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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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Additional details on Rails Boxcar

Rick Turoczy on August 22, 2007

Last week, I mentioned that Portland-based Ruby on Rails shop Planet Argon had released Rails Boxcar, a leased hosting environment for Rails applications. At that point, details were a bit slim as to what the Rails hosting environment would offer and what it would cost.

Today, Planet Argon officially unveiled the service offering on their blog:

Unlike a typical VPS, we’ve pre-configured Boxcar to allow you to follow just a few steps to get your Rails application up and running as quickly as possible. We’ve also given you more control over your environment to install additional packages, gems, and programs.

For the initial launch, we’re offering 6 and 12 month plans, both of which have a 30 day money back guarantee. Prices start at $85/month for the twelve month plan and $90/month for the six month plan.

For more information, see the Planet Argon blog.

Jive Software ClearspaceX powers new PC World forums

Rick Turoczy on August 22, 2007

Portland-based Jive Software added another high-profile notch in its belt with today’s announcement that PC World is now using the Jive Software ClearspaceX platform to power its user forums:

PC World is proud to unveil its brand new community platform, based on Jive Software’s ClearspaceX platform. You can check it out right now!

The new community platform retains our popular message-board discussions while adding robust features such as blogs and wiki documents. PC World community members have more freedom than ever to express themselves, discuss news and issues, troubleshoot and solve problems, and write their own tech encyclopedia. For more information, see our “What is Clearspace?” wiki document.

For more information, see the PC World forum posting on the new interface.

[UPDATE August 23, 2007] Jive has posted an entry about the PC World launch to the Jive Talks blog.

Previous coverage:

Portland Grassroots Media Camp begins August 24

Rick Turoczy on August 22, 2007

Okay. I know all of you folks know how to blog. Some of you use Twitter. Some of you podcast and post videos.

I know that you get the whole “grassroots media” thing.

But what about interacting with the mainstream media? I mean, besides that KATU thing. What about coverage that reaches the non-technically savvy? You know the 99.9% of the population that could use the tool you’re building if they only knew about it?

Enter Portland Grassroots Media Camp. The camp is a free gathering, held August 24-August 26, in a variety of venues around town. And while it focuses on a number of things that you, Mr. or Mrs. Technophile, completely understand, it also offers some sessions on things that you may not understand, specifically:

  • Writing a press release
  • Setting up a press conference

So, if you’re a working by yourself or with a small startup, and building the next big thing sans massive marketing dollars and wily PR agencies, I thought this might be valuable for you.

As our old friend Tom Peterson used to say, “Free is a very good price.”

For more information or to register, visit the Portland Grassroots Media Camp blog.

(Hat tip to Around the Sun)

KATU Portland-blogger invites blanket the area

Rick Turoczy on August 21, 2007

I received a strange eVite from Portland ABC affiliate KATU inviting me to a blogger get together that they are hosting.

KATU wants to get to know the blogging community and is interested in joining the conversation. There’s no agenda, other than to enjoy some food and beverages courtesy of our hosts. Meet fellow bloggers, view (and photograph!) the television studios and have some fun!

And I’m not alone. Nearly 300 Portland area bloggers got the same thing.

Out of the blue. Yet intriguing, nonetheless.

Maybe Amanda is coming to town. Or maybe it’s just a ploy to raise KATU’s visibility, given that this was included:

To help spread the word (and hear what fellow bloggers are saying about this meetup), let’s tag our blog posts and photos “KATUmeetup”.

Other mentions, so far, include:

Did you get one? What’s your take? Someone from KATU care to elaborate? Or perhaps Brian Westbrook who seems to be the eViter for the event?

One thing is for sure, Portland Mercury’s Blogtown PDX is not happy with the snub.

SXSW 2008: Portland presenters?

Rick Turoczy on August 20, 2007

Sure, sure. SXSW takes place in Austin. But that doesn’t stop a bunch of us Portland types from making the trek down to Texas.

Now, the (apparently completely buggy) voting system for SXSW 2008 panels is open, which means it’s time to choose the panels you want to see while you’re down there.

That’s all well and good. But there are nearly 700 panels on which to vote. If you’re like me, you could use some help culling the herd.

Well, I’ve heart rumors of a few Portland folks who were proposing presentations, but I only know of one for sure. That’s Dawn Foster who has proposed two panels:

If you’re a Portland presenter hoping to make the SXSW bill, drop a link in the comments so we know what’s what. If we get enough comments about different panels, I’ll post a round-up with all of the proposed Portland presenters and their topics.

