.

Beyond the Forest: A List Apart Survey for People Who Make Websites 2008

Rick Turoczy on July 31, 2008

A List Apart Survey for People Who Make Websites 2008Likely if you’ve ever spent any time working in Web design and development—or if you’ve ever had the opportunity to wrestle with some CSS or make your code jump through some hoops—you’ve come across A List Apart.

In 1997, web developer Brian M. Platz and I started the A List Apart mailing list because we found the web design mailing lists that were already out there to be too contentious, too careerist, or too scattershot. There was too much noise, too little signal. We figured, if we created something we liked better, maybe other people would like it too. Within months, 16,000 designers, developers, and content specialists had joined our list.

It’s fairly safe to say that there are few more influential sites out there when it comes to developing and designing the Web.

So when A List Apart puts up a survey and asks for participation, I listen. And I think you should, too.

Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.

Last year’s A List Apart survey garnered more than 33,000 responses and has helped provide a better picture of the Web industry as a whole.

Given Portland’s proclivity for Web development, I think it’s important that we participate. En masse. So I’d like to second A List Apart’s call.

Please take a few moments to respond to the A List Apart Survey for People Who Make Websites 2008.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for July 30

Rick Turoczy on July 30, 2008

Building the Web 2.0 enterprise – The McKinsey Global Survey Results are out

Via the Jama Software blog “Not surprising, companies are using more Web 2.0 tools and technologies now than they were last year. The latest survey results from The McKinsey Quarterly on “Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise” illustrate the growing investments in Web 2.0 technologies.”

Seattle VC opens Portland office, names local partner – Silicon Forest – The Oregonian – OregonLive.com

Mike Rogoway writes “Seattle VC firm Voyager Capital is moving its Hillsboro office to downtown Portland, and will name former Tektronix exec Diane Fraiman partner to run the office.”

Who will build the open source cloud?

Via The 451 Group blog “I wrote recently about the potential of open source software as a platform for cloud computing. Since then I’ve been involved in a couple of conversations with prospective cloud users that have further highlighted the opportunity for an open source cloud.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Enhance your monitor tan: Summer Coders’ Social

Rick Turoczy on July 30, 2008

It’s no secret that one of the best things about Portland is the summer weather. (Although the past few days have been working at doing a pretty job of keeping that secret.) It’s also no secret that the more technically inclined spend more time absorbing rays from their respective monitors than they do from that burning orb in the sky.

So, if you’re a coder and you need something enticing to draw you away from the dull glow of your favorite machine, look no further than the Summer Coders’ Social, a language and framework agnostic gathering of Portland’s coding community, this Sunday, August 3, at Laurelhurst Park.

The first Coders Social was last December, Winter Coders Social (photos). It was the result of many of the scripting language User Groups “Taking the month off” from their regular meetings and instead “having a party”. The event was a great success so we thought we would do something this summer. Coders Summer Social is the outdoor, sunny, successor of that winter event. The goal is a very casual, geek social event. BBQ, games, and conversation.

C’mon. That code will wait for a few more hours. Why not take a few minutes this Sunday to hang out with some other coders?

Sponsor Mozilla will provide hamburgers, hot dogs, and vegetarian BBQ fare. The rest? Potluck. You’re a coder. Go build something in the kitchen, too. Beverages are your responsibility, as well.

For more infor mation on the event, see the Summer Coders’ Social wiki. To RSVP, visit the Summer Coders’ Social on Upcoming.

Jive Software introduces Clearstep, an online community for social and Enterprise 2.0 folks

Rick Turoczy on July 30, 2008

Jive ClearstepPortland-based Jive Software has been a bit quiet as of late. Which is always a good sign that folks are up to something.

Part of that “something” was clearly their move to a new office space. And this morning, we discovered another part of that something in the form of a new offering, Clearstep:

Clearstep is the first of its kind online community, powered by Jive’s own Clearspace product, for social and enterprise 2.0 practitioners. Now these professionals have a place to interact, share best practices, and gain access to a much wider range of perspectives on common community and collaboration issues. Clearstep is intended for all social and enterprise 2.0-focused professionals, including Jive customers.

