Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
These days, it’s hard to believe there was a time when the Web wasn’t driven by community. But hasn’t always been like this. And in the early days of the Web, one site in particular—which happens to have Portland ties—stood out as a engaging, nontoxic, supportive community. A role it still plays even today. That site is MetaFilter. And they could use our help.
It’s such a common refrain, that it’s become a running joke in startup circles. “How are you going to make money?” “We’re going to sell ads.” But happy flukes like Flappy Bird aside, the golden age of Web properties continuing to make viable revenues off ad networks is rapidly coming to an end. And no story describes this trajectory more clearly than Oregon-based Matt Haughey‘s recent write up on his project, MetaFilter. Read More
You may not realize it but Portland—or sort of near Portland—is home to the founder of MetaFilter, arguably the first major blog, ever. So whenever they do something, I take notice. Read More
One of my favorite “Did you know…?” things about the Portland area is the fact that the founder of MetaFilter—arguably the first blog to reach a mass audience—lives here. He’s a relatively unassuming guy named Matt Haughey. Read More
Matt Haughey, founder of MetaFilter, spoke at SXSW again this year. But for some odd reason, he wound up in a location far away from the Austin Convention Center.
Without a doubt, one of the most amazing sites on the Web has to be MetaFilter. And I’m not just saying that because of the Portland connection. I’m saying that because it was one of the very first “Weblogs,” making it the grandaddy of everything you read here. And for every comment you read here—because they were one of the first sites with comments. I’d also argue that AskMetfilter is still more amazing than Quora… Read More
And while we should be proud of MetaFilter as a product of Oregonian ingenuity for any number of reasons, I’ve got one more reason to add to the list: MetaFilter just turned 10 years old.
One of the most widely read yet least often recognized as a product of the good old Silicon Forest has to be MetaFilter, the quintessential Weblog of random facts and finds. And while we should be proud of MetaFilter as a product of Oregonian ingenuity for any number of reasons, I’ve got one more reason to add to the list: MetaFilter just turned 10 years old.
A blog that’s been around for a decade? (TechCrunch, for example, is four years old.) That’s impressive for any project. Let alone a project that discusses everything from dinosaurs to blasphemy to the truly and completely random site. Read More
It’s that time again. Time for the Techvibes Portland Start-up Index, the monthly round up of Portland-area startup companies and products, ranked by the average of their Alexa and Compete rankings.
Admittedly a work-in-progress, the Portland Start-up Index often premieres “new” entries that have been—in actuality—heavy hitters for far longer than some of the “old” companies and products on the list.
This month’s list is a perfect example of that dynamic in action, as MetaFilter (July 1999) and Digital Trends (2001) premiere in the top 10 at #2 and #5 respectively.
So how did the rest of the startup scene fare this month?
To see the rankings, metrics, and movement within the list, visit the Portland Start-up Index on Techvibes.
Every once in a while it comes up in conversation. “What’s the most overlooked company in town? Or the company that no one knows is here?” For a time, a good answer was Survey Monkey. Or MetaFilter. Or maybe deflecting with a regional office, like Pinterest or Yahoo! or Yieldbot. But time and time again, one of my favorite go to answers has been a homegrown startup here in town, Digital Trends. Yes, that Digital Trends. Read More
In a day and age where we can track where we’ve been, who we’ve seen, and what we’ve done with excruciating granularity, there seems to be a big gap in logging those experience: how did we feel about it.
Well, Portland’s Brennan Novak is working to fix that. With Emoome. Read More
I’m consistently—and constantly—struck by how incredibly lucky we are here in Portland. Without even realizing it. We’re home to the inventor of the wiki, folks creating the tools that have helped create the Web, and within a stone’s throw of one of the founders of the grandaddy of Weblogs, among other things. Quietly. But here.
And let’s not forget, Portland is home to Andy Baio, whose blog Waxy.org quietly turned a decade old over the weekend. Read More