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Category: Oregon

Cooking Up A Story goes Dutch with Ecotrust

Rick Turoczy on December 11, 2007

Portland-based Cooking Up A Story, an online show about people, food, and sustainability, has established a partnership with Ecotrust, the Portland-based nonprofit organization focusing on rebuilding the Salmon Nation along the West coast.

“Our association with Cooking Up A Story will allow us to broadcast the vital issues facing the sustainable food and agriculture community to a broader, global audience through the internet,” said Deborah Kane, vice president of Ecotrust’s Food and Farms program. “We want to engage viewers regionally and around the world in these issues by allowing them to see the faces and hear the unscripted voices of everyday people and their connections to food and sustainable living.”

Cooking Up A Story features no on-air talent, no scripted programming, and no studio environments, just authentic stories filmed in native surroundings. For more information, visit Cooking Up A Story.

(Hat tip Marshall Kirkpatrick)

Uncloaking: Imindi

Rick Turoczy on December 7, 2007

Profiled previously on Silicon Florist while in stealth mode, Portland-based Imindi, a new Web-based thought engine, has officially uncloaked and is now offering BETA invites to selected users.

What makes Imindi different from other mind-mapping tools?

At its core Imindi is a “Thought Engine” because it is an engine that augments the way that we think of new ideas, concepts and questions as opposed to a Search Engine which helps you find information or answers to questions that you have already formed in your mind.

On a practical level Imindi will help you to express your own thoughts and expand them by connecting your thoughts with others. In some ways its a bit like the popular web application Flickr except instead of using it for collecting and sharing your photos you use it for collecting your thoughts.

If you’re interested in testing the Imindi tool, leave your email address after the beep.

Kryptiq repeats as Oregon’s most admired privately held technology company

Rick Turoczy on December 7, 2007

I received word, last night, that Hillsboro-based Kryptiq, makers of technology that streamlines healthcare communications, has been named the fifth most respected company in Oregon—up two spots from last year—by the Portland Business Journal. And, for the second year in a row, it’s also the highest ranking privately held technology company on the list.

Votes were collected from more than 2,000 Oregon-based CEOs who were asked to select the companies they most admire in a number of different industries. In all, 87 different companies were nominated in the technology category. Other organizations recognized in the category include HP, Microsoft, Tektronix, Intel, and Flir Systems.

(I haven’t seen anything from the Portland Business Journal, but I’ll make sure to post once I find it.)

Kryptiq streamlines healthcare communications among patients, providers, pharmacies and health plans with secure messaging, electronic prescribing, disease management and contract management technologies. By integrating these solutions with existing systems and applications, Kryptiq enables the trusted transport of health information where and when it is needed. For more information on the company, see Kryptiq.

Newsvetter seeks to rescue media from flood of boring press releases

Rick Turoczy on December 6, 2007

Portland-based Newsvetter, a service designed to enhance the relationship between the media and those who would love to influence them, has released a BETA version of its product to the public.

The product provides a simple—but much needed—filter that promises to help both sides of the media exchange communicate more clearly and intelligently with one another.

News presenters submit story ideas after completing an online vetting questionnaire. The vetting questionnaire contains a list of key questions asked by the news media when evaluating stories for publication. News media review the submissions, provide feedback in the form of ratings and comments, and, if warranted, contact news presenters to discuss possible publication of their story ideas.

While there isn’t a great deal of content to be found in the service at this point (you could do something to change that, hint hint), the idea has definite merit. I think it’s worth a test drive. And if you’d like to consider using it as a way to pitch stories to the Silicon Florist (again, hint hint), please feel free.

Newsvetter was released by Single Cell, a Portland-area public relations firm. For more information or to test drive the service, visit Newsvetter.

(Hat tip Lev Tsypin)

JanRain heralds the release of OpenID 2.0

Rick Turoczy on December 5, 2007

Portland-based JanRain, arguably the most active proponent of the OpenID standard, has announced the release of, and support for, OpenID 2.0.

The latest version of OpenID assures its position as the dominant standard for next-generation digital identity. With new features that improve security and usability of OpenID, the user-centric single sign-on and online user-authentication standard is primed for mass adoption and widespread disruption across the Internet.

