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All posts by Rick Turoczy

More than mildly obsessed with the Portland startup community. Founder and editor at Silicon Florist. Cofounder and general manager at PIE. Follow me on Twitter: @turoczy

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Elemental Technologies sparks $7.1 million investment

Rick Turoczy on July 17, 2008

Now, I don’t usually write about traditional software companies. But it seemed like this one definitely deserved it.

Portland-based Elemental Technologies has secured more than $7 million in its first round of funding.

Okay. So what’s being funded and why am I writing about it?

Utilizing general purpose, programmable “off-the-shelf” graphics processing units (GPUs), ETI software performs video encoding, transcoding, and filtering at unprecedented speeds while maintaining the highest video quality.

Who’s a-what-uh hunh? Okay. Maybe this will help:

[This technology] allows consumers to format their media up to 10 times faster than existing solutions.

Ah ha! Now you’re talking.

With the growing popularity of services like Seesmic, Vimeo (Portland connection), and Viddler—oh and that little site called YouTube—it’s obvious that video is very much a part of our future existence in the Web world. And while any number of companies have come up with ways to deliver that video content on the Web, there always seems to be one major sticking point to widespread adoption: Encoding video content for posting is excruciatingly slow.

To be successful, we’re going to have to be able to encode and upload video as quickly as we can download it. And Elemental may just be able to deliver.

According to NewTeeVee:

The first product out from Elemental is consumer oriented, will arrive sometime before September and is expected to cost between $30 and $100, depending on the features. The software will allow consumers to take HD inputs such as a Blu-ray disc or homemade HD video and rip it to a computer, iPod or other device five to 10 times faster than existing technologies using the CPU.

No doubt, the infusion of cash will go a long way in promoting this offering—and ensuring that development continues.

Industry-leaders General Catalyst Partners of Boston, Massachusetts and Voyager Capital of Seattle, Washington co-led this $7.1M investment. Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian and the Silicon Forest blog notes:

In Oregon’s venture capital community, [Elemental]’s new investment represents the second big funding round this month. Last week, NexPlanar Corp., a small semiconductor company that recently moved to Hillsboro, announced it had raised $14.5 million in venture capital.

And let’s hope that greases the skids for other Silicon Forest startups looking for some backing.

For more information on the funding, see the Elemental press release on the investment. For more on the company and its technology, visit Elemental Technologies.

Bot Recap of Lunch 2.0 at souk

Rick Turoczy on July 17, 2008

souklogo.jpgLunch 2.0 happened yesterday at flexible workspace provider souk in Old Town, and even though I didn’t make it, the accounts I’m hearing are overwhelmingly positive.

Dawn and Todd graciously agreed to MC the event, in my absence, and approximately 75 people came through during the two-hour lunch.  Julie, the gracious host, had Thai food for everyone with lots of vegetarian options. The food was well-received and completely gone by the end.

heathertodd.jpgDawn tells me souk’s space was great for conversations, the wheeled tables and chairs allowing for spontaneous rearrangements to accommodate the constantly morphing threads of discussion. While people sat to eat, they had in depth conversations, but as eating finished, people stood up to mingle, cocktail party style. Apparently, the chatting went right up to the end, which is awesome

Sounds like a great time. I’m bummed that I missed it.

If you hurry over to Summize, newly acquired by Twitter, you can catch the tweets from yesterday about Lunch 2.0 to get a running chronology of how it went.

I caught a few “what is Lunch 2.0” tweets in the mix. So, we still have some collective education to do. Dawn reported that in addition to the usual suspects we see at Lunch 2.0 (and Beer and Blog, Barcamp, Ignite, Legion of Tech Talks, you know the hardcore community people), there were a lot of new faces. This is good.

soukbooth.jpgAaron Hockley, the default Lunch 2.0 photographer, has posted some great (as usual) shots in his photostream. Julie has an album as well. Check these out if, like me you didn’t get there.

