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Month: March 2008

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for March 6, 2008

Rick Turoczy on March 6, 2008

 

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

Marshall Kirkpatrick to lead this week’s session on “Making your business’s blog a mover and a shaker” at Beer and Blog

If you’ve never been to Beer and Blog, this would be a good week to start. Not only is the event brilliant, but you can’t get much better than Marshall Kirkpatrick.

The Argon Express 2008? It’s not too late!

Picture yourself and your laptop. It’s been over a day and you’re sitting on a train with a group of Rails developers with a view like this over your shoulder.

USA Today: Microsoft: still out to squish the little guy (like Jive Software)

Rival Jive Software wants to be the Apple Computer of corporate social networks. Jive’s competing Clearspace system supplies all the bell and whistles in a slick, tightly integrated package. Jive only does Clearspace.

Amplify Interactive Turns 5 Years Old

Ben Lloyd writes, “You’ve heard the stat right? Something like 85% of businesses fail within the first 5 years? I just realized as I was going through some tax-time paperwork that Amplify Interactive officially opened for business on March 5 2003, which makes us 5 years old as of today.”

LazyEngine

Don’t know how I missed this one. Maybe I was lazy. Satyajit “Sam” Grover writes, “LazyEngine is a lazy search engine. If you want to do a search, consider for a moment if you need the results immediately. If not, then this is the search engine for you. This is probably a silly web application.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

OEN announces the winner of Angel Oregon (and it’s not a tech company)

Rick Turoczy on March 5, 2008

I just received the official announcement from Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) naming the winner of the Angel Oregon competition. [Update: Who won the elevator pitch competition? Steve Morris has your answer over on Oregon Startups.]

And unfortunately, for me, the winner is an apparel company. (Upside? They have a blog.)

Well, that doesn’t really fit the Web startup flavor of Silicon Florist, so I’m going to cover the runners-up, instead. Because, honestly, these two finalists have the most potential of becoming regulars here on the Silicon Florist:

  • OsoEco, the first online community that allows consumers to shop and research green products and services with friends, interests groups and consumers
  • Revelation, a software company that optimizes qualitative market research, enabling companies to develop and harness rich understanding of customer experiences, behaviors and needs at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional research techniques

OsoEco and Revelation each received $57,500 investment awards for winning the Sustainability Investment and Technology/Biotech tracks, respectively.

“The entrepreneurs participation in the investor presentation coaching and exhaustive due diligence process really helped them to articulate their business plan and demonstrate the potential return for investors,” said, Bob Ward, Angel Oregon chair. “Angel Oregon is attracting really high caliber companies. Couple that with value of the exposure and the experience that competing companies get, and the value proposition of the event is pretty compelling for Oregon’s economy.”

For more information on the Angel Oregon program, visit OEN.

MIXr: First mobile social networking app with Silverlight touchscreen UI

Rick Turoczy on March 5, 2008

MIXr Mood Switcher

Today, Portland-based StepChange Group took the stage at MIX08 to demonstrate a groundbreaking new application: the world’s first gesture-driven, Microsoft-Silverlight powered user interface on a mobile device.

The data-driven touchscreen interface, dubbed MIXr, runs in the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 environment, and was a proof-of-concept to showcase the functionality of these cutting edge development environments for the MIX audience.

“It was lots of fun—though nerve-wracking—to have our team sharing the stage with Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie,” said StepChange’s Kevin Tate.

Aside from the Portland angle, why is this newsworthy?

In my opinion, the release of the MIXr application is important for two specific reasons.

First, it proves the viability of Silverlight as an environment for delivering rich mobile applications. And, on a day when the use of these types of technologies in the mobile environment is being rejected by a major player, that’s a pretty big win.

Second, it gives us a glimpse into the future of social networking.

Unlike many of today’s “social networks on mobile devices,” the MIXr application, developed by StepChange in partnership with San Francisco’s Stimulant, demonstrates how the future of social networking may transition to your mobile device.

In other words, this isn’t a “m.” mobile view into an existing social network application; it is the social network application:

[MIXr] uses real-time user updates to track the mood and status of clubs and venues—and helps friends to connect and coordinate with one another during a night out.

It aggregates user ratings, such as a venue’s mood, line length, and music, and uses interactive data visualization to make it easy to figure out what’s hot and what’s not.

“Rich mobile applications are going to quickly change the way we use the Web everyday,” said Tate. “We’re focused on creating applications that leverage the powerful advantages of location, personalization and communication that the mobile environment provides – and have chosen Silverlight as our platform because of its portability and performance.”

