Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
One of the most cryptic and stealthy startups around here lately has been Nozzl. We knew it had something to do with controlling and managing the firehose of information on the Web in real-time.
[HTML4]One of the most cryptic and stealthy startups around here lately has been Nozzl Media. We knew some of the people who were working on it. Really smart people like Steve Woodward and Brian Hendrickson. And we knew it had something to do with controlling and managing the firehose of information on the Web—in real-time.
But beyond that, we had very little hint of exactly what the Nozzl folks were doing. That is, until today. Read More
Blackbox Republic a sex positive community took the wraps off of their new Community Exchange Platform last night. It’s designed to be a mix of social media, compelling privacy controls, event management, retail, and real life meetups. Or as they’re calling it social nicheworking.
It’s always nice to see a Silicon Forest company coming out of stealth. Especially when they already have funding. But today a great deal of that launch story may be getting mired with one simple word: sex.
You see, Portland-based Blackbox Republic took the wraps off of their new “Community Exchange Platform” last night. It’s designed to be a mix of social media, compelling privacy controls, event management, retail, and real life meetups. Or as they’re calling it “social nicheworking.”
Where’s the sex there, you ask? Well, it’s in the target market they’re chasing: the sex-positive community. Read More
[Full disclosure: Iterasi is one of my clients which may taint my objectivity. For other reviews of the tool, see coverage in CenterNetworks, Profy, VentureBeat, Webware, and Web Worker Daily.]
Vancouver, Washington, based Iterasi has been working in stealth mode for the last six months. (So stealthy, in fact, that my friends and family have, to date, only known them as “double secret probation.”) Today, Iterasi was finally able to start talking about their offering, unveiling an early—yet highly functional—version of their product at DEMO 2008.
They will be the only Silicon-Forest-based company taking the stage at DEMO, this week.
So what does the Iterasi do? It saves Web pages.
Sounds simple. But, these days? Not so much.
Given the dynamic nature of today’s Web sites—AJAX, CSS, dynamic HTML, widgets, database-driven content—“saving a page” is a little more difficult than it seems like it should be.
But Iterasi makes it incredibly easy, enabling the user to save the exact page he or she is seeing. No matter how many little AJAX balloons may have been opened or what personal information has been provided.
When Iterasi saves the page, it’s in its native format. It’s HTML. So all of the links still work. All of the CSS is still there. So you get to see all of the content, in context, and work with it, instead of just looking at it.
In addition to saving pages, Iterasi offers a scheduler that allows you to capture the same page over time:
You can also schedule automatic capture of a page at regular intervals. We believe that capturing the same page over time will highlight the differences among notarized versions. And we think that type of comparison will be great for competitive intelligence and other online research. Some people will use it to monitor their kid’s MySpace page over time, others to take an extended look at Craigslist search results for a town they might move to.
For more information, to see a demo, or to sign up for an invitation to future BETA versions of Iterasi, visit Iterasi. To keep tabs on what the company is doing, visit the Iterasi blog.
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.
Currently in stealth mode but scheduled to launch in the coming weeks, Portland-based Imindi promises to bring the visual aspects of traditional mind-mapping software to a broader spectrum of activities. The aggressive product vision, outlined on the Imindi blog, has the product helping with everything from collaborative writing to collaborative search to social bookmarking.
At its foundation, the company describes the Imindi product as a “thought engine”:
The Imindi Thought Engine enables you to input your Thoughts and the semantic connections between them (Why, What, Where, When, Who, How) in a naturally radiant fashion with one thought radiating outward to one or many asoociated thought that themselves radiates outwards towards other thoughts which radiate outwards towards others and so on and so forth. The interface is essentially a visual map of your mind what we call a “Journey” here at Imindi.
The concept is interesting. But it is important to note that the visual aspect of the mind-map is not especially expansive—at least at this point. Currently, the Imindi product relegates the results to the first orbit, the items within direct connection of the central thought.
Personally, I’ve always found the value of graphic representations of the nature to be the orbits that are 3 to 4 steps away from the initial thought. This is where you start seeing the really interesting stuff happening.
With Imindi’s current product, you can definitely get to that point—one a click at a time–but as far as I can tell, you cannot currently see the entire universe or the path that led you to your current thought. [Update] The Imindi folks were nice enough to swing by and comment on the exact functionality I was seeking: expanded maps.
Obviously, is that it’s incredibly easy for me to sit here and pitch stones with no idea of how much work the algorithms and relationship logic actually took. So, while I criticize, I’d encourage you to take a look for yourself by visiting Imindi.
Imindi has received seed funding from Mind Fund of Portland.
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.
It’s Friday. Isn’t it? It is right? I’ve kinda lost track of time.
What’s that? It is? Okay, great. In Portland, too? Okay, cool.
Ahem.
It’s Friday, so why not give yourself a little treat?
Ryan Williams of NetworthIQ fame has a new project in the works. It’s stealth. Super stealth.
Well, that’s what I’m claiming, anyway. Because the project doesn’t have a name. And in my book, you can’t be much more stealth than that.
Worse yet? He doesn’t quite know what to call it.
So you get to help.
Which is the best domain name for a site that aggregates feeds from traditional and social sites for a city?
- socialmetro.com
- metbuzz.com
- vibelocal.com
- localsignal.com
Exercise your inner-entrepreneur—or your outer one for that matter—by swinging by Ryan’s blog, Web things considered, and placing your vote. Or suggesting a new name.
[Update] Ryan was nice enough to drop by a provide a link to the work-in-progress. Might provide a little more inspiration for your vote.
Apparently, Wednesday is the “Announce the events I’d really like to attend yet upon which I will inevitably be forced to bail” Day at Silicon Florist. Here’s another one:
Portland-based LUNARR, which has gotten quite a bit of press for a company in stealth mode, is disengaging its cloaking device on September 17 at CubeSpace.
LUNARR was founded by wildly successful Japanese entrepreneur Toru Takasuka of Cybozu fame:
LUNARR was founded in January of 2006 in the high tech corridor of Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. The brainchild of Toru Takasuka, one of Japan’s foremost technology entrepreneurs, LUNARR was founded on the idea that every knowledge worker in an organization has the potential to be a creative contributor, one who can have a significant impact on the organization’s success by sharing his or her unique ideas and perspectives through collaboration.
What do they do? Do you not understand the concept of “stealth”? I don’t know. We’ll just have to go to the launch party, won’t we? And by “we,” I mean “you.”
For information on the launch party, see the Upcoming page.
(Hat tip to Dawn Foster)