Tokyo 2.0 is a community for web-related professionals and amateurs in Japan and regularly organises events and meet-ups. Last night they held an Appstar event, a competition where four iPhone developers presented to a panel of judges for a prize and popular vote.

The event was held in Superdeluxe, an event space near Roppongi Hills. I've been to many engagements there, some filled beyond capacity, but last night was a decent turnout, which meant it was filled but not crowded to the point of being no fun.

The judges were Danny Choo, the Tokyo stormtrooper, Nobuyuki Hayashi, a tech journalist, Hareo Shiiya, the CEO of Appliya, one of the bigger app companies in Japan, and Hiroko Tabuchi, writer for the New York Times. The host of the event was CEO of Tunewear and Focalpoint Hideki Francis Onda who presented in both English and Japanese to a very mixed and international crowd.

With a short slideshow projected on the three back walls and a small camera set-up to view iPhones attached to a mount, four developers had to give a short presentation about their product. Last night the apps in question were:
BalloonMaker (paid, free), an app to add speech balloons to photos from your library or snapped with your iPhone camera. The full version would then allow you to send these to friends, Facebook, Twitpic, etc.
iPoseable (free): a tech demo showing off poseable 3D figures in a 3D environment.
TwitCasting (free): a variation on uStream that worked with lower bandwidths.
Huff Puff Volley (paid, free): a cutesy badminton game in which animal characters could be moved with the motion sensor and a shuttlecock had to be volleyed by either tapping the screen or blowing on the microphone.

I thought all presenters did a pretty good job of showing their products, often with well-produced videos and trailers. BalloonMaker certainly had its charm, showing the developer's own kids in photos with speech balloons saying cute things. iPoseable showed off some impressive 3D tech, but as a product it still needed to find its footing, something the developer, the only foreigner of the night, was probably aware of, and certainly something the panel of judges were keen to ask about. Twitcasting gave a live demo of the crowd being broadcast live and viewed on a second iPhone he was trying to juggle on stage. Huff Puff Volley too gave a live bluetooth battle between the presenter and an accomplice in the crowd and, especially due to its cutesy graphics, was rather delightful.

The overall winner of the night was Twitcasting, winning the judges' special prize as well as the audience award, something which was decided decidedly un-2.0-like by putting pieces of plastic in bottles for voting. It was the app I voted for myself, bringing exciting technology, the ability to broadcast decent video live over low bandwidth and dodgy connectivity, in an admittedly not new but exciting area of social web development, video broadcasting via Twitter and iPhones.

Special mention and a prize were given to Huff Puff Volley for its ease of play and cute design. In my eyes the game was the most polished of the evening and having a soft spot for cutesy characters myself I am glad it got special attention.

Events like these are numerous, interested parties could find an event every week to tackle one or more of his own interests. Tokyo2.0 certainly has plenty of dates, though the Appstar competition seems to be something new. I think it's a nice way of giving extra attention to new developers in this rough market, and for non-participants it's a great way to get introduced to new apps and developers.

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