For more information on MIXr and developing rich mobile applications using Silverlight, see Stimulant’s post on the MIXr release and StepChange’s announcement on the MIX08 Keynote.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for March 5, 2008

Rick Turoczy on March 5, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

EllisLab T-Shirts at SXSW 2008

Bend-based EllisLab will be demoing a sneak preview of the next version of ExpressionEngine to the folks attending SXSW 2008. But that’s not all. They’re also bringing t-shirts!

When do you want DrupalCamp to happen?

A Portland-area DrupalCamp has been proposed. Interested? Vote on your preferred day and get more information about the camp.

Ward Cunningham’s Visible Workings

According to Jon Udell, Portland’s Ward Cunningham, father of the Wiki, is up to something that’s equally earth-shattering, “This isn’t just an innovative approach to software testing and workflow visualization. It’s also a radical statement about business process transparency. For most of us, most of the time, business systems are black boxes whose internal workings we can only discern in the outcomes of our (often painful) interactions with them. But what if you could find out, before pressing the Save button, what’s going on in that black box? And what if your way of finding out wasn’t by reading bogus documentation, but instead by probing the system itself using its own test framework? “

HillarySpeaksForMe adoption staggers even SplashCast

Tom Turnbull writes, “Three Sundays ago, I received a call from a New York restaurant and was asked if SplashCast could help Hillary reach out to the youth market. In a few short days, a website featuring SplashCast technology was launched: HillarySpeaksForMe.com. Self-serving SplashCast propaganda aside, I’ve been blown away by what has happened since.”

Portland Metrobloggers Being “Fired” for Voicing Disagreement Publicly

According to Aaron Hockley, the VanPortlander, “And that rumor about a new independent Portland city blog site forming? Sounds like it’s moving beyond a rumor…”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Jive Software selects new digs

Rick Turoczy on March 4, 2008

Jive Software, the rapidly growing young linchpin of the Portland tech startup renaissance, has been hinting for some time that it was getting a bit too big for its britches building. And with its need to hire showing no signs of slowing, it became clear that a move was inevitable. So, the search began.

Only one question remained: Where to go?

Well, now, that question has been answered as well. The winner? The Federal Reserve Building on SW Stark and SW 9th.

And according to the Daily Journal of Commerce, Jive’s buying up some room to grow:

When the dust settles, Jive will occupy three floors of the building: the current third and fourth floors, and a fifth floor, with a penthouse and more than 37,000 square feet of office space, that’s being added as part of the remodel.

Early reports point to the Jive employees being taken with the new location—or at least the thought of getting some more space. They’ve already affectionately dubbed the new locale “Club Fed.”

And while Jive relieves some growing pains, the rest of the Portland tech community may benefit, as well. Jive is well-known for taking a leading role in hosting Portland tech events and helping to foster (pun intended) a more cohesive tech community, here in town. No doubt, this new space will lend itself more readily to more of the same.

Vocal Nation takes political news in slide

Rick Turoczy on March 4, 2008

Vocal NationI was recently introduced to Portland-based Vocal Nation, a service that is part feed reader, part social political-news system.

Okay, I hear you. Any time the term “social news” is bandied about, the phrase “Digg clone” immediately jumps to mind.

But, let’s not jump there so quickly. I think Vocal Nation has a specific application and some interesting functionality that make it worthy of a second look, and potentially a strong niche showing.

And I’m not alone in that thinking. Kristen Nicole at Mashable, who has reviewed the tool previously, described Vocal Nation this way:

In an effort to differentiate itself from Digg, Digg clones and the Digg voting system all together, Vocal Nation’s new feature helps set it apart in two primary ways: an automated submission process and a sliding scale used for voting.

The “automated submission process” is Vocal Nation’s feed-slurping feature. Point Vocal Nation at an RSS feed and it will consume the details, automatically feeding articles into the voting system. Not only does it make the current set of articles available to the Vocal Nation community for voting, it keeps track of the feed and continues to update Vocal Nation as the feed updates.

As an example, here’s the Silicon Florist on Vocal Nation.

While Vocal Nation can handle any site’s RSS feed, it becomes truly useful when it’s handling news on politics. And, that’s where Vocal Nation’s second voting slider comes into play. With that slider, the service encourages users to provide feedback on each article’s political disposition. Is it conservative? Liberal? Neutral?

And that news arena is where Vocal Nation could really shine. With the number of political blogs in Oregon, alone, Vocal Nation could prove to be a key to navigating the girth of coverage that is sure to overwhelm us until November. And likely after.

When you combine those submission and voting features with its pleasant UI and some subtle AJAX transitions, the Vocal Nation site merits a second look.

For more information or to try the service yourself, visit Vocal Nation.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for March 4, 2008

Rick Turoczy on March 4, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

Improving entrepreneurship in your city.

Aside from #7 (which might be more appropriate as “state and local” for us), I’d say the Silicon Forest community is working in the right direction.

