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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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Northwest Innovation interviews YourList CEO

Rick Turoczy on August 27, 2007

YourList, a recently launched classified service headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, is the latest offering to take on mainstream media classified ads. Oh, and a little Web site called craigslist.

Charlie Parks, CEO of YourList, recently sat down with Northwest Innovation for an interview, discussing YourList and its place in the crowded classified ad market:

[Charlie Parks:] No question that the online classifieds space is crowded right now. A lot of companies are trying to offer a different take on the established Web sites. There is a lot attention on the industry and new sites keep coming out with different business models as they compete for market share. We’ve spent the last couple of years studying the sector and believe there is a lot more room for growth –if you pay attention to the needs of the online consumer.

To read the full interview, visit Northwest Innovation.

WordPress plugin: AJAX Search

Rick Turoczy on August 24, 2007

Portland-based developer Matt King has released an AJAX search plugin for WordPress. It is currently available for download from his site.

Matt describes the inspiration for the WordPress AJAX plugin on his blog:

I use the Spotlight feature in OS X an awful lot. While some people would rather use things like Quicksilver, I like just hitting command+space and typing in what I’m looking for, be it a document or even an application I want to open.

That’s the inspiration for AJAX.search, a search system built on Prototype’s AJAX framework. It will make a call to a URL you specify and display the results under your search box like Spotlight (and now, like the search at Apple.com). From there you can hit the up or down arrow keys to select a result and then hit the enter key to visit the link.

For more information on the plugin, to see the search in action, or to download it for your WordPress blog, visit Matt King’s blog.

Buy Local: OpenID support

Rick Turoczy on August 24, 2007

Are you the developer of a Web app? Do your users have to login?

Well then why in the heck aren’t you supporting OpenID yet?

What’s OpenID, you say?

OpenID means the elimination of multiple user names and passwords and a smoother, more secure, online experience. For businesses, this means a lower cost of password or account management, the opportunity for easier and higher numbers of new user registrations and the elimination of missed transactions because of user frustration with lost and forgotten passwords. OpenID allows for innovation in the authentication space beyond just using a password to “unlock” your OpenID identity, but the ability to strongly protect your OpenID and have that benefit move with you everywhere you go online.

And recent news from Portland-based OpenID-proponents JanRain indicates that the OpenID ecosystem continues to grow. But it’s not so big that it can’t use a few thousand more sites supporting the cause.

Over 1,000 website operators have not only lowered the bar for entry to their site by implementing OpenID support but have also taken the extra step and made it easy for new comers to get an OpenID from MyOpenID.com by becoming an affiliate. The more people who get an OpenID the more the OpenID ecosystem grows and everyone benefits, not just the individual website operator who sees an increase in sign ups, but all other affiliates and OpenID supporters get to ride the tide as well.

And, just to put my money where my mouth is, you can now comment on Silicon Florist by using your OpenID URI.

If you’re looking for an OpenID to use on Silicon Florist or any other of the OpenID-enabled sites, you might want to look at JanRain’s myopenid.com.

For more information on OpenID, see the JanRain post or visit the OpenID site.

Gigs: FINE is hiring

Rick Turoczy on August 24, 2007

San-Francisco-based FINE is a high-end studio focused on the marriage of form and function. The company approaches every project with a fresh perspective and open minds, and strive to determine the most appropriate solution for the task at hand. They believe subtleties in design and behaviors make an important difference.

Think you’re subtle? There may be a gig for you—in Portland.

That’s right. They also have a Portland office.

FINE Design Group’s looking for developers with advanced skills in HTML and CSS layout, able to work with variety of web technologies: PHP, JavaScript and maybe even a little JSP.

I’d love to provide a direct link to the gig descriptions, but the entire site is Flash. So, I can’t.

Please visit FINE Design Group or email josh@finedesigngroup.com.

(Hat tip Portland Web Innovators)

Jive Software releases Clearspace 1.5

Rick Turoczy on August 24, 2007

News keeps rolling out of Portland-based Jive Software, this week. More money. More customers. And now, more, um, well, more recent software, with the release of Clearspace 1.5.

