But most people out there couldn't care less. Google is trying to change that with Demo Slam a new website dedicated to user-created tech demos.
The idea is to get people involved and have them create fun videos that people will actually want to see. Each week, a competition will be held and the best demo will be titled "Champ," as voted by the users.
"If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably watched your share of tech demos in your life, possibly on this very blog. Like broccoli, tech demos are good for you. But kids don’t line up for broccoli—just like the majority of people don’t line up for tech demos," Robert Wong, Creative Director at Google's Creative Lab, wrote.
"Introducing Demo Slam, a place where boring tech demos become (hopefully) gotta-show-my-friends awesome—thanks to the creativity of Google users like you," he announced.
The demoslam.com domain was actually spotted a few days ago and sparked a bit of discussion since it was registered to Google. The mystery is now solved.
Google will choose a number of demos each week to feature which will battle it out in the ring for the user votes.
You can pick any Google technology you want to showcase and submit your creation. There are a number of do's and don'ts, but they're mostly common sense, you can't use the demos to feature third-party products or content and you have to ask permission from all of the people and for all of the content you use.
For now, Google is running a preseason, until it can get enough submissions to kick start the competition. It's too early to tell, but maybe Google, with the help of its users, will be able to churn out demos that most people will like, showcasing a useful feature they may not be aware of.