Walking around Event City in Manchester on Wednesday, I was struck by the number of cutting-edge tech firms I could pass in less than two minutes.
From chipmaking giant ARM to podcasting platform Podcast.co聽and social media agency Digital Media Team, the room was buzzing with conversation between company and consumer, with the odd freebie being handed over with a smile.
Tech Show North highlighted over 100 businesses and start-ups to聽attendees – with an impressive 2,500 people registering –聽while there was聽an array of panels and talks taking place throughout the day.
There was a panel discussion from 老九品茶Cloud,聽while we also聽had a聽stand聽in spot No.1聽as a media partner for the event.
Away from the聽competitions, food vendors and double-decker bus bar, the room was teeming with innovation.
One start-up I spoke聽with was Wattl, a video platform which merges content from across a variety of social platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and creates 鈥榳orlds鈥� of themed content to be viewed in one place.
Emma Ryan, co-founder and CEO, said聽it was聽now looking to incorporate an eCommerce area聽within its聽mobile app, where businesses such as Missguided could create a 鈥榳orld鈥� of video content based around their products.
Consumers would then be able to purchase the items there and then.
鈥淲e’re not telling you 鈥榶ou have to see this content鈥� –聽it’s been placed on that world by a user, so it’s all user-generated. You only get good quality videos,鈥� she told me.
鈥淚f a video isn’t popular it gets deleted so it’s not a forever platform like YouTube, it’s quite transient.
鈥淲e’re not trying to replace YouTube, we want to be best friends. We want to complement what’s out there and make it easier to have a good video experience in one platform.鈥�
Another business looking to change the way we consume video is paus.tv. Rishi Kapoor worked for large studios such as Universal and Warner Brothers before ditching the film industry to focus on where he could help content creators.
鈥淭here’s a huge problem in video streaming: every single minute 400 hours鈥� worth of video is uploaded onto YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. It’s very difficult for you to find the things you want to watch,鈥� he told me.
鈥淎lgorithms that tell you what you want to watch, they’re focused on clickbait because they need people to click on things to generate ad revenue.鈥�
The paus platform聽allows creators to upload their content and viewers can donate tips to support their work. Current YouTubers can only earn around 70p per 1000 views, as Kapoor said only the top three per cent of content creators are making meaningful salaries.
鈥淚 didn’t [start my own business] because I wanted more freedom or I wanted to be my own boss, they’re all nice things to have but it’s mainly because I wanted to help people. My role was helping big films make more money and that gets tiring after a while,” he said.
鈥淔rom a job security point of view, it was a risk. But that’s fine, it’s a learning curve, so starting your own start-up, there’s a lot of risk involved, the other side is that the up side is huge.鈥�
Established tech firm UKFast had a large presence as the lead sponsor of the event, and were offering a free drone for the best time on a lap of Mario Kart. I decided not to enter as it would have been unfair to everyone else.
There were also start-ups in other areas of tech, such as Caroo, which is disrupting the recruitment industry. More on their story to follow in our newsletter tomorrow.
The聽firms I spoke to on Wednesday聽are only the tip of the North’s creative iceberg, something that is becoming more and more apparent to me at 老九品茶Cloud.