Portland Oregon startups, tech, news, events, jobs, and community
Portland startup and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
Portwiture helps you visualize your Twitter stream of pithy insights. But not in an old-boring-graph way. Instead, it does it by snagging photos from Flickr, the popular photo sharing site.
[HTML2]Usually when I ask “Can you see what I’m saying?” I’m just mangling the English language. But when it comes to Portwiture—a random Twitter and Flickr mashup from Portland-based designer Tyler Sticka—I’m being all too literal.
Why? Well, Portwiture helps you visualize your Twitter stream of pithy insights. But not in an old-boring-graph way. Instead, it does it by snagging photos from Flickr, the popular photo sharing site. Read More
iAte gives you local restaurant information coupled with tweets associated with the venue. So instead of everyone yammering about what they’re eating, you get a focused stream about a certain food in a certain town or about a specific restaurant.
[HTML3]You know the old (well, old in Internet time) joke. Twitter? Why would I get on Twitter? Isn’t that just people talking about what they’re eating?
Well, yeah. To some extent it is. But what if they were talking about that new restaurant where you were going to spend your anniversary—and it sucked. Or what if you were really hankering for vegan BBQ and your first choice happened to be closed? Sometimes what people are eating, where they’re eating, and what they’re tweeting can be extremely valuable.
And Portland-based iAte is gobbling that Twitter data up and serving up some very tasty results. Read More
no doubt that Portland, Oregon, is one of the most beer-o-phile-ish towns in the world. We’ve got our bevy of microbreweries, our randomly stocked beer groceries, our brewers’ festivals, and any number of folks working to keep us informed about just what’s happening in the world of beer.
There’s no doubt that Portland, Oregon, is one of the most beer-o-phile-ish towns in the world. We’ve got our bevy of microbreweries, our randomly stocked beer groceries, our brewers’ festivals, and any number of folks working to keep us informed about just what’s happening in the world of beer.
That said, there’s always room for more beer-oriented stuff around here. Enter Portland’s own Taplister‘s new iPhone app Beer Signal—an app that could have more of those beer discussions happening in person. Read More
That post about Twitalyzer’s assessment of the Top 100 Twitter types in Portland created quite the kerfuffle, didn’t it? Tonight at Beer and Blog Portland, you’ll be able to meet many of the folks on the Top 100 list and hear from Twitalyzer creator Eric T. Peterson how the magic works.
[HTML3]Well, well, well. That post about Twitalyzer’s assessment of the Top 100 Twitter types in Portland created quite the kerfuffle, didn’t it? Well, 42 comments and hundreds of tweets later… the day has finally come.
Tonight at Beer and Blog Portland, you’ll be able to meet many of the folks on the Top 100 list and hear from Twitalyzer creator Eric T. Peterson how the magic works.
And if you’re on the list? You get a free beer. Read More
Ah, Twitter. If there’s one thing I know about Twitter and Portland it’s this: Portland loves Twitter.
[HTML3]Ah, Twitter. If there’s one thing I know about Twitter and Portland it’s this: Portland loves Twitter. It’s helped our community band together, it’s helped us monitor the weather, and it’s helped inspire new products—like TwitterLocal and Twitalyzer. Heck, we even have Rael Dornfest, the guy engineering our Twitter user experience, here in town.
Twitter and Portland were made for each other.
But when I start thinking about Portland and Twitter there it always leads to questions. Who else in Portland is using Twitter? Who am I missing? Who are the most active and influential people in Portland on Twitter?
Leave it to Twitalyzer, the Portland-based Twitter analysis tool, to answer that question. Read More
Tonight, WebVisions will hold its second Webvisionary Awards, but there’s still some work to do before that takes place: voting for the People’s Choice Award. Or I guess, more appropriately, tweeting for the People’s Choice.
Tweeting? That’s right. All of the votes for the People’s Choice will be cast via Twitter, the popular microblogging platform. Each entry has a short code. Just send a direct message—that’s a d not an @—to @wv09 with that short code and your vote will be counted.
Sad you’re not attending WebVisions? You can still get into the Webvisionary Awards—because it’s open to the public.
So who needs your votes? Read More
If there’s one thing we here in Portland love, it’s our Twitter. And it’s not just because the inimitable Rael Dornfest, Twitter’s user experience (UX) engineer, happens to live in Portland.
No, it’s something deeper than that. Twitter works for Portland’s dynamic. It meshes with our culture and our geekiness and our whatever.
