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Sidecar: Ridiculously easy feedback widget for products, blogs

Rick Turoczy on April 2, 2008

[HTML1]A couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to get a glimpse of Sidecar, a new widget from Portland-based widget wizards StepChange Group. The product is currently running in a small private beta with a couple of other Portland-based companies, Sandy and one other.

Sidecar, at its very most basic, is a simple survey widget. It was developed—with product managers in mind—as a way to make it easy for developers to embed surveys and feedback mechanisms within the interface of the Web-based apps they’re developing. The widget was specifically targeted at gathering feedback during the oft-cryptic and hectic “beta testing” cycle that every product experiences.

But, as we walked through the demo, I immediately saw the opportunity for it to do more. Much more.

I couldn’t help but think of all of its potential as a feedback mechanism, a means of managing context sensitive help, a supplemental page-ranking system (think “contextual Digg“), and—last but not least—the means for you (yes, you!) to truly engage in conversations with your users in a format that is easy for them and valuable for you.

That’s a lot to cram into a little widget. But I’m definitely seeing the potential. Even in this beta version.

So of course I piped up with, “You know, I could really see this being useful on my blog. Or any blog for that matter. Blogs get feedback via comments. But that’s post-by-post feedback. I could really use this to assess the impact of Silicon Florist, as a whole.”

So, I continued to beg and plead. (I could almost hear the engineering team cursing me.) And luckily, I was invited to the private beta. Then I saw Greg Rau’s presentation at Startupalooza, and I was convinced that I better get this thing deployed sooner rather than later. So, now, you can see the Sidecar widget running right now, over at the top of the Silicon Florist sidebar.

Feel free to bang on