[Editor: For those of you who use the OpenID login for Silicon Florist comments, please do let me know if anything breaks, given these latest changes.]

JanRain is the driving force behind the adoption of OpenID services. Based in Portland, OR, the company has delivered the first comprehensive communications and reputation platform, Pibb, leveraging OpenID’s decentralized and user-centric identity. For more information, visit JanRain.

MyStrands lands $24 million in funding

Rick Turoczy on December 5, 2007

Yesterday, Corvallis, Oregon, based MyStrands announced that they have secured an additional $24 million in funding, increasing the total capital raised by the company to $55 million. The round, led by Spanish bank Grupo BBVA, is slated primarily for continued research & development and product development.

This round of funding has been covered by TechCrunch and Profy, among others. [Update] And I’ll sheepishly add Portland’s Marshall Kirkpatrick’s coverage of the MyStrands’ funding from Read/Write Web. (I didn’t see it in the trackbacks, I swear! And, seriously, have you ever seen that many possessives in one sentence? I mean, really?)

MyStrands develops technologies to better understand people’s taste and help them discover things they like and didn’t know about. MyStrands has created a social recommender engine that is able to provide real-time recommendations of products and services through computers, mobile phones and other Internet-connected devices. For more information, see MyStrands.

(Hat tip Brooks Jordan)

SplashCast woos former Starbucks and Nike exec to team, board

Rick Turoczy on December 5, 2007

It’s always nice to see our local startups getting all growed up.

Portland-based SplashCast, the media service that lets you cook all sorts of media together into a single player, has announced the hiring of Charlie Baker as an Executive Vice President. Baker will also occupy a seat on the SplashCast board of directors.

In his new role, Baker will be focusing on business development in sports and entertainment, areas in which he boasts a wealth of expertise:

Baker has 25 years experience in implementing successful business strategies for start-ups, mid market and Fortune 500 companies. As General Manager/Divisional Vice President of Nike Global Retail, he built and grew the $1.2B global business unit. As a member of Nike’s Executive Leadership Team, Mr. Baker was responsible for leading the strategy of Nike’s $12B global businesses. In addition, Charlie was CEO of Starbucks Australia and CEO of a venture-backed media company, FamilyWonder.com, which he led through successful acquisition by Sega.

For more information, see SplashCast.

Cloud Four: Anything but cloudy

Rick Turoczy on November 29, 2007

[Editor’s note: I’m going to begin expanding the Silicon Florist beat, a bit, to provide coverage of new startups in the Silicon Forest area—as they come into being. Not only do these incredibly young companies need a little limelight, it will be interesting to cover them from their inception forward. Looking forward to your feedback on this expanded scope. And, if you’re starting a shop, please drop me a line.]

Please welcome a new startup to the block.

Portland-based Cloud Four, a Web strategy and development shop, boasts a team of known-entities from the Portland area and shows promise of quickly becoming a mainstay in the local development community.

I hear you. “Do we really need another Web dev shop in town?” And to that, I’d respond that I think we need more and more shops in town that think like Cloud Four.

Our philosophy emphasizes user experience over ego-driven, impractical designs or isolated, finicky engineering…. We believe that authenticity and integrity matter. We give you the advice we would give ourselves if we were in your shoes—even if it means less work for us.

For more on the cultural principles driving this fledgling organization, see the Cloud Four blog and Jason Grigsby’s post on the launch.

Panic releases tasty new version of Candybar

Rick Turoczy on November 28, 2007

Portland-based Panic, makers of beautiful and highly functional Mac applications, has released a new version of its popular Candybar icon management tool. The new version is designed to work with the latest release of Mac OS X, Leopard–including the ability to customize the new Leopard dock.

New features include new interface, integrated Pixadex, large (512 x 512) icon support, Leopard dock customization, additional system icons, Quick Look integration, more reliable system icon restoration, and of course the inevitable “much more.”

For more information, visit Panic.

(Hat tip to Josh Pyles)

Have a very happy Thanksgiving

Rick Turoczy on November 21, 2007

Here’s hoping that all of those Silicon Forest startups, all the readers who make writing Silicon Florist such a pleasure, and anyone else within the range of my RSS feed has a very safe, happy, and relaxing Turkey and/or Tofurkey day.

Even startups need a few days off.

I’ll start rooting around again on Monday.

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