And, who knows? Maybe, just maybe, we’ll have a little Silicon Florist get together down there, with all of the Silicon Forest attendees.

Stranger things have happened.

Jive Software secures $15 million… and moves blog to Clearspace

Rick Turoczy on August 17, 2007

Big news coming out of Jive Software today. The company announced that it has secured a $15 million round of funding led by Sequoia Capital.

From VentureBeat

One with considerable momentum is Jive Software, a Portland, Ore. Its product, Clearspace, doesn’t tack various software programs together. It offers it all from ground-up: It lets employees and customers collaborate on a mix of blogs, wikis, forums, chat, tagging, files and reputation systems into a single interface behind the corporate firewall (or outside it, if customers are involved, in which case it governs a publishing system that controls what gets outside the firewall). The company was bootstrapped for years, but in February, hit a vein, says chief executive Dave Hersh — demand for its product became overwhelming.

Jive will do more than $15 million in sales this year, with the second quarter revenue almost double what it was the same quarter of last year. It has more than 2,000 customers, says Hersh, mentioning names like IBM, Sun and BEA. So it has taken $15 million from Silicon Valley venture firm Sequoia Capital, to handle the growth.

Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian also covered this round:

Jive said it plans to use the money to continue developing its software and to market its products. Jive is the latest company to benefit from a surge in venture capital backing Oregon businesses. Venture capitalists invested $173 million in Oregon companies during the first six months of the year, up from $76 million in the first half last year.

Mashable covered the funding, as well.

Still no post on the Jive blog or in the Jive newsroom, so I’ll provide other details as they become available.

[UPDATE] As of Monday morning, still nothing from the horse’s mouth, but Om Malik is reporting that the funding will be used to “push sales and marketing of its Clearspace line-up of products,” while Portland station KGW has pulled an AP story that states, “The company said it will be scaling up operations, development and setting up international offices as a result of the investment.”

In related news, when I headed over to the Jive blog to see if they had posted anything, I was happy to see that they had ported their blog to their own Clearspace product. “Eating their own dogfood” as it were.

Although, Clearspace appears to be mighty tasty dogfood.

Pibb-powered backchannel for BarCamp Block

Rick Turoczy on August 17, 2007

Headed down to BarCamp Block, this weekend? Yeah, me neither. I mean, it’s Multnomah Days. I can’t miss the parade.

But, even though you and I are miles away, Portland-based JanRain will make it feel like we’re there, making snarky comments on the backchannel like the rest of the folks, thanks to the Pibb BarCamp channel.

They’ve even built a bridge to IRC:

As an added bonus the Pibb developers have setup a Pibb <-> IRC bridge, so all the people on the #Barcamp IRC channel will be able to see whats going on in Pibb and vice versa. Cheers to bridges helping people break out of their communication silos!

For more information on Pibb’s at the BarCamp Block, see the JanRain blog.

Grabb.it releases incredibly cool interface for iPhone

Rick Turoczy on August 16, 2007

Tired of the music on your iPhone? Point it to the Grabb.it iPhone interface and you’ll be surfing new tunes in a matter of seconds. Find one you like? Click and you’ll be listening—to the whole song.

Just flip through the iPhone friendly scroll list or search, then click on a selected tune, and voila! That’s it. It’s playing on your iPhone. Just like that.

The new Grabb.it iPhone service worked flawlessly on wifi, with no interruption. It played the songs as if they were stored in my iPod library. With Edge, it was a little choppy.

Still, worth checking out.

[UPDATE] Great insight into the development challenges, on Chris Anderson’s blog.

Designed to support independent musicians, the Portland-based Grabb.it service makes any Web-accessible MP3s—from local favorites, relative unknowns, and popular artists—more accessible by indexing MP3s as they are posted by artists and fans.

RailsBoxcar open for business

Rick Turoczy on August 16, 2007

Unveiled earlier this year, RailsBoxcar is now open for business.

Portland-based Planet Argon has announced that the pricing for their Ruby on Rails hosting environment has been released and that they are prepared to take orders.

Good news if you’re a Portland Rails developer looking for local hosting for your app.

[Boxcar is] a new hosting service, which aims to provide you with even more privacy, more guaranteed resources, and better options for scaling your Rails application as your business grows.

For more information, see the Planet Argon blog.

PLANET ARGON is a Ruby on Rails development, consulting, and hosting company that encompasses a network of developers and administrators that love working with open source technology. Founded in 2002, PLANET ARGON started only as a custom web application development company, but eventually expanded its services to offer web and database hosting to the general public, specifically to fellow developers.

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