Three things productivity software can learn from game designers

Sam Lawrence asserts, “Shouldn’t productivity software make us want to work? I mean, it’s goal is to make us (and our company) more productive. Given that, the most goal-oriented software I can think of is gaming software. That industry is hyper-competitive. They know our attention and dollars are precious and they’re myopically focused on delivering value within their product.”

Washington Post: Wanna Talk Money?

“It comes from the whole MySpace generation. Once people become comfortable being social online, it extends into other areas, such as personal finance,” said Ryan Williams, co-founder of NetworthIQ, which allows people to publicly keep track of their assets.

Apparently, last weekend was the unofficial Portland “Face Lift Weekend”

Like Silicon Florist, Metroblogging Portland got a face lift over the weekend, as well. Dieselboi says, “As you can see, Portland Metblogs, along with the entire Metroblogging network got a face lift over the weekend. We’re pretty excited about the new interface.”

Calagator progress: New Views and iCalendar

We had a hugely successful code sprint this past Saturday. Reid Beels drafted wireframes that we used to change the main site areas over from scaffolding to something more “calendary”, so if you go to the site now, you’ll see the start of a new home page and event views. We also added iCalendar import and export options. This means you can now subscribe to all of Calagator in your personal calendar of choice.

Oregon Startups: Help with SBIR and STTR – March 31 Deadline!

The March 31st deadline for the Small Business Matching Grant Program (Phase 0) is quickly approaching. The program was created to increase Oregon’s competitiveness in capturing federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants. These two federal grant programs provide funding to small businesses for research and development of new technologies.

SXSW 2008 & Vidoop

Portland’s Scott Kveton, yesterday’s guest editorial writer, points out, “We’ll be out in force at SXSW Interactive this weekend. In addition to sponsoring BarCamp Austin III, we’ll also be busy on the floor at our booth (stop by for some cool SWAG!) we’ll also be roaming around the conference and all over Austin doing video interviews with attendees about things happening on the Open Web.”

The New Metroblogging – WordPress: Good. Barriers to Participation: Bad. » VanPortlander

The story continues. Metroblogging Portland is one of the major blog forces here in town, and former-Metblogger Aaron Hockley’s insight into the drama and goings-on are invaluable. Here’s hoping that the ship rights itself sooner rather than later.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Guest Editorial: Scott Kveton

Rick Turoczy on March 3, 2008

[Editor’s note: Continuing the Silicon Florist’s guest editorial series, we welcome Scott Kveton, a well-known force-of-nature in the Portland technology community. And, as you’ll see, the de facto Chamber of Commerce for the Portland startup scene.]
Made in Oregon

Image courtesy Modified Enzyme under Creative Commons

Falling in love with Portland again and again

Last week was amazing. I spent most of it with Luke Sontag here in Portland, meeting with folks, spreading the good word about Vidoop and generally being in the city.

Having grown up in-and-around Portland, it’s always fun to see the reaction to everything-that-is-Portland from someone who doesn’t live here. (Oh, and the weather we had last week didn’t hurt either.)

I got a chance to talk a little bit about this at Ignite Portland 2, but I’ll say it again: This is the beginning of a fantastic renaissance period for Portland. It’s such a vibrant, eclectic, talented and diverse city with so many things going on, that it inspires the mind and spirit around every corner you turn. Even more, I think Chris Logan had it right: it’s time for Portland to step up and take its place.

There has been some talk about how “if you don’t live in the Bay Area and you’re in tech, you’re basically a wuss.”

So be it. The very last thing I want is for Portland to turn into the Bay Area or Seattle. I want it to be Portland. I want other cities to be saying “wouldn’t it be great if we were more like Portland?” I simply want Portland to come into its own in tech, in the arts, sustainability, green, etc.

But, how do we get to that point?

Well, it takes a bunch of us, it takes some time and, ironically, the city does most of the work for you.

For the past couple of years, I’ve made it a point to try to help people who are considering a move to Portland. I’ve spent countless days taking people around the city, introducing them to others in the city, and generally trying to give them a “locals’ view” of the city.

Now, the tour I take folks on covers a bit of ground and I’m seeking some input on the route. A couple of places I go to:

  • Tour of SW waterfront area with gondola love
  • Sellwood district (possibly for lunch, definitely for dinner at Saburo’s if it’s a weekday night)
  • SE towards 78th or so … Marshall has been kind enough to meet me more than once at the Bipartisan Cafe… soooo PDX
  • Alberta or Killingsworth… I used to live at Billy Reed’s at the turn of the century and I can’t believe how much it’s all changed since then
  • Pearl District for coffee (Caffe Umbria is amazing) or drinks (the Vault or even the Clyde Commons)
  • NW on 21st or 23rd… just too much to do, to eat, to see

Where would you take a touring visitor to get a taste of Portland from a local’s point-of-view? Bear in mind, I’m not looking for just a tech-person view on this. I’m all about diversity here.

