Would anyone be interested in a conference that was purely a YCombinator demo day like presentation of working (even if alpha) software projects? That is, like a normal conference but no papers, no publications, no talks on theory or political analysis or anything other than demoing and discussing working code.

Strange Loop has incubated a number of speculative conference ideas, and I'd be happy to discuss such a thing if you want to attach it to something else w/ an existing audience

Sure, I’d be happy to discuss it.

That is what LIVE and the Convivial Salon already do. You can submit a screencast of a demo

I'd love to participate in something like this as a remote conference. Or, perhaps, you could model it after the GDC Experimental Gameplay Workshop where people are allowed to present to the in-person audience via pre-recorded video.

There's a monthly meetup in my town that does this. I wouldn't travel a great distance for just a day of software demos. If it was remote (Ivan) or if it was attached to a larger conference (Alex and Jonathan) then it becomes more interesting.

“But it does have to have new ideas about software development. Are you in the right channel?” Yes. An FoC Demo Day. “That is what LIVE and the Convivial Salon already do. You can submit a screencast of a demo” I’m not sure that’s the same as having a dedicated demo day, or at least not clear to me from looking at the conference site.

At least 50%. At LIVE it was 100%.

Ok, that’s surprising (and encouraging) as I’m not sure how many of the suggested categories of submissions would involve demoing working software.

i think part of what’s exciting (to me, at least) about describing it as analogous to YC is the idea of it being less a “find out what’s going on” and more of a “call to arms”—for capital, helpers, or whatever (yes id be interested)

We did one experimental conference on zoom along these lines in November (). Copied the YC demo day "2 minute rule". It was fun!

Yeah! I think we should set up another of those. Maybe make it a regular occurrence every 3 months or so? Steve, were you thinking of something like 2-minute demos, or longer?

In the FoC 2 minute lightning talk thing, we were discouraged from live demos because 2 minutes is too short for that. How about a more generous time allotment that supports live demos and provides time for questions.

Lightning talks seem ideal for online videos. Two minutes sounds good for a prepared/edited lightning demo but too short for a live demo. Maybe 5+ minutes and then questions for a live demo?

I think the critical thing is not so much the length of the talk but the number of talks in a session. 2 talks and then disband, and everyone will go home thinking about them. 30 talks, and who knows what anybody remembers. I've mostly soured on lightning talks for this reason. I occasionally do them for completely new audiences. But when it's people I already know, what's the point?