Gia Lyons, Jive’s Director of Social Enterprise Evangelism… Um. I’m sorry. Where was I? Oh yes, Gia Lyons describes Clearstep as the “best business hook-up hotspot”:

Ever wish you could find someone working on social media or Enterprise 2.0 efforts at other companies, same as you? Wish you could pick their brain about how the heck they justified the implementation cost? Found that elusive ROI? Tricks to get employees to use it? Best way to communicate your new online community to your brand fanbase?

The fringe benefits for Jive hosting the site are immediately evident. Not only do they get a bunch of leading social media specialists talking it up about enterprise adoption of social media in Jive’s backyard, they also get those experts having that conversation while using Jive’s product.

Which, aesthetically, I might add—thanks to the work of Michael Sigler and his design team (specifically Chris Kalani)—is one of the most beautiful corporate Web apps around.

Jive Clearstep

It’s an interesting experiment, to be sure. But the question for me remains: Do people involved in social media experts—especially those within the enterprise—like talking to one another as much as they like talking to non-expert social media types? That remains to be seen.

[Update] Gia Lyons was kind enough to stop by and clarify this point. The community is actually for everyone—not “experts” as I had incorrectly concluded. So this truly becomes a social network focused on social media, open to anyone who is interested in participating. Obviously, the community was seeded with experts because, well, I mean who else would you seed it with?

Interested in participating in the Clearstep community?

If you are someone interested in social media expert pursing that ever elusive “Enterprise 2.0” and Clearstep has sparked your interest, why not consider joining the community and giving it a test drive? Clearstep registration is currently open. Jive has done a great job of seeding the community, pre-launch, so that there is plenty of existing content in which you can root around.

For more information, see the Jive press release announcing Clearstep, Jive’s numbers, and recent hires.

Got lunch plans? Why not have “Lunch with a VC” today?

Rick Turoczy on July 30, 2008

Seems like Silicon Florist has lunch on the brain as of late. What with looking for Portland Lunch 2.0 hosts and hosting a Portland Lunch 2.0 in August. So, clearly, mentioning another lunch or two won’t hurt.

Okay, let’s do that.

If you don’t have any lunch plans today, you might want to take the opportunity to swing by CubeSpace at noon to have “Lunch with a VC.”

Come hang out with Epic Ventures to learn more about VC funding. Bring questions! We’ll have 45 min. of Q&A, then head out to lunch as a group.

Carolynn Duncan of Epic Ventures will host this first-of-many-to-come event as a way of introducing herself to the Portland startup and entrepreneurial community.

Can’t make the lunch? No worries. You can still get to know Carolynn by following her on Twitter or following her blog.

And lunch isn’t all she has in mind. There will be some other capital-related activities that she’ll be kicking off in the near future as well.

For more information or to RSVP, visit Upcoming.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for July 29

Rick Turoczy on July 29, 2008

Geospatial Networking on Ning

Via the BlinkGeo blog “Call it visionary if you will (or perhaps just a 5 minute online detour I took a while back), but I had forgotten that I had set up a Geospatial social network on Ning.”

Ma.gnolia: Welcome, New Linkers

Via the ma.gnolia blog “Every so often we take a look at some of the new people in the Ma.gnolia community in the past few months, and try to spot some good people for the Featured Linker space. We look for people with diverse interests, who we find interesting to follow and think you might as well. Some are geeky, some are the farthest thing from it, some are in-between, but they’re all interesting in their own right, and they’re all close by in our corner of the interwebs.”

OSCON in 37 minutes

Via the RailsEnvy blog “Last week at O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention (OSCON) I decided to put together a video attempting to capture the essence of the event (I did something similar with Railsconf in 36 minutes earlier this year). I ended up with is 37 minute video of great speakers including the keynoters Tim O’Reilly, Damien Conway, Tim Bray, Robert Lefkowitz, David Recordon, Nathan Torkington, and Danese Cooper. “

Get Excited, We’re Launching Things

Via the Intrigo blog “In case you’ve noticed that we’ve been a little light on the posts recently, it’s all because our great clients have been keeping us so busy. In fact, so busy we’ve got three big launches coming up in August! Here’s just enough to start whetting your appetite…”

Platial Nearby on the Front Page

From the Platial blog “Raven Zachary, man about town when it comes to all things iPhone, has his watchful eye on the iTunes App Store basically 24/7. He pinged us this morning with the delightful news that our app, Nearby, is making it’s debut right on the front page today.”