Thanks again to Julie for hosting a great lunch.

As of now, there aren’t any solid plans for the next iteration of Lunch 2.0 Portland. I have a few leads, but nothing definite. If you want your company to host one, or you know a place that would love to have the Portland community in for lunch, let me know in comments.

Photos courtesy of Aaron Hockley used under Creative Commons.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for July 16

Rick Turoczy on July 16, 2008

Strands to power BBVA’s Personal Finance tool for its 4.1 million online users and 1.3 billion online financial transactions

Via the Strands blog “We are happy to announce today that Strands will be powering the online personal finance tool that BBVA, one of the world’s largest retail banks, will be offering its customers. Developed by BBVA and Strands, BBVA Tú cuentas (You count, in Spanish) is an innovative personal finance tool that allows online users to manage their personal finances better, offering friendly analysis tools to better understand spending and savings.”

Strands Brings Recommendation Technology to Banking – ReadWriteWeb

Marshall Kirkpatrick covers the Strands news, noting “With interfaces for the iPhone, BlackBerry and Nokia phones – analytics and recommendations will also be available outside of the desktop web browser. This is the kind of heavyweight application to see coming from online recommendation services.”

OLPC and Beer – Thursday

Dieselboi writes “Hey you, yeah you with the OLPC, your fellow OLPCers are having a meetup on Thursday evening at Lucky Labrador Brew Hall in NW Portland. You should come on out, meet your fellow OLPCers and mesh. Earlier this year, Wayan of OLPCNews came to town to talk about the OLPC and we had a great time meeting others who were supporters of the technology and the vision.”

WiMAX update: Clearwire still coming to Portland

Mike Rogoway writes “Clearwire has been beta testing its Portland service for several weeks with ‘a very small group of Intel employees’ (Intel is among Clearwire’s big financial backers, and the companies held a joint WiMAX trial in Hillsboro last year.) The company tells me it will announce its rollout plans, including a Portland timetable, on its quarterly earnings call early next month.”

WordCamp Portland Planning Meeting at Green Dragon Bistro & Brewpub (Thursday, July 17, 2008) – Upcoming

Aaron Hockley has posted the WordCamp Portland planning session to Upcoming. Please take a few moments to RSVP if you’re planning to attend. Aaron writes “For those of you local in the Portland area, several of us will be gathering this Thursday, July 17th at 6:00pm at the Green Dragon (928 SE 9th Avenue, Portland OR). We’re going to nail down some details on registration, scheduling, speakers, and facilities/logistics. All are welcome; volunteers are needed.”

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Portland Start-up Index for July 2008: Clicky and Vidoop debut in top 20

Rick Turoczy on July 16, 2008

Hard to believe, but it’s already time for another Portland Start-up Index from Techvibes.

For July, three new Portland startups have joined the listing, which is based on Alexa and Compete rankings. Clicky debuted at 6, Vidoop at 15, and GreenRenter at 46.

The top five slots remained static, but there was a great deal of movement further down the list. Kryptiq was the highest riser, moving up three slots to 37. Others slid substantially. GoSeeTell dropped 10 slots to 49, (my own) Kumquat dropped nine to 52, and IDP Solutions down eight to the last spot on the list.

Enough analysis. Here’s the list:

  1. AboutUs
  2. Kongregate
  3. Discogs
  4. COLOURlovers
  5. Frappr
  6. Clicky
  7. Jive Software
  8. Splashcast
  9. MyOpenID
  10. Earth Class Mail
  11. Sandy
  12. Platial
  13. Gone Raw
  14. eROI
  15. Vidoop
  16. NetworthIQ
  17. Stikkit
  18. GadgetTrak
  19. Active Reload
  20. Walker Tracker
  21. Grabbit
  22. Attensa
  23. Iovation
  24. Iterasi
  25. Art Face Off
  26. UrbanDrinks
  27. Pibb
  28. ChoiceA
  29. KnitMap
  30. Lunarr
  31. FreeRange
  32. Goboz
  33. Rocketbook
  34. WeoGeo
  35. Jama Software
  36. fmyi
  37. Kryptiq
  38. GoLife Mobile
  39. Picktastic
  40. MomHub
  41. Imindi
  42. VocalNation.net
  43. Cendix
  44. Pheedo
  45. Workplace2go
  46. GreenRenter
  47. Box Populi
  48. Collaborative Software Initiative
  49. GoSeeTell
  50. Avnera
  51. Lightfleet
  52. Kumquat
  53. YourList
  54. Techchex
  55. Worldwide Nest
  56. IDP Solutions

