Category: Links

Mike Rogoway writes “Talked to Clearwire VP Susan Johnston this afternoon about the Portland rollout. Clearwire doesn’t have retail locations open yet, she said, and won’t until sometime early next year. But the Portland network is up and operational. So customers hungry for service can sign up today on Clearwire’s Web site.”

Via the JanRain blog “While it is true that Facebook has done a lot of great pioneering work with user experience and data management, the open source community has been systematically working to enhance and extend the functionality and intuitiveness of OpenID, Open Social, OAuth, Portable Contacts, hCards, etc. Google’s work with the LSO user interface and JanRain’s work with the RPX user interface are examples of approaches aimed at improving the ease of use of OpenID.”

Dawn Foster writes “This quick vanity feed demo builds on the concepts learned in the introduction with a practical example of how to create a quick and dirty vanity feed using Yahoo Pipes.”

Via The 451 Group ” hereby present the five ages of Vendor-led open source revenue strategies, which takes us through the evolving revenue strategies of vendors that dominate their own open source-based products. Some vendors may stay longer at one stage than another, or even skip a stage entirely. I don’t claim this to be perfect, and it doesn’t necessarily work for vendors that build a business around community-led projects (I’ll come back to that), but I think it is essentially accurate….”

Marshall Kirkpatrick on Portland-based Panels “Panels is a very good idea. If it can be executed upon well, and overcome the kinds of obstacles listed above, then we think this just-launched startup has as good a chance as any. We want it to work better than it does today, but we’re sure it will.”

Mike Rogoway writes “Here’s the first entry in my new Looking Forward series, with a rundown on developments across the Silicon Forest….”

Dawn Foster writes “Many of my past posts have talked about the benefits of having a community for a company or organization. However, I have not spent enough time talking about the benefit to the participants in the community. It has to go both ways. A community will only be successful if the participants and the sponsoring organization both find value in participating regularly in the community.”

Blitz bar in the Pearl District
110 NW 10th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97209

Mike Rogoway writes “I was thinking about this last month when I started tallying up all the recent job cuts across the Silicon Forest. There should be some way to recap some of the less discrete — and often more positive — news. So I’m launching a new feature, which I hope to run weekly. I’ll call it ‘Looking Forward.’ The first edition appears tomorrow.”

Via Beer and Blog “Since this Friday is one that most will be spending with family, we’re going to make this week’s Beer and Blog a Wednesday affair.”

Amber Case writes “Here are a lot of events. I’ll be at most of them this time, as I will not be in Boston. Be sure to check out DorkBot, Beer and Blog, Web Innovators and CyborgCamp. Happy event going!”

Sniff sniff. Our little Beer and Blog is all growed up. “After a successful BeaverBarCamp, Dawn Foster made the recommendation to me that Lance Albertson would make a great host for Corvallis Beer and Blog. Then Kelly (@verso) emailed me with an introduction and high recommendation as well. And, so Corvallis becomes the first expansion chapter of Beer and Blog!”

Dawn Foster writes “If you have been wanting to create Yahoo Pipes, but weren’t quite sure where to start when faced with the blank page on a new Yahoo Pipe, I created a very simple demo to get you started. This Yahoo Pipes demo will help you get started with Yahoo Pipes and show you what you need to know to create a basic Pipe.”

Raven Zachary writes “I love talking with entrepreneurs and people passionate about their ideas. It’s one of the things I look forward to most in my week. Unfortunately, we are at a phase in the growth of the iPhone ecosystem where there is a significant gap between individuals with the ideas and those who are actually capable of turning the ideas into iPhone applications.”

Via Open Source Bridge “We’ve made some great progress. Our Town Halls have been well attended. And things are starting to fall into place. Now, we want to make sure that we keep the conversation going with you. (Plus, we want to give you the opportunity to volunteer—if you’d be in to that.) So how do you get started? By joining our online discussion groups.”

Mike Rogoway writes “This time out, Turoczy said, startups are cutting jobs in advance of business trouble in hopes that proactive steps will stave off catastrophe. And he said many Portland startups are small by design, and collaborative by nature. That makes them less vulnerable to the economic slowdown than entrepreneurs elsewhere who need frequent infusions of outside capital to keep their business ambitions afloat.”

Marshall Kirkpatrick writes “We asked Ward Cunningham [of Portland-based AboutUs], inventor of the wiki, what he thought about Google Search Wiki. This was his first reaction….”

Via Brewpublic “Something like 30 people employed by this place. Rogue offered people to move to places like Eugene…made them offers they have to refuse. Many of these people have families and can’t just move to places like Newport and San Francisco. They’re not seventeen years old.”

Via the Shizzow blog “As I mentioned yesterday, the California expansion went so well that we have decided to open it up to Seattle, too. We’re getting a bunch of invite requests, but the servers have been rock solid, so we wanted to continue our plans for world domination (or at least the west coast of the U.S.)”

Via Cooking Up A Story “As many of you may know, this is a unusual post from us, as it does not involve any of our Shows directly. Instead, this post is a call for your active participation to help us better understand you, and how we can continue to provide unique and valuable content worthy of your attention. Please take a couple minutes of time to answer this brief survey (only 3 questions)”

Do you live in Washington County, Oregon, use Twitter and want to meet your Twitter friends IRL? If so, come join us for lunch at the McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. Learn more about the peeps you follow, check out @jaboncroft’s cool gadgets, find a biz partner for your new #afterhours project, and/or just plain have fun!

It’s unfortunate to hear that Strands has had to make some cuts. Via TechCrunch “The cutbacks continue, even at seemingly healthy startups. Social recommendation engine Strands let exactly 10 percent, or 14 people go (7 in the U.S. and 7 in Spain), the company confirms.”

Upcoming Tweetup Breakfast at Fuller’s Restaurant (Thursday November 20, 2008)

Via the AboutUs blog “It’s tough to say vote for us, when we are with so many great sites. But that is what we say! Vote for AboutUs! because we are doing something groundbreaking and different than all the other fabulous sites in the category.”

Mike Rogoway writes “Downtown Portland tech startup Iovation laid off a dozen employees last week, the latest in a series of Oregon companies making tough decisions as the recession deepens.”

Josh Bancroft writes “I’m writing this up to help bloggers and other people who create stuff online (videos, etc.) get their ‘stuff’ more visibility, by getting more sites to link to it and talk about it. Specifically, I’m trying to help people in my group at work, Intel Software Network, by sharing some of my experience and ideas, since I’ve been blogging for over 5 years. I’m by no means an expert, just sharing what I know. I hope you’ll post a comment or otherwise jump into the conversation if you have ideas of your own on how to get more ‘outside’ links and conversation around the things that you write.”

Dawn Foster writes “I’m participating in the Great Portland Interview Project, and I was recently interviewed by Grant Kruger. According to the rules of the project, I’m posting the results of the interview here for your reading pleasure. Grant even slipped in a few extra questions, including an obscure question about Sausage the goat. The questions came from Grant, but the answers are mine.”

A discussion about the Portland tech scene heading into 2009. Where are we now, how did we get here and where do we want to go?

Scott Kveton writes “Let’s be honest. We all love URL shorteners like TinyURL and Is Good but for the bacon-lovers out there, we’ve had a gaping hole in our lives. Until today.”

Via VentureBeat “These days, the more you talk to folks about Silicon Valley’s venture capital industry, the more negative the message is becoming. And for good reason. “

Via the Ignite Portland blog “It’s almost here! Ignite Portland 4 is upon us. Here’s some important information to make the night go as smoothly as possible. Read up, let us know if you have any questions, and see you [tonight]! A few things to keep in mind for the event Thursday night (11/13)”