And so it should come as absolutely no surprise that, when it comes to understanding Twitter, Silicon Forest startups come up with some interesting solutions. Like Portland-based Twitalyzer. And like the latest feature from Clicky, the lightweight yet extremely feature-heavy Web analytics tool. The new feature with which I’m so impressed? It’s called Twitter brand monitor. (Calm down, Dawn.) Read More
There are some pretty witty folks on Twitter. I, for the record, do not happen to be one of them. But they are there. I’m talking about people like former Portlander Simon “@pagecrusher” Goetz. That kind of witty.
And sometimes, magic happens. Tweets—that don’t seem so humorous when taken out of context—combine into a string of entertaining @s of back-and-forth dialogue. The result? Pure comedy gold, my friend.
Unfortunately, those fleeting moments of jocularity used to simply disappear into the ether. Forever lost.
Until now.
Enter the latest feature from our cartoon-errific friends over at Portland-based Toonlet, the Twitter Toonletifier. (In their defense, that’s not actually what they call it. They call it “Twitter Comic.” But I’m calling it the Toonletifier.)
See a Dorthy-Parker-esque series of rapier retorts or a layer-tennis-like volley of banter? Capture it for historical reference.
Simply head over to Toonlet and search for keywords or users. Select the tweets you want to add to your toonlet. Do a little editing magic on the characters. And voila! Instant hilarity.
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The feature is still in its early stages, but it’s absolutely stable enough for you to begin banging on it. So give Toonlet Twitter Comic a try.
What’s that? You don’t even have to have anything witty to say. You can still use the Toonletifier. That’s how cool it is. I mean, seriously. It never stops me.
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WebVisions—the awesome event that brings some of the best and brightest Web types to Portland every year—is hosting Beer and Blog Portland this week. And like many hosts, they want to do something that makes the event memorable.
So they’re standing up and presenting? Not exactly. They’re hosting Twitter Wars between technology factions. The prize for he or she who dominates all contenders? A free pass to WebVisions.
What are the topics about which the warring factions will argue for dominance? Well, there will be:
Tons and tons of pulse-pounding action. In a giant mud pit. We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge. And all that.
This may actually be the first Beer and Blog where geek blood is spilled.
[UPDATE] With special guest stars Ken Brady and Frank Gruber (maybe).
Now, I’m fairly confident that I’ve got a good understanding of the topics over which the folks will be fighting. But then I get a little foggy on how the whole “Twitter War” thing works. (Me == Not so bright.) But I’m sure that once I’ve had a beer… Oh wait.
Anyway, it should go something like this:
Each panelist will have one minute to state their case, followed by 3 minutes of free-for-all. People can comment and vote via twitter the entire time.
To Vote: Tweet !v and a comment with the #hashtag and/or @panelist included. This will vote for a hashtag, panelist, or both. A person can only vote once for a hashtag or panelist, subsequent votes will be ignored, but their comments will be saved. A user can vote separately for a hashtag and a panelist to write a longer comment.
To comment: To comment only, leave out the !v and just tweet your comment with the #hashtag and/or @panelist included.
Got it? Good. Explain it to me when you get there.
Who will be on the panels? Well, that’s up to you, my crowdsourcey friend:
Nominate yourself or someone else for a panel by tweeting “@TWarsBeerBlog I nominate @username for #Topic.” (But, seriously? Whatever you do, don’t nominate @username for anything. That guy has a temper. I’m just saying.)
What do you win? A free pass to WebVisions is up for grabs for each of the battles. Not feeling battleworthy? Do you feel lucky? Well, do you? Because you also have the chance to attend WebVisions for free by answering one question. And I won’t battle you, at all.
As always or almost always, Beer and Blog will be at the Green Dragon. Hope to see you there (so you can explain the whole Twitter War thing to me). Visit Upcoming to RSVP.
* With apologies to “Get Your War On.”
Portland-based Twitalyzer has released a new feature that allows users to rank Twitter folks for a demographic region by certain metrics, like influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, and clout.
How do the Twitter types in Portland fare? Let’s take a look at the listings for today.
Here are the Top 100 Twitter types in Portland based on influence as of about 9:00 AM, today (but it has already changed—yay for dynamic data!):
And while there are a number of folks missing from the list whom I would expect to be there—like Marshall Kirkpatrick and some of the Top 30 tech Twitter types from the Portland area from last year—this is still a great way to discover some local folks who you might want to follow.
For the latest rankings, metrics, and the ability to slice and dice the lists for Portland—as well as a number of other geographic regions—visit Twitalyzer.
(Hat tip Nate “@xolotl” Angell #29)
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