For more on the movement of these sites, including the Alexa and Compete rankings that determine position, see the Techvibes Portland Start-up Index for July 2008.

WordCamp Portland begins drafting plans for September 27

Rick Turoczy on July 16, 2008

Hard to believe, but WordCamp Portland is only a few months away. So now, it’s the time for planning. And getting folks ready to lead sessions.

That’s why Aaron Hockley has scheduled a WordCamp Portland planning session this Thursday, July 17, at the Green Dragon starting at 6:00 PM. What’s on the agenda?

We’re going to nail down some details on registration, scheduling, speakers, and facilities/logistics. All are welcome; volunteers are needed….

We’re actively seeking those who want to lead a discussion. If you have an idea for a session, please contact Aaron Hockley with your idea. Any topic related to WordPress could be a potential WordCamp session.

WordCamp is a grassroots event centered around using and hacking WordPress, a popular blogging engine and content management system. In fact, you’re soaking in it. Silicon Florist runs on WordPress.

WordCamp Portland will be held on September 27th, 2008 at CubeSpace. For more information or to stay up-to-date on the latest happenings, visit WordCamp Portland.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for July 15

Rick Turoczy on July 15, 2008

Start – A Conference for Entrepreneurs

Just noticed this new conference for entrepreneurs with some of the big names from the Web 2.0 world. Yes, it’s in San Francisco, but it looks cool. August 7.

Do Startup Companies Need Community Managers?

Marshall Kirkpatrick spoke to a number of Portland tech types before writing “You know what little startup companies need these days? They need to hire more people! It may be a frightening thought, but in an increasingly social world – being social is becoming an important full time job. ‘Community Manager’ is a position increasingly being hired for at large corporations (see Jeremiah Owyang’s growing list of people with that kind of job) but what about smaller companies? We asked a number of people what they thought and the following discussion offers some great things to think about, pro and con.”

Charlene Li’s coming to Portland, wants to have a drink with you at Josh Bancroft’s TinyScreenfuls.com

Josh Bancroft writes “We’re having a ‘tweetup’ at the bar in the Governor Hotel in Portland, starting at 8:30PM on Wednesday night, July 16. Charlene says if you bring your copy of Groundswell, she’ll sign it, and buy you a drink. 🙂 You can get the details on Upcoming (you can RSVP if you want, but this is way informal, so no guarantees, of course – it’s a bunch of people descending on a hotel bar).”

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Vidoop scoops up Bob Uva

Rick Turoczy on July 15, 2008

VidoopPortland-based Vidoop continues to attract leading talent. Their latest hire, Bob Uva, is an industry veteran with an impressive development history. His most recent efforts have been focused on .NET C# distributed application development.

So what does Vidoop gain with Bob’s talents? Good question. And I say that, mostly, because it’s exactly the same question I asked Bob.

“I have been a software developer for twenty-two years, working mostly with the Microsoft stack, everything from Windows 16-bit to 32-bit programming in C, C++ and C#/.NET,” said Uva. “I bring a lot of experience with Microsoft technologies to Vidoop, as well as a desire to help the company realize a larger vision in open web technologies for identity management and security.”

Glad to see the Vidoop team continue to grow even as they ready themselves for a mass influx of Tulsa talent. I, for one, can’t wait to see what this team is able to accomplish.

