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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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Marshall Kirkpatrick offers blog matchmaker service

Rick Turoczy on August 14, 2007

If you’re like most of the Silicon Forest startups, you don’t have a ton of money to advertise, you probably can’t hire full-time public relations help, and most people don’t even understand what you’re doing. So, there’s a communications gap between you and your audience.

Blogging helps fill that gap.

But, let’s be honest. After spending 20 hours cranking code, it’s hard to find time to keep your blog up-to-date.

That’s what makes this offer from Marshall Kirkpatrick so interesting:

So, if you are a company who would like to hire a blogger for either in-house content creation or for news coverage for your blog network, send me an email at marshall@marshallk.com. Tell me what topic areas you’re looking to fill, whether it’s a part time, very part time or full time job and how much the position pays. (How much should you pay? See the bottom of this post.) If and when I find bloggers who I would recommend for the position, I’ll email you and offer to introduce you. This is where the quality control comes in, my reputation for this depends on my not recommending bad bloggers. If you would like to hire me to offer advanced training for whoever you select, that’s great – let me know. You’ll end up with a world class social media presence. I’m happy to make introductions regardless.

Marshall is asking bloggers who are looking for paying gigs to contact him, as well. Then, he’ll work to synchronize the right writers with the right companies. Win-win-win.

To get the full story, see Marshall’s post, entitled “Introducing good bloggers and companies to hire them.”

Marshall Kirkpatrick currently serves as the Director of Content at SplashCast and a consultant on social media. Prior to joining SplashCast, Marshall was the lead blogger at TechCrunch. For more information, see Marshall’s personal site.

Web Worker Daily covers NetworthIQ

Rick Turoczy on August 14, 2007

Portland-based Fourio‘s NetworthIQ was listed in a recent article in Web Worker Daily on social money management tools.

Get a read on your net worth. NetworthIQ allows you to track the changes in your net worth and look at how other people’s net worth is changing too. You can check by various attributes like geographic location, education, and so forth in order to see how you’re doing relative to your peers.

Apparently, NetworthIQ has also garnered recent coverage in the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal. But I mean really. Who reads those pubs, anyway?

YourList takes on Craigslist

Rick Turoczy on August 14, 2007

Beaverton-based YourList recently announced it was open for business and ready to take your classified ad.

Classifieds can be a challenging space, primarily because most folks tend to think online classifieds are synonymous with a guy named Craig. Still, YourList boasts several features which way help it gain traction:

Users are able to search by city or choose a mileage distance from their zip code. They can set up alerts to notify them when a particular item or job posts in their vicinity, thus saving them valuable time searching listings. Users can also sign up for a free account to manage their posts in one interface without having to confirm their classified ads through numerous emails.

The classified listing service is free. Job postings will run $15.

Next, YourList has to see if they can overcome the traffic conundrum. Given that they just launched as a tabula rasa, postings are slim, at best. Classic chicken or the egg. You need traffic to get listings, and you need listings to drive traffic.

In attempt to short-circuit this problem, YourList is giving away iPhones. One a month, for a year.

For more information, visit YourList.

VC Thunderdome: Seed Oregon

Rick Turoczy on August 13, 2007

You’ve got good ideas. You’ve got elegant code. And you’ve got the next killer app. But what you could really use is some capital to make a real go of it.

That’s where funding comes into play. Oregon Entrepreneur Network understands.

So rather than make you come right out and beg, they have their own little Thunderdome for funding called Seed Oregon:

Nine presenting companies will be selected to compete in the Seed Oregon tournament. Each will have 10 minutes to present their concept to the PubTalk audience, followed by a 10 minute Q&A session. Three companies will compete at each of the the preliminary rounds, with the audience voting for the winning presentations to move to the championship round. The Angel Oregon Selection Committee will serve as judges for the championship round.

The competition is restricted to companies in the Portland metropolitan area who are currently seeking a seed round that is less than $2 million.

If you match those requirements and you’re interested in a little “two man enter one man leave,” consider sending in an application. The first round entry deadline is August 31, 2007.

Gnomedex 2007: Portland Perspective

Rick Turoczy on August 13, 2007

Every summer, a bevy of bloggers journey to Seattle for Gnomedex. And given Portland’s relatively close proximity to Seattle, a few of the Portland crew generally make the jaunt.

So last week, both Marshall Kirkpatrick and Josh Bancroft kept us up-to-date on the goings-on via Twitter. Alex Williams also provided some play-by-play from Portland, while watching the live feed.

While Gnomedex 2007 will likely be remembered for Mahalo-gate, Marshall proves that there was actually other content associated with the event, as shown in his SplashCast Gnomedex recap channel.

If you’re a Portlander who attended, by all means link up your recaps in the comments.

[August 15, 2007 update] Jason Harris just published a recap, as well.

JanRain announces DietPibb 0.3

Rick Turoczy on August 13, 2007

If you use the Pibb messaging platform from Portland’s JanRain and happen to work on a Mac, you’ve got a new tool at your disposal.

DietPibb, developed by Citizen Agency’s Chris Messina, extends the functionality of the Pibb platform by allowing you to run Pibb as a desktop app.

Pibb combines the best features of instant messenger, chat, email, and bulletin boards. For more information on Pibb, please visit pibb.com.

Portland Internet Astronauts to meet August 16

Rick Turoczy on August 13, 2007

Portland Internet Astronauts was founded by Darius A. Monsef IV, who is probably best know for COLOURlovers. It’s purpose? To bring together local Portland online entrepreneurs to share ideas:

This is a group for the creative people building and running online start-ups. It is a group to get together to talk about our new ideas, share development & design resource and tips, and talk about the latest developments in web technology.

The next Portland Internet Astronauts get together will be held August 16 at 7 PM in the Urban Grind in the Pearl. Seating is limited to 20 attendees. To RSVP or get more information, visit the group’s Meetup page.

Rumor: Goboz looking to take on CitySearch

Rick Turoczy on August 12, 2007

So, we’ve already touched on the “more bars per capita” statistic, we might as well hit the “more restaurants per capita” statistic, too. As we all know, in Portland, finding somewhere to eat can be as problematic as, well, finding a happy hour.

Enter Goboz.

While there’s not much to the Goboz site at this point, a quick glance at the backend shows that they’re targeting CitySearch and Portland retail and professional services.

The code contains a bevy of keywords—including “restraunt” and “automitive”—and a table-based layout. So, other than that, I have nothing.

The site is currently slated to launch September 6, at which point I’ll bring you a full scoop. In the meantime, if someone from Goboz or their communications team wants to drop me a line to provide more details, please feel free.

(Via a tip from PDX Companies)

UrbanDrinks improves profile pages

Rick Turoczy on August 12, 2007

Web applications are designed to solve problems. And when you live in a town like Portland—where there are reportedly more bars per capita than any other town in the nation—then finding a happy hour is a problem.

Well, there are a number of folks in town trying to solve that problem.

One of the teams taking on that challenge, UrbanDrinks, has recently announced an upgrade to its profile pages. And they promise more to come, including adding “social network” features you’ve come to expect.

UrbanDrinks.com is the work of a small group of friends who have made it their mission to provide you with the most up-to-date happy hour information.

Related Portland sites: Unthirsty

(Hat tip to PDX Pipeline)

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