The change log for Clearspace 1.5 reveals at least four new features and more than 40 bug fixes.

Clearspace is enterprise software built from the ground up for teams, companies and communities looking for an easy and productive way to work with each other without time or location limitations. Eliminate redundant conversations, meetings, emails and ideas by opening doors to new co-workers, partners and customers.

For more information on Clearspace and Jive Software, visit the Jive site.

Grabb.it releases microblogging feature

Rick Turoczy on August 23, 2007

Portland-based Grabb.it has announced the release of a new microblogging feature for its users.

Following the lead of services like Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce, the new Grabb.it feature allows users to post short messages (less than 140 characters) and provides a feed to which others can subscribe. An example can be found here.

The recent development efforts—like the iPhone interface—have led to a growth spurt for Grabb.it, forcing them to have deal with (welcome) growing pains.

Vimeo releases Hubnut widget

Rick Turoczy on August 23, 2007

Now, I know Vimeo (Connected Ventures) is based in New York, but did you know that they have a tie to the Rose City?

They do. The Community Director for Vimeo, Dalas Verdugo, lives here in good ol’ Portland. I think. I’ll have to admit, I can’t confirm that he lives here. (Chris Anderson, however, can.) But it certainly appears almost certain that he does.

He just posted a photo of IKEA Swedish meatballs. And everyone knows that Portland is still all gaga over the new IKEA. So, he lives here. Probably.

So there’s a tie.

Well, Vimeo just released a widget they’re calling Hubnut Projector (it was referred to as “Projector” when I originally posted; now they appear to be calling it “Hubnut”), that enables you to embed a series of Vimeo videos within a Web page. And since we’re all big fans of the embeddable media—like SplashCast—around here, I felt it worthy of a mention.

An example can be found, below. Scratch that. I tried to embed it and it appeared to conflict with the site template. An example can be found here.

Tweet: New SplashCast player in the works

Rick Turoczy on August 23, 2007

Word around the campfire—if Twitter is a campfire—is that there is a new SplashCast player currently undergoing testing.

[UPDATE] More SplashCast folks twittering about testing, testing. This leads me to wonder if there is some Twitter hook in the new SplashCast player. Or at least the ability to “post this to Twitter.” Of course, they could just be testing, seeing as their posts are coming via Twitterific.

Stay tuned. I’ll be sure to post more news on the latest SplashCast release as it becomes available.

Reminder: BarCamp Portland meetup tonight at Jive Software

Rick Turoczy on August 23, 2007

Just a reminder that the monthly BarCamp Portland meetup will begin tonight at 5:30. The meeting is held at Jive Software.

For more information, see Upcoming or BarCamp Portland. An RSVP is required.

The Portland meetups are intended to be a little less intense and more frequent than a full BarCamp Portland event. The intent is to get a group of cool people interested in technology together to chat over drinks on the fourth Thursday of every month.


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Previously: BarCamp Portland gathering August 23

Jive Talks (finally) talks about $15 million round

Rick Turoczy on August 22, 2007

Last week, I saw the news on Jive Software securing a $15 million round of funding from venture firm Sequoia Capital.

Being the diligent type that I am, I immediately jumped over to the Jive site to get the full story.

Only there wasn’t anything there.

No press release. No blog post. Nothing. Crickets chirping.

But I’ve diligently checked the site, time and time again, since that point, and I am now happy to report that Jive is now talking about the round in a post from the CEO, Dave Hersh, on Jive Talks.

Hersh addresses questions that plague any startup making this sort of control-wresting decision:

  • Why did we raise the money?
  • Why did Sequoia choose Jive to win the space?
  • Why Sequoia?
  • What will change?
  • Was it a hard choice?

For more, read Dave Hersh’s post on Jive Talks, “More on our $15M Funding Round with Sequoia.”

[Update] Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian provides additional coverage—and a little link love for Silicon Florist (Thanks, Mike!)—on the Silicon Forest blog.

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