Pepcom Wine, Dine, and Demo 2012 event took place on 11/15 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC. There were 40+ exhibitors and 500+ attendees at Pepcom’s annual “technology tasting,” combining Argentinean wine tasting with a media event showcasing the latest computers, laptops, tablets, software, smartphones, apps, TVs, video games, toys, gadgets, and other emerging technologies in prep for the holiday season. I was on the show floor doing on-camera interviews for bnetTV. Here were some people we talked to:
Tony Archibong, Strategic Partnerships at Hulu
Interview Highlights:
- Tony talks about the new native Hulu Plus app on Windows 8 Tablet
- You can pin videos directly to Windows tablet start screen, pause and restart without relaunching the Hulu Plus app
- Hulu Plus kids zone, ad-free. Curated content from Viacom, PBS, etc. Regular content hub separate from kids hub.
- Hulu Plus gift cards for holiday shoppers: special bundle deals with Xbox 360, Roku, Sony devices come with Hulu Plus subscriptions 1, 3, and 6 month offers
Bob Wilkins, Founder at FreePriceAlerts
Interview Highlights:
- FreePriceAlerts just closed $2.5M Series B funding in September. The goal is to find you the best deals online – Bob and I talk about how the company has saved shoppers over $50M since its launch.
- Ziftr is a personal shopping dashboard that uses social and crowd sourcing information to tell you real-time pricing of products you care about, it’s like a Twitter feed for shopping. Key features on the dashboard include: live pricing, global wishlists from multiple sites, automatic price alerts, trending products, and top coupons.
Fiona Dias, Chief Strategic Officer, ShopRunner
Interview Highlights:
- ShopRunner offers free 2-day shipping & returns, Fiona talks about how they plan to scale to compete with Amazon’s Prime
- Currently partners with 70+ major retailers
- ShopRunner “Pickup Points” lets you pickup packages at nearby convenient stores: 7-Eleven, Duane Reade, etc.
Jonathan Wegner, Communications Director, LifeProof
Interview Highlights:
- Demo for LiftProof iPhone 4, 4S, 5 and iPad cases – Jonathan dunks an iPhone in a water tank and drops an ipad straight on the floor
- LifeProof accessories
Brian Jaquet, Slingbox
Interview Highlights:
- Brian talks about the Emmy award-winning Slingbox® product suite and shows me how he streams his home TV from Washington DC to the iPad he’s holding at NYC Pepcom show floor
- How Slingbox delivers personal custom content for travelers and different family members
- Slingbox 500 comes with wifi, you can push content up to your home TV (photos, videos, etc.)
Kate Brow, LoJack
Interview Highlights:
- Only anti-theft laptop software on the market that has a theft recovery team
- LoJack has recovered stolen laptops in over 95 countries and returned over 27,000 laptops
- Kate talks about the recovery time limit, currently compatible for both Mac & PC, tablet software to come
