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Morph Labs transforms into a Portland company

Rick Turoczy on September 2, 2008

Morph LabsIt’s no secret that Portland continues to attract talent. But, lately, we’re seeing both the city and the Silicon Forest as a whole, attract companies, too.

Vidoop is in the midst of a road trip that will relocate the entire company here to the Rose City. WeoGeo is in the process of becoming a Portland company. And, now—as Dawn Foster revealed during Strange Love Live—I’m happy to report that Morph Labs now calls Portland their US headquarters.

And like recent transplants Intrigo, Morph Labs has already jumped in with both feet by sponsoring the last Legion of Tech Happy Hour.

So, what does Morph Labs do?

Well according to CEO David Abramowski:

Our product is really a combined service. It brings together people, process and technology to provide an on-demand solution for hosting and running web applications. We take away all of the “muck” of dealing with servers, operating systems, backups, monitoring and provide it at a very low cost subscription rate. We have a free developers account and our paid service starts at $1/day.

The Morph service relies on Amazon Web Services—both EC2 and S3—and currently supports Ruby on Rails, Java web applications and Grails applications. PHP and Python support are planned for later this year.

The company—originally founded in the Philippines—has 35 employees, eight of whom reside in the US. But they’re looking to grow. And no doubt, that’s part of the appeal of Portland.

I’m looking forward to running into the Morph folks soon. If you beat me to it, please welcome them to town.

Morph Labs is the leading provider of Platform as a Service (PaaS) that virtualizes the application environment through the use of open source technologies to simplify the deployment, delivery, and management of Web based applications. They use virtual infrastructures including Amazon Web Services to provide a truly elastic environment for Web applications that can be instantly provisioned and seamlessly scaled. For more information, visit Morph Labs.

Galois grabs Martin Wehner, new office

Rick Turoczy on September 2, 2008

GaloisPortland-based Galois has snapped up Martin Wehner for a business development position they’re calling “Client Caretaker / Offer Builder.” Wehner comes to Galois from Jive Software.

Gal-wha…?

Never heard of Galois? You’re not alone. And Martin will be working to help fix that. (In fact, he’s already convinced them to show up at Beer and Blog Blog and Beer.)

So what do they do?

Galois creates trustworthiness in critical systems by taking blue-sky ideas and turning them into real-world technology solutions. Galois tackles challenging Information Assurance problems that have significant impact on society in areas like privacy, security, and safety.

Would you like to learn more? Well, you’re in luck, my friend.

Galois just relocated to the historic Commonwealth Building in downtown Portland. And to warm up the new space, they will be hosting an open house on Thursday, September 18 from 4:00 – 6:00 pm at 421 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 300. For more information or to RSVP, see Upcoming.

Galois technology is about enabling secure collaboration, providing customers new capabilities in the areas of Web 2.0, cross-domain solutions, and communications security. For more information, visit Galois.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for September 01

Rick Turoczy on September 1, 2008

SarahLacy.com: UGBT: Seattle-Portland De-Co

Sarah Lacy writes “Portland gets super points for coming out for a Sunday Tweet-up that got moved at the last minute and was in the wake of the exhausting Gnomedex. THAT was impressive.”

Strange Love: strange love episodes: openID & bacon with scott kveton

Cami Kaos writes “Thinking back to Friday night, when we recorded a Tech episode of Strange Love Live closely followed by an afterhours episode, it’s a bit of a blur. My memory, as well as my judgment may have been clouded by BACON.”

Techmeme Keyword Alert Pipe at Fast Wonder Blog: Consulting, Online Communities, and Social Media

Dawn Foster writes “Most of us have various feeds that we use to track where people are mentioning our company, products, industry or other areas of interest. It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to track articles hitting Techmeme that have a certain keyword in the title or description of the post. Eureka! The Techmeme Keyword Alert pipe is born.”

FundingUniverse Portland LivePitch- September 9 at Stoel Rives (Portland) (Tuesday September 9, 2008) – Upcoming

The audience at LivePitch receives $100 of “fake money” to “invest” in their favorite entrepreneurs, with prizes awarded to both a panel and audience favorite. There will be 60 minutes of pitching, and 30 minutes for general networking.