What Startups Can Learn From Haruki Murakami

Alex Iskold writes “The genius of Murakami is in his discipline, focus and determination. I see him as a virtual Zen master – an embodiment of wisdom, passion, skills and exceptional will. The elements of his work and life story are inspirational and (here’s where ReadWriteWeb comes in) particularly applicable when you’re running a startup. Therefore in this post, we take a look at what modern technology startups can learn from this Japanese literary master.”

OpenID gets the third degree at OSCON

Is OpenID a panacea, a placebo, or something in between? Opposing viewpoints took turns on center stage Wednesday afternoon at OSCON 2008. The session entitled “A Critical View of OpenID” started off as anything but critical, but once the audience got its turn to raise questions, things got more interesting.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

No such a thing as free lunch? There will be when Silicon Florist hosts Portland Lunch 2.0

Rick Turoczy on July 29, 2008

After all of this posting about Portland Lunch 2.0 and attending Portland Lunch 2.0 and acquiring Portland Lunch 2.0, it seemed only proper that I actually put my money where my mouth is. So I thought it might be nice if I actually took the dive and hosted a Portland Lunch 2.0.

And I would really, truly be honored if you had a few moments to attend.

I’m planning to hold it August 13. And CubeSpace has been kind of enough to offer up space for the event.

I’m really hoping you can make it.

Do I sound desperate? Good. Because I am.

Rest assured, I’ve got a couple of other things up my sleeve. So, hopefully, there will be a free lunch and a little bit more.

But in any case, it would be really nice to see you. I mean, we’ve been so busy this summer. And I want to make sure that you’re doing okay. Oh, and I want to have you meet some of the other folks who make Portland such a cool place for startups.

Silicon Florist turns one

One other thing? Holding this event in August is kind of special to me, because one year ago this August, I woke up at 2 AM, registered a surprisingly available URL, and started Silicon Florist.

So, this is a celebration of sorts. An anniversary. Or a birthday. Or whatever you want to call it.

It would be great to see you on August 13. Please take a moment to save the date by RSVPing on Upcoming for this get together. And soon, there will be more exciting news about what’s happening. Maybe.

Tell your friends. Everyone is welcome. Techie or not.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

P.S. If you’re a Web-based, Web-oriented, or Mobile-based startup in the Silicon Forest—whether I’ve had the opportunity to cover you or not—why not take a few moments to send a logo to siliconflorist at gmail? I’d like to see if we can’t work on getting your name out there at this event.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for July 28

Rick Turoczy on July 28, 2008

Drew is a Strander

Via the Strands blog “Drew [Olanoff] is joining Strands as Community Manager / Evangelist, his job is to increase the number of Strands enthusiasts and to spread Strands awesomeness. Easy.”

Open Community Wiki

Audrey Eschright writes “One of the things I realized during OSCON was that I had yet to see a central place to point people to for info on running user groups and tech events, that wasn’t specific to a particular place or technology. There are sites on how to start an Apple User Group, and for Portland we’ve gathered notes on our local tech scene, but we could use something a little broader. The Open Community wiki is a stab at addressing this.”

Cre8Camp Portland Beats iPhone’s Twitter Buzz

Amber Case writes “What’s creative and groundbreaking, and capable of topping iPhone buzz on Twitter? It’s Cre8Camp, the inaugural unconference that brought 50 creatives to SOUK, [last] Saturday. Within the first hour of introduction and networking, about 24 topics were developed for discussion, and groups of creatives went off to various conferences rooms and hallways to delve into some of the most intense dilemmas, new media techniques, and social prerogatives that currently exist.”

Venture Financing with Charitable Contributions

Steve Morris writes “Portland is no Cleveland — but it might need a little “goosing”, and the Jumpstart approach might be an interesting fit for the creative and sometimes vc-resistant tech culture in Portland. Your thoughts?”

