Silicon Florist

January 4, 2010

Portland’s rollercoaster year: Recapping the 2009 startup scene and looking forward to 2010

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of sitting on the couch at Strange Love Live as Cami Kaos, Dr. Normal, and I talked through the year that was. It was one of tremendous highs and extreme lows.

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November 19, 2009

Ignite Portland 7: How to win at Ignite or Tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Ignite experience

Rest assured, we want your Ignite experience to be as fun and rewarding as possible. So whether this is your 23rd Ignite event or your first, here are some tips and tricks for getting the most out of Ignite Portland

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October 28, 2009

Socially mobile: Jive releases Social Business Software 4.0, iPhone app, and BlackBerry and smart phone functionality

Not only did Jive upgrade their core product to Social Business Software 4.0, they also made it more accessible by releasing apps for the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms

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October 6, 2009

From Air Sharing to Zipcar: 40+ iPhone apps developed in the Silicon Forest

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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Portland—and to some extent the entire Silicon Forest—has a predilection for building iPhone apps. No, it’s true. There are a number of amazing development shops in town—some one-person, some a few people—building iPhone apps that are attracting users by the

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October 1, 2009

Top 10 Silicon Florist posts for September 2009

As we wrap up the summer and move into fall, things are starting to pick up here again in the Silicon Forest. Lots of startups doing lots of cool things—even the City of Portland is doing cool things with open source.
But what did you—the folks reading Silicon Florist—find most interesting? Well, here are the top

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October 1, 2009

memePDX 006: Igniting Portland and Bend, Portland is open, Small Society’s Starbucks and Zipcar apps, and more

It was a busy week around these parts for tech news, what with Ignite Portland shifting dates and Ignite Bend needing sponsors and Portland becoming an open city and Small Society releasing some cool apps and Ray King winning an OEN award. It’s surprising that we were able to cram it all into memePDX.
But we

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September 29, 2009

Zipcar iPhone app shifts into gear

A few months back during Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, the folks at Apple got up on stage to demonstrate a very cool little iPhone app for Zipcar.
The app—designed by Portland-based iPhone agency Small Society—allowed you to find and reserve Zipcars, unlock your car, even honk the horn. But for all the bells and whistles, the

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September 24, 2009

Portland’s Small Society builds an iPhone app for a little coffee shop called Starbucks

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Turns out even coffee shops need iPhone apps. Well, they do if they’re Starbucks. Two even. And now the official Starbucks iPhone drink app—myStarbucks—is available from the App Store.
Yes, yes. Starbucks is headquartered in Seattle, I know. And even though a number of sites were covering the app launch—including Portland-based iPhoneSlutz—I

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September 1, 2009

Portland on Fire: Lighting it up again

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Remember Portland on Fire? That site dedicated to “slow social networking”? It’s okay if you don’t. It’s been awhile.
Let me give you a little refresher. In a day and age where we add friends on social networks willy nilly and engage in any number of online conversations, Raven Zachary saw an

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August 5, 2009

Getting even more creative: Wieden + Kennedy launches Portland Incubator Experiment

Wouldn’t it be awesome if something positive did the same thing? Now it may. Introducing the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE) from Wieden + Kennedy (W+K)

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July 30, 2009

Portland, Oregon, is the most entrepreneurial town in the world

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It seems there’s a bit of contention and kerfuffle about a recent Entrepreneur piece on the most “startup friendly cities in the US.” Why? Because Portland—and a number of other “not seen as startup hub” towns—made it to the list while traditional metropolitan juggernauts—like Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle—were

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June 21, 2009

The Oregonian on Apple, iPhone, and the Portland mobile scene

The Oregonian’s Mike Rogoway (Happy Fathers’ Day, Mike!) has a great piece about the burgeoning market supporting Apple products—especially with iPhone app developers—here in the Silicon Forest.
Portland-area startups mentioned in the article include Portland-based Urban Airship, Small Society, GadgetTrak, PheedYou, and Vancouver-based Avatron.

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June 19, 2009

Shopping for an iPhone 3.0 app? See what Small Society has cooked up with Whole Foods Recipes

Shop local for iPhone 3.0 apps by trying the Whole Foods Recipes app, the latest project released by Portland-based Small Society

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June 8, 2009

Portland’s Small Society plays big role in Zipcar iPhone app

Local iPhone development agency Small Society—with whom I apparently have a bit of a fanboi obsession—made it to the big stage at the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) when Zipcar was asked to demo their upcoming iPhone app

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May 19, 2009

Portland Mayor Sam Adams talks open source, mobile, coworking, and the startup environment

Last Sunday, a group of folks representing the Portland open source, mobile, and coworking community got the chance to sit down and chat with Portland Mayor Sam Adams. Among those in attendance were Rubyist and Calagator lead Audrey Eschright, CubeSpace’s David Komisky, Software Association of Oregon Interim President Scott Kveton, the Mayor’s Economic Development Policy

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April 24, 2009

Want Twitter search analytics done right? Portland’s Clicky may have nailed it

If there’s one thing we here in Portland love, it’s our Twitter. And it’s not just because the inimitable Rael Dornfest, Twitter’s user experience (UX) engineer, happens to live in Portland.
No, it’s something deeper than that. Twitter works for Portland’s dynamic. It meshes with our culture and our geekiness and our whatever.
And so it should

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March 31, 2009

Zachary and Keller iPhone agency has a name: Small Society

Back in February, we got word that Raven Zachary and James Keller were starting a new iPhone agency to help clients build compelling and beautiful iPhone applications.
An agency model for application development? Would it work? Given the resulting backlog of clients—which is always impressive but especially in this environment—it seemed that it was an idea

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October 3, 2008

Six Portland-area mobile app developers and consultants to watch

I keep an eye on a bunch of people who work on mobile apps. Most recently with the Obama for iPhone app. I thought it might be helpful to give you a glimpse of some of the Portland Oregon mobile app scene

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