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Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for August 31

Rick Turoczy on August 31, 2008

F|R Crib Sheet: 5 Guerilla Tactics for Good Marketing – GigaOM

The Iterasi Magic Bus to Gnomedex makes the pages of Found Read. “So Grillo and his team came up with a non-traditional marketing tactic. They found an old yellow school bus with a dubious battery and an owner/driver who wanted to get to Gnomedex, too. Then they invited several bloggers, a dozen programmers and tech folks from the Portland area to ride along with them to Seattle.”

How to Get Noticed

Jeremiah Owyang writes “I’m often asked by companies and indiividuals on what they can do to stand out. Here’s what I’ve learned… but don’t just take my word for it, add your own tips in the comments.”

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Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for August 29

Rick Turoczy on August 29, 2008

Zapproved’s web app makes decisions easier » VentureBeat

Anthony Ha writes “Okay, so you still have to deal with passionate disagreements and little things like that. But Portland, Oregon-based Zapproved handles the infrastructure, so you don’t have to worry about the little headaches — like wondering, ‘Hey, has everyone responded yet?’ or ‘Okay, after reading all of your comments I have no idea if you gave me a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’’ — just the big ones.”

Avoiding the Two Most Common Startup Marketing Pitfalls

Sean Ellis writes “Marketing a VC-backed startup is one of the toughest marketing jobs you’ll ever face. The challenge usually falls on a lone marketer taking a venture to market for the first time. Even seasoned marketing execs find themselves in unfamiliar territory.”

Why and How Embargoes Work in Tech Blogging

Marshall Kirkpatrick writes “Embargoes aren’t as simple as they sound and they aren’t uncontroversial, either. We believe they can be a good idea, though.”

Labor Day Weekend :: Nearby Photo Challenge :: Platial.com

Use Platial’s Nearby iPhone app? You may want to participate in this contest. “Calling all nature lovers, urbanites, families, neogeographers, and mappers of all kinds: Add places, take pictures and explore to win!”

Inverge & Cre8Con | Nate Angell

Nate Angell writes “For anyone engaged in the creative practices that are generating the continuing convergence of interactive media, technology and culture, Portland, Oregon will come alive next week with the convergence of both the second annual Inverge 2008 Thu-Fri 4-5 Sep at the Gerding Theater and Cre8Con, Sat 6 Sep at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, not to mention the concurrent MusicFestNW, the Time-Based Art Festival and the only slightly more regular First Thursday.”

The Substance Substantial Internship Program – Substance

Via the Substance blog “This fall, we’ll be starting the Substance Substantial Internship Program. We’re looking for a handful of things in an intern…”

Vidoop Labs launches Identity in the Browser IDIB) dream project

Greg Hughes writes “The Internet needs a good, strong, reliable, usable and secure standard technology to solve the issues related to user names, passwords, single sign on and identity protection. IDIB looks like a serious and positive attempt to start the journey directly down that path.”

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Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for August 28

Rick Turoczy on August 28, 2008

Portland Livepitch Event

At LivePitch, early stage entrepreneurs have 4 minutes to pitch to a panel of experts and a live audience in order to: The audience at LivePitch receives $100 of “fake money” to “invest” in their favorite entrepreneurs, with prizes awarded to both a panel and audience favorite. There will be 60 minutes of pitching, and 30 minutes for general networking.

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Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for August 27

Rick Turoczy on August 27, 2008

Venture capital is blowing through the Columbia Gorge

Via The Oregonian “”We’re not too far away from Portland, and some investors already have second homes here,” said Bill Fashing, coordinator of the Hood River County Economic Development Department…. The first Gorge Angel Conference on Sept. 23 will showcase local startups competing for $100,000 in seed money. “

Tech talent

Via The Bend Bulletin “The two-year-old group, along with other technology-oriented user groups in the region, also has been instrumental in attracting attention from the Software Association of Oregon. Harvey Mathews, the association’s president, said COISUG is one reason the SAO has agreed to begin discussions with the groups to form a Central Oregon chapter.”

Zumeo: Cool place for hot jobs

Via the Mail Tribune “What do you get when you cross the social-networking concept behind Facebook and MySpace with the job-searching tools in Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com? For five young Southern Oregon entrepreneurs, the answer is a dream of global proportions.”

Gnomedex 2008! Tapping into the Tech Conversation

Jason Harris provides another great wrap-up of the Gnomedex experience. Have we convinced you to go next year, yet?

Django 1.0 beta 2 released!