What will it take to get OpenID adopters to be relying parties?

Greg Hughes writes “Over on the Internet Evolution site I recently wrote an article discussing the fact that MySpace is becoming an OpenID provider. Of note is the fact that they will be provider-only, and not a relying party, at least initially. This is a trend we’ve seen with other big companies like Yahoo!, and many of us are not-too-patiently waiting for these companies to start trusting and relying upon other organizations, so the utopia of user-controlled Internet single-sign-on can become a reality.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Reminder: Mobile Portland on the iPhone App Store

Rick Turoczy on July 28, 2008

iPhoneEveryone is still all gaga over the newest release of the Apple iPhone 3G. We can’t seem to stop talking about it.

And while 3G battery life seems to be the biggest complaint, the biggest win—without a doubt—has been the release of iPhone Apps and the Apple App Store.

And tonight at Mobile Portland, long-time Apple proponent and founding organizer of iPhoneDevCamp, Raven Zachary, will be discussing the “iPhone App Store Opportunity,” providing his insights into this new vehicle for interacting with the Apple platform and its users:

In his talk, Raven will provide a basic overview of the process of developing and distributing software for the iPhone and iPod touch, and share some key findings and metrics gathered in the two weeks since the launch of the App Store. What does the App Store mean for third party mobile developers?

The event will be held at the AboutUs offices in Portland’s Olympic Mills Commerce Center, 107 SE Washington St., Suite 520. Things get started around 6:00 PM.

For more information on the event or to RSVP, visit Mobile Portland on Upcoming. For more on the organization behind these events, visit Mobile Portland.

 

 

Versionista: Track changes for any Web page, wiki-highlight style

Rick Turoczy on July 28, 2008

Sometimes, I get scooped. I admit it. I’m not always on the “breaking news” ball. This is one of those occasions.

A few weeks back, I saw news on Versionista, a tool that allows you to track the changes that occur on publicly accessible Web pages. It seems that the McCain camp had used the product to track changes on the Obama site:

The McCain campaign web site recently published a link to a Versionista comparison that shows changes to Obama’s web page about the Iraq war. The link, which is captioned “Obama Refines His Iraq Page”, is posted alongside other links which point to off-site articles written by various political commentators who are critical of Obama. The aim is obviously to generate the perception that Obama’s position on the war is inconsistent.

While the technology was exceptionally cool—much like change trackers I used to use back in the dotcom days—there was one thing that piqued my interest even more than the technology. Versionista is from Portland, Oregon.

Versionista was inspired by the highlighting that occurs when wiki pages are edited:

A side-by-side comparison and multiple other views let you see “before and after” versions of every monitored page. We highlight what text has been added, deleted, or moved. Versionista will keep up to 25 versions per page. You can “rollback” in time to see older versions.

The Versionista service allows you to test drive the system with two URLs. Or you can subscribe to begin tracking multiple URLs.

The pricing is aggressive for hobbyists—the lowest-level subscription runs about $200 a year for 30 URLs—but for professionals who desperately need this type of “what changed when” functionality on a limited basis, the pricing shouldn’t be too terribly oppressive. Power users can track up to 2,500 URLs for $6,000 a year.

So what about exploiting the service? I knew you’d think about that, because you’re a smart cookie.

Versionista is pretty clear about what you can and can’t do in their EULA (which, incidentally, is the second URL I’m currently tracking, in addition to the Silicon Florist URL):

YOU MAY NOT USE SOFTWARE PRODUCT TO STEAL OTHERS’ COPYRIGHTS OR TRADEMARKS…. YOU MAY NOT USE SOFTWARE PRODUCT TO SPIDER OR CRAWL GOOGLE ADWORDS, OVERTURE LISTINGS, OR OTHER PAY-PER-CLICK OR SIMILAR SERVICES FOR THE PURPOSE OF DEFRAUDING THEIR SYSTEM.

I know a number of breaking-news bloggers who have been begging for a service like this. You may be in the same boat. Given that you’re allowed to track two URLs for free, I’d suggest you try it out. And when you do, I’d love to hear how it works for you.

1 … 550 551 552 553 554 … 610
×