Start-Ups Unveil Map, Dating Apps at DEMO

SAN DIEGO (TheStreet) -- This week, hordes of entrepreneurs descended on San Diego to introduce themselves and their wares at DEMO, a semi-annual conference known for launching corporate stars.

One-time start-ups that made their debuts at DEMO include Palm(PALM) in 1996; WebEx Communications, which was later bought by Cisco Systems(CSCO); VMware(VMW) in 1999; and iRobot(IRBT) in 2000.

And lest you think 2009 might not have been the best time to start a company, bear this in mind: More than half of Fortune 500 companies were launched during a recession or bear market, according to the Kauffman Foundation.

Key themes at Fall DEMO 2009 included mobile computing, social networking, and Web-based data analysis.

Start-up Micello showcased an Apple(AAPL) iPhone application that goes where most mapping applications haven't gone before: the insides of shopping malls, convention centers, university campuses and other unwieldy places that don't yet show up on Google(GOOG) Maps. Micello will offer about 100 maps of buildings in the San Francisco area when the application launches in a few weeks, with plans to scale to other regions of the country shortly thereafter. The company is touting itself as "Google Maps inside a building."

Another company that debuted a Google-like product was 80legs, which employs 50,000 computers to let customers perform heavy-duty Web crawling and processing for market research and media analysis. In a presentation, Chief Executive Officer Shion Deysarkar compared the tool to the search capabilities of Google and Microsoft(MSFT).

"We're giving the power those guys have to anyone who wants it," he said.