Simon Willison writes “Django 1.0 beta 2 released! 1.0 draws ever closer. Important new features include major documentation and comment system refactorings, plus the removal of a bunch of deprecated code (including oldforms). Feature and string freezes are now in place, so it’s just bugs and documentation improvements between now and the final release.”

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Silicon Forest Forum revs up the geek cred with Tesla founder, social media slot

Rick Turoczy on August 27, 2008

Silicon Forest ForumNow in its seventh year, the Silicon Forest Forum has been one of the premiere local gatherings for venture capitalists and technology entrepreneurs to discuss the technologies that are driving development and businesses in the Silicon Forest.

And while the event has always had a “technology” bent, its focus on traditional high-tech pursuits left its perceived “geek cred” a bit lacking, at best.

But this year, they’re clearly working to erase that deficit.

First, they’re bringing in the CTO and Co-founder of Tesla Motors, Marc Tarpenning, to keynote the event. And I would have a hard time arguing that any other automotive company carries as much geek and green credibility as Tesla. (No word as to whether the Tesla Roadster will be making an appearance.)

Second, they’ve put social media on the docket with a panel entitled “Bloggers, Digital Media…..and the Business of Creating Content.” The panel features Harry McCracken, the former editor of PC World who now runs Technologizer, a blog that gives McCracken the freedom to exercise his journalistic muscle on technology topics of his choosing; Leander Kaheny, the news editor at Wired.com; and maybe—just maybe—some local flavor.

The Silicon Forest Forum will be held at the Intel Jones Farm Campus in Hillsboro on Friday, September 12. General registration is $125. Members of the SAO can register for $95. For more information, visit the Silicon Forest Forum or RSVP on Upcoming.

(Hat tip Sean Sullivan)

How do you get From Side Project to Startup?

Rick Turoczy on August 27, 2008

So just how do you take a passion project and make it your full-time startup gig? It’s a common question. And a question any number of us have struggled to answer at some point.

And on September 12 and 13 at CubeSpace, a bunch of us are going to get together to try and figure it out with From Side Project to Startup.

The event will be a continuation of the discussion we started earlier this year at BarCamp Portland.

The seeds for ‘From Side Project to Startup’ were sown at a session of early May’s Bar Camp Portland. The conference generated a good amount of buzz, and brought up more questions than the time could answer.

And besides, I’d love to have you there as part of the discussion. So join us, won’t you?

You’ll notice the schedule includes a lot of ‘schmooze,’ snack, break and party time. With this as well as the unconference time to meet and discuss with people, it’s a goal of ‘From Side Project to Startup’ that a network of interested startups will form to provide each other with peer support and accountability. You can do it, keep going!

For more information, visit From Side Project to Startup. Or, if you’re already as excited about this as I am, go ahead and RSVP on Upcoming.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for August 26

Rick Turoczy on August 26, 2008

40+ Eye-Opening OpenID Sites and Services

Via Mashable “Ultimately, all you will ever need is your single OpenID URL or an email address linked to it. Here’s where you can get your own OpenID and all of the sites that support it.”

Coda 1.5 now available

Via Panic ” Coda 1.5 is now available for download from our web site. Full release notes for this version are also available. This is a free upgrade for all Coda owners. We encourage all Coda users to upgrade to this latest version. “

Twitter / AdamD: I nominate @turoczy to create…

Adam DuVander has thrown down the gauntlet. Who’s game? At the very least, it will be head and shoulders above OregonLive.

Choke, gasp… Is that the death rattle of the corporate blog?

Via the Polymer Studios blog “It’s true that most corporate blogs are boring and nobody reads them. And that’s because many corporate communicators either don’t get blogging or, if they do, are having a heck of a time inspiring Glasnost in the executive suite. What’s the ROI? Who has time to blog? What will Legal say?”

From Telephone to Tweetup | An Inverge Presentation

Amber Case writes “The invention of the telephone ushered in an era of ‘on-demand’ social connection. These conversations were freeing, but were still limited to location and time. As communication technology matured, telephones became detached from their cords and were allowed to travel with their users. This detachment from location allowed conversation to happen in more times and more places.”

gary vaynerchuk » You can have both….Jobs. – my 2 minute take on life

Gary Vaynerchuk says “Way too many people out there think that you have to quit your day job to start your new career online, I find that crazy and it just comes down to cutting out wasted time! It all comes down to Hustle 2.0.”

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