The key to all of this, and the thing that I keep in mind at all times, is serendipity. Yeah, yeah, I know. Hard to quantify, huh? Well, I’m not the cheerleader type unless I really, really believe in it. Portland I can believe in. This city, the people, the places. It’s easy.

If you’re not predisposed to drink the PDX Kool-aid, then you’re probably not the type of person I’d want here anyway. And, if you’ve ended up in my Inbox or with my phone number, odds are, there’s a reason.

I’ll put this out there; if you have a friend or colleague that is thinking about making the move to Portland I’ll offer up my time for coffee or even the full-fledged tour to introduce them to the city and the people I know. It’s just the right thing to do. And, I’d challenge you to do the same.

Again, it’s not about trying to make Portland something it’s not… it’s about embracing serendipity and helping Portland realize its potential.

P.S. – first round is always on me … 🙂

Scott Kveton is a digital identity promoter, open source advocate, and Chairman of the OpenID Foundation. He has worked at Amazon, RuleSpace.com, JanRain, and MyStrands, and founded the Open Source Lab at Oregon State University. He is a regular speaker on the topic of identity and open source. Kveton currently serves as the Vice President of Open Platforms for Vidoop, a company he recently wooed to the Silicon Forest.

Silicon Florist gets some sprucing

Rick Turoczy on March 3, 2008

While it may not be obvious to those of you reading the feed, the Silicon Florist site has undergone some long-overdue “sprucing up” over the weekend.

Call me crazy, but it seemed like it was time to step away from the slightly tweaked default template. Because quite frankly, gentle reader, you’re worth it.

Obviously, as with all new digs, we’re still working out some of the kinks (like resurrecting the OpenID comment log-in). So your patience is appreciated. As is your feedback. We tried to implement this quickly, over the weekend. And we’ll continue to iron out the rough spots over time.

Before you start lobbing critiques (and I do appreciate the critiques), I’d encourage you to first lob congrats at Justin Kistner of Metafluence, whose Conversation theme for WordPress and design recommendations served as the foundation for the Silicon Florist redesign.

Word around the campfire is that a few other folks are already using the Conversation theme—or are preparing to implement it soon. And, I can see why. I’m still learning my way around it, but I’m really liking it so far.

A heartfelt, “Thank you,” Justin, for offering this theme up for use, sweating through the tweaking over the weekend, adding some incredibly nice features to the blog, and—last but not least—putting up with my nitpicking. I cannot thank you enough.

Hopefully, all of you will like this new direction as much as I do. I mean, I can only read my own stuff so much. So keeping you readers around—and happy—is of utmost importance.

And please, rest assured, that despite the snazzy new look, the writing around here remains fair to middling, as always. 😉

I’m looking forward to your feedback.

So, that’s that. Enough navel gazing. Without further ado, we now return you to your regularly scheduled Silicon Forest startup news, already in progress.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement

Rick Turoczy on March 3, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

A Great Time at Beaver BarCamp at Fast Wonder Blog

One of the highlights of the event for me was a tour of the Open Source Lab (OSUOSL) where they host the servers for some key open source projects: kernel.org, Apache, Drupal, and many more. The lab also does quite a bit of work with the OLPC (XO) laptops, and is currently working on improvements to the media player.

Pithering in Portland

Portland, Oregon, from a guest’s perspective. “So, after a couple of weeks of planning, I’ve arrived in Portland Oregon for three months. I’m here on a ThoughtWorks project, making use of the company’s perk of being able to move around.”

Oregon Startups: GoSeeTell Inks Deal with the Arizona Office of Tourism

The Phoenix Business Journal reported that Beaverton-based GoSeeTell inked a deal to create a website for the Arizona Office of Tourism: GoSeeArizona.com

Twitter on PortlandSmallBusiness.com

For those of you addicted to twitter, you can now tweet your friends when you post on portlandsmallbusiness.com. Just log into PortlandSmallBusiness.com account and associate your twitter account.

SplashCast Open Gym app springs to second

Quick update: the Open Gym splashcast is the 2nd most popular sports application on Facebook at the moment. After just 4 days since it launched, it’s been added to about 8,500 profile pages, and has about 6,000 daily active users.

Metroblogging Portland – Time for the Upgrade?

Could this be the new platform/infrastructure that’s been long needed? Might we see the end of minute-long waits for comments to be posted? From Aaron Hockley of VanPortlander, “Could there be comment feeds? One of the reasons I left as a writer for Metroblogging was that their blog infrastructure was downright painful to use. I’m excited to see what will be revealed after the redesign, and I hope that it involves performance and feature enhancements rather than just a new pretty face.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

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