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Category: Oregon

Urban Drinks adds happy hours within stumbling distance

Rick Turoczy on November 7, 2007

[Insert prerequisite “more bars per capita” comment here], so it comes as no surprise that the happy-hour-location-service market is quite competitive here in PDX. To keep raising the—ahem—bar,  Portland-based Urban Drinks has just announced the addition of proximity intelligence to its service.

With Urban Drinks new feature, not only can you zero-in on a happy hour, but should it be too crowded—or worse yet, completely dead—you can now see the five happy hours within stumbling distance of your chosen locale.

For example, if you visit the soon to be Deschutes Brewpub at UrbanDrinks, you will see a list of five happy hours that are currently going on in the area. If no happy hours are currently happening at the time of your visit, then five happy hours that are going on later in the day will be provided. UrbanDrinks also plans on introducing an address field that will allow you to enter or bookmark your address to which a list of the closest happy hours will be displayed.

For more information or to try the service, visit Urban Drinks.

Jive’s new space should include a bigger trophy case

Rick Turoczy on November 6, 2007

Portland-based Jive Software continues on its award-winning roll. First, they walked away with a cash prize of $15 million from Sequoia. Then, they took home the OEN Entrepreneur Award. Now, they’ve walked away with top honors at Venture NW for “Outstanding Achievement.”

“As winners of the Outstanding Achievement Awards, Jive Software and nLIGHT represent the high caliber of companies and entrepreneurs in this region. These are two globally competitive companies that have proven that they are attractive to investors anywhere,” said Wayne Embree, managing partner of Reference Capital Management, LLC and Chairman of Venture Northwest 2007. “They remind us what is possible with the support from programs such as Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and Venture Northwest.”

Who else won? If the quotes are any indication, it sounds like Portland may be a winner, as well. If only in getting a little more of the entrepreneurial and venture-capitalistic attention and affection it so rightly deserves.

“Moving our company to Portland was one of the best business decisions we ever made. We quickly discovered that Portland has an immensely supportive entrepreneurial community and it has provided our company with a great environment in which to grow,” said Jive Software CEO, Dave Hersh. “Being chosen to receive this award is a great honor.”

I remain hopeful that this sort of Portland praise will begin to cut down on some of the location-related difficulties Silicon Forest startups are encountering as they pursue funding.

Meet: Portland Web Innovators discuss RSS and attention

Rick Turoczy on November 5, 2007

On November 7, Portland Web Innovators will hold its monthly gathering, hosted by a pizza-bearing Jive Software. This time, they will be focusing on RSS and attention:

Charlie Davidson and Eric Hayes from Attensa joining us to discuss the world of RSS, Feeds, and Attention, a concept becoming more important to many of us as we attempt to filter out the information overload so prevalent for web innovators.

For more information or to RSVP, visit Upcoming.

Picktastic bets on public BETA

Rick Turoczy on November 1, 2007

Portland-based Picktastic, the sports-oriented social network that promises all of the addictive fun of sports betting without that messy “losing money” element, has announced the opening of the Picktastic public BETA.

Pick a sport that interests you. See those glassy buttons? Click the one for the team you think will win. Click on the link above the buttons for more game details, to talk trash, or make wagers.

For more information or to proceed directly to losing your (virtual) shirt, visit Picktastic.

Jive outgrows its current digs

Rick Turoczy on October 30, 2007

With its recent infusion of funding and rash of hiring, Portland-based Jive Software is outgrowing its current space at 317 SW Alder.

No word on whether they’ve selected new digs or not.

But their old space—exposed brick and all—will soon be up-for-grabs.

Jive Software develops award-winning collaboration software that improves a company’s productivity through open collaboration among employees, partners and customers. For more information, visit Jive Software.

Ignite Portland videos available

Rick Turoczy on October 29, 2007

While the official videos won’t be available for another week or two, thanks to A.J. (aka Linuxaid), we have videos of Ignite Portland available, now. And using Portland-based SplashCast’s technology, all 18 videos are available for you, below, in one convenient package.

http://web.splashcast.net/go/so/1/p/NYZI5663NK

(Hat tip to Raven Zachary and the Ignite Portland blog)

TwitterWhere releases BETA Adobe AIR application

Rick Turoczy on October 26, 2007

Announced just days ago, Portland-based Matt King’s TwitterWhere has been a runaway hit with the Twitter crowd, to say the least.

Rolling with momentum, King has released an Adobe AIR-based version of the tool. The BETA version is currently searching tweets within 20 miles of Portland, Oregon, USA.

Download the BETA TwitterWhere application and try it out. (Note: This will begin downloading a file.)

To reach or add Matt King on Twitter, use @mattking.

Queen Bee sitting pretty with UpSale

Rick Turoczy on October 26, 2007

Portland-based Blue Hill Solutions, a Web-development shop specializing in e-commerce systems, has announced the relaunch of Queen Bee Creations, a Portland-based manufacturer of unique handmade bags and wallets.

The entire redesign and relaunch took eight weeks, concept to completion.

Besides requiring 100% creative control over the presentation of their site, they needed a system for managing retail and wholesale customers, tools to match their manufacturing and fulfillment processes, and a platform that would scale with their business through the holiday season and beyond.

The new site is built upon Blue Hill’s UpSale e-commerce platform, which was built specifically for applications like Queen Bee.

Ignite Portland was (insert your favorite fire-related metaphor here)

Rick Turoczy on October 25, 2007

Ignite Portland, the Portland-flavored version of the O’Reilly concept designed to encourage the sharing of burning ideas in 5 minutes or less, just wrapped up.

Held at the Wieden+Kennedy office in the Pearl, the rumored-to-be-oversold attendance numbers—somewhat miraculously—proved to be exactly the number of people allowed by the fire code. Go figure.

Topics of the 18 presentations ranged from knitting to unicycling to chickens to turning Japanese.

Rest assured, there was some geeky stuff, as well.

Exit polls are looking very positive. Every presenter should be very proud. (I’m not going to call any favorites. But if you want to do so in the comments, I won’t stop you.)

A heartfelt thanks to the organizers: Josh Bancroft, Dawn Foster, Todd Kenefsky, Raven Zachary, and the bevy of other geeks and non-geeks who helped make this a reality. And an equally heartfelt thanks to all of the presenters who made this whole thing incredibly interesting.

If you missed the event, you can read the Twitter stream, check the photos by tag or in the Flickr group, wait patiently for the video to be uploaded, or you can read some of these recaps:

Got a recap? Post it to the comments and I’ll make sure to add it to the list.

(Personally, I got the chance to meet a bunch of the real-life versions of the avatars I see on a daily basis. To all of those folks, thank you so much. Great to see you. I know there were a bunch of people I missed, as well. And I’m truly sorry that we didn’t get the chance to meet.)

The next event is planned for January. Hope to see you—and meet you—there.

Light it up! Ignite Portland is tonight

Rick Turoczy on October 25, 2007

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight is the night.

Ignite Portland
Wieden+Kennedy
224 NW 13th Avenue
Doors open at 5:30
First 300 admitted

I’ll be there and I hope to see you there, too. If you are, please find me and introduce yourself.

If you can’t be there, fear not, gentle reader. The geek quotient is high here, so there are virtual Ignite Portland venues that will allow you to attend vicariously.

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