.

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

All Posts Website

LUNARR landing

Rick Turoczy on September 18, 2007

After operating for two years in stealth mode, LUNARR stepped into the light, last night, unveiling its collaboration-oriented product offering to a crowd of bloggers and other interested parties in its hometown, Portland, Oregon.

For a week where all tech eyes seem to be on the little Arrington-Calacanis get-together down south, LUNARR is pulling down some pretty impressive coverage.

As always, I’ll work to roundup all of the posts that I can. Here’s what I’ve found, so far:

If you’ve written about LUNARR, and I’ve (inadvertently) missed your post, link it up in the comments below. I’ll make sure to add it to this list.For more on LUNARR, see the product descriptions on the LUNARR site.

Jive announces Clearspace 1.6, refreshes site

Rick Turoczy on September 17, 2007

Portland-based Jive Software officially announced the release of Clearspace 1.6, today.

The most-notable feature in the new release? Customizable spaces.

This allows space owners to decide what’s important in their space and customize the layout of the “Overview” section. We’ve found that a lot of our customers are using the main space page as their department’s front door and they wanted a lot of flexibility around the content and layout.

In related news, Jive appears to have pushed some Web site updates that both refresh the look and feel of the Jive site and give Clearspace a bit more prominence.

Clearspace 1.6 was introduced to the Portland blogging community on September 11. Video highlights of that blogger-focused show-and-tell are available below.http://blip.tv/scripts/pokkariPlayer.js?ver=2007082501http://blip.tv/syndication/write_player?skin=js&posts_id=381434&source=3&autoplay=true&file_type=flv&player_width=&player_height=

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

DevGroup NW: Optimizing Web site performance

Rick Turoczy on September 17, 2007

Building cool Web tools is one thing. Optimizing Web sites so that your potential users can get to them is another—entirely.

To shed some light on the subject of optimizing Web site performance, DevGroup NW has invited Jason Grigsby of User First Web to present “Speed Matters: Simple steps to make your site faster” on September 19.

Optimizing a site can also have major business implications. ESPN’s optimization efforts saved 2 terabytes per day in bandwidth and thousands of dollars in network costs.

Since 1994, the DevGroup has provided a forum for developers to network, share knowledge and find out what’s happening in the Web, Multimedia and Interactive worlds.

For more information, see User First Web. To RSVP, visit DevGroup NW.

Reminder: LUNARR preview tonight

Rick Turoczy on September 17, 2007

Bringing two years of stealth to a close, LUNARR, the Portland-based company founded on the premise that every knowledge worker in an organization has the potential to be a creative contributor, will unveil its Web-based collaboration product, this evening, at CubeSpace. The event starts at 6:00 PM.

What should you expect to see?

LUNARR is a service that allows people to create and share documents in an efficient and convenient way. As a member, once you login you can create or access a document, and then revise or simply share the document with whomever you like. Share a report with a colleague. Change a contract with your attorney. LUNARR makes it fast and simple.

LUNARR was founded by wildly successful Japanese entrepreneur Toru Takasuka of Cybozu fame. Takasuka is scheduled to present, as is LUNARR Chief Operating Officer, Hideshi Hamaguchi.

For more information on the event or to RSVP, please visit the Upcoming page.

Portland at TechCrunch40: Not according to the leaked list

Rick Turoczy on September 16, 2007

With high hopes, I had posted earlier this weekend, asking if anyone had a line on any Portland companies that might be participating in the much-anticipated TechCrunch40.

Well, a blog post surfaced this evening, claiming to be the actual list of TechCrunch40 presenters. And after a bit of due diligence, I am completely saddened and a bit dismayed to report that I can’t find a single Portland company on that list.

(And no, I’m not going to post or link to the rumored list, as I can neither confirm nor deny that it is truly the list. In fact, this is the only company on the list I can even remotely confirm. Maybe the leaked list is a fake and in reality there are only Portland companies on the real list. Then how would I feel?)

Why am I telling you this? Because I know you have better things to do than sitting around, hitting refresh on the Silicon Florist site, waiting to see the Portland companies that made the list.

I mean, you were planning on doing that, right?

That’s what I thought.

There still may be Portland companies exhibiting down there. And, who knows? A Portland company may wind up being the crowd favorite that gets the slot. And if that’s the case, when I know, you’ll know.

But I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Oregon Startups sees 37, raises 13

Rick Turoczy on September 16, 2007

Oregon Startups, an information site for Oregon-based entrepreneurs, has been working to capture a list of all the Web 2.0 startups that call Oregon home.

And that list continues to grow.

What started as an original list of 37 companies at the beginning of September is now sitting at 50 Oregon-based Web 2.0 companies.

Don’t think you’re a “Web 2.0” startup? Don’t think you’re a “startup”? If I were you, I’d submit your company to the list, anyway.

I did err on the side of being inclusive rather than exclusive, so you might debate how good a Web 2.0 fit some members of the list are — and certainly not all are startups. But nonetheless, the list is a good indication that there is quite a lot of web activity in Oregon.

Whatever your professional disposition, I’d encourage you to spend some time reviewing—and improving—the list. Let’s get a little wisdom of the crowd going to help Oregon Startups develop a comprehensive list.

For more information, see the Oregon Startups list of Oregon Web 2.0 companies.