For more information, see Bob’s profile on LinkedIn, follow him on Twitter, or visit his personal blog. For more on the company, visit Vidoop.

Charlene Li tweet up Wednesday night at the Governor

Rick Turoczy on July 15, 2008

[Update] Unfortunately, due to a flight delay, Charlene Li will be unable to make it tonight.

The parade of A-listers continues through Portland.

This time, it’s Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell and (until very recently) a Forrester analyst focusing on social media.

Charlene will be in Portland to speak at the Internet Strategy Forum. And while I highly encourage you to attend the event, I wanted to let you know that you’ve also got the opportunity to meet Charlene in a more casual environment. At the Governor on Wednesday night.

Charlene Li Portland Tweet up

This is one of those rare opportunities to spend time with one of the thought leaders in the industry. And truly one of the leading proponents for the corporate use of social media.

Geek or not, it’s not an opportunity that should be passed up. (Which, as cruel irony would have it, is the very thing that I will be doing.)

If you’re considering meeting up tweeting up with Charlene (and I highly encourage you to take the chance to do so—or wasn’t that obvious?), please RSVP via Upcoming.

I’ll be living vicariously through your tweets, from my hotel room in Chicago.

(Hat tip Justin Kistner)

SplashCast lures MySpace exec, goes Hollywood (literally)

Rick Turoczy on July 14, 2008

Portland-based SplashCast, a service that has become one of the entertainment industry’s favorite ways to create immersive advertisements for social networks and Web sites, has finally gone Hollywood by luring a MySpace executive to the company.

Today, SplashCast announced the launch of its Los Angeles office with the hiring of Tim Lane from MySpace—not to be confused with Tom from MySpace, who is everybody’s friend.

According to the release, the hiring and expansion was sparked by the traction the company has seen in the entertainment industry, especially with regards to MySpace where SplashCast currently owns the lion’s share of top music apps:

SplashCast’s Los Angeles-based office will open later this summer. This expansion reflects the company’s recent successes in helping major brands reach social network site users. According to statistics presented on the MySpace music application directory more SplashCast music applications in general have been shared and installed on individual MySpace pages than any other artist-specific applications across the entire MySpace application platform.

As far as Lane’s role goes, he will be heading up the SplashCast sales team and helping manage the company’s continued—and apparently aggressive—expansion plans. Which will likely be fueled by SplashCast’s funding, announced earlier this year:

Lane will be responsible for managing SplashCast’s sales team based out of the company’s new Los Angeles sales office scheduled to open later this summer. In his new position, Lane will be responsible for managing SplashCast’s US based sales team out of the company’s new Los Angeles office and opening offices throughout New York, Chicago and San Francisco within the coming months.

Given this continued interaction with companies outside of Portland, one would begin to wonder if SplashCast was long for our Portland climes.

Well, okay, I wonder.

Not that it completely allays my fears, but one thing that might point to them sticking around Portland is the fact that they’ve recently graduated from the Portland State Business Accelerator to their own digs in Old Town.

Time will tell if the draw to a more big-media hub is in the works, or if the LA office will simply remain a satellite for this Portland-based company.

For more information on SplashCast, see the SplashCast release on the expansion and the new hire.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for July 13

Rick Turoczy on July 13, 2008

ORBlogs takes a Summer Break

Via the ORBlogs blog “Just a note to let you know that I have closed the ORblogs directory to new listings for the rest of the summer. There are about 80 blogs in the queue I need to review, and I’ll try to add those soon. But my life and work are conspiring against ORblogs at the moment. I’ll still be monitoring updates and pruning the site, but I need to go into maintenance mode for a while. Thanks for your understanding.”

Life at the Summit – A Substance Summit Recap

David Lowe-Rogstad writes “Wow. What a great start to this idea. Thank you to everyone who make it, and we hope the rest of you who couldn’t make it this time will be at the next.”

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