Last night we went to the first £5 App evening. Held at the Regency Town House, this was an evening of 2 presentations describing "£5 Apps". In this context, a £5 App is an idea which may or may not work, but which costs little financially to try, the main investment being time. John and Ian, our organisers, had thoughtfully provided beers and soft drinks which obviously helped proceedings, and Shardcore had brought along some geek artwork which was on display.
John kicked off proceedings with his presentation about chrss - a correspondence chess service where the moves are delivered by an rss feed - and on what makes a £5 App (simple, quick to get a core running, cheap to run). This was a good talk, giving me information on what chrss is, as well as why John wanted to do it, and where he wants to take it.
After a beer break, Ian then talked both about ShowMeDo and about the lessons that he and Kyran have learnt from 15 months of running a £5 App. He also gave a good introduction to ShowMeDo, and marketed it as a service very well.
Lots of discussion was generated, and both speakers had plenty of questions to answer - they both did well and neither seemed particularly stumped by any of them. The next £5 App is scheduled to have 2 speakers discussing social networking applications, so again that should be an interesting evening.
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