TechCrunch40: Portland presentations?

Rick Turoczy on September 15, 2007

TechCrunch40, the much sought after cotillion for 40 Web 2.0 startups devised by Mike Arrington of TechCrunch and Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, begins on Monday.

Given that the startups are shrouded in a veil of secrecy, we’ve no idea who will be launching their products at the event. But hopefully, we’ll see a few Portland-area shops at the coming-out party.

Are you in the know? Drop me a line and I’ll make sure you get coverage here. (Embargoed until after you’re on stage, of course.) Have some guesses? I’d love to hear them. In fact, I’m sure everyone would. Post a comment below.

All I can tell you, for sure, is that Kumquat isn’t launching there.

Ignite Portland getting downright toasty

Rick Turoczy on September 14, 2007

I am happy to report that Ignite Portland is starting to become a roaring blaze. Good activity this week.

Today, Josh Bancroft, the founding force behind the event, released the Ignite Portland constitution, advising:

These are meant to be the criteria, values, and guidelines that Ignite Portland will follow. Without them, the “core things we care about”, it could and will likely become just another tech conference/event. Let’s make it something unique, or we may as well not do it. Of course, these are subject to debate and change – what you’re about to read right now is my take on this, as of today.

In other news, Raven Zachary, one of the organizers of BarCamp Portland and a founding member of Ignite Portland, announced that Ignite Portland will subsume DemoCamp Portland, the BarCamp Portland sister event.

For a number of reasons, we’re going to retire DemoCamp Portland and fold it into the Ignite Portland effort. There are similarities between the two events, and the no slides approach for DemoCamp limited some presentation ideas. Ignite Portland appeals to a larger audience. BarCamp is going to be an annual event in Portland – stay tuned for more details in early 2008. We may do a series of demos at the 2008 BarCamp, but not likely as ‘DemoCamp.’ Ignite Portland will probably be a quarterly event, but this may change, based on popularity.

For more details, visit the Ignite Portland site.

StepChange announces CLIQ, a dynamic, blogroll widget

Rick Turoczy on September 14, 2007

Portland-based StepChange has revealed the fruits of their latest widget-development efforts: CLIQ, a “super blogroll” widget that allows bloggers to dynamically manage complementary blog content, based on relevance.

It’s constantly changing content from your blogging clique. Get it?

In order to help bloggers actively promote and share their content, CLIQ combines three distinct things to create a Social Platform for Blog Merchandising.

1. The CLIQ Widget – which features content across a CLIQ’s member blogs

2. The CLIQin Social Network – which lets bloggers join forces with their friends

3. Offermatica‘s Content Targeting Engine – which drives content features and relevance

As for that question on the tip of your tongue, “What makes it different that the thousands of other blogroll widgets out there?” the team offers:

CLIQ allows Bloggers to create their own groups of related and friendly blogs (“CLIQs”) – and to explicitly promote their posts across each other’s blogs according to popularity and relevance. It’s a merchandising tool for blog content, with a ‘social’ twist.

The widget is currently in limited release. Interested parties can register on the CLIQ site to see if they’re chosen to be allowed beyond the velvet rope.

If you get in, drop me a note and I’ll link it up. I’ll be the one standing outside in the rain, trying to bribe the bouncer with some mad Hamiltons.

Marshall Kirkpatrick moving back to the other side of the desk

Rick Turoczy on September 13, 2007

Marshall Kirkpatrick, up until a few short hours ago the Director of Content for SplashCast, has announced that he is he is leaving SplashCast to join Web 2.0 blog Read/Write Web.

According to Read/Write Web, Marshall will be a lead writer, a role with which he is intimately familiar. (Many of you may remember that he held a similar position at another little Web 2.0 blog called TechCrunch.)

Richard MacManus, RWW’s founder, writes:

Marshall will focus on breaking news for Read/WriteWeb, something he is very skilled at and which will complement Josh and I well.

While I’m sad for SplashCast, I couldn’t be happier for Marshall and Read/Write Web.

For all of you startups looking for coverage, I’m the first to admit that Read/Write Web pulls in a bit more traffic than Silicon Florist. A bit. And Richard and team have really come back into their own after re-dedicating themselves to the space and refocusing the blog.

So heed Richard’s advice:

A note to startups and companies wishing to be covered by Read/WriteWeb: it is even more important now that you use the tips@readwriteweb.com email address to contact us with news. Josh and Marshall will be monitoring that address daily.

Finally, you should all know that Marshall has been a great supporter and promoter of Silicon Florist in its infancy. (I have no reason to expect that will change.) In fact, I’m quite sure that a good many of you are reading this post because of Marshall’s efforts to promote Silicon Florist. And for that I cannot thank him enough.

At the same time, Marshall has also been an exemplary contact for SplashCast. But I know that both Alex Williams and Kim Ramage will be equally sterling representatives for SplashCast. Which, by the way, is the first media player to include Twitter functionality. In case you were wondering.

I’m very much looking forward to poaching Marshall’s Portland-oriented RWW articles working with Marshall in this new role, and I hope all of you will extend your congratulations to him, as well.

For additional details on Marshall’s move to Read/Write Web, see Marshall’s blog post, the RWW announcement, the SplashCast blog post, and the growing list of coverage on Techmeme.

1 … 650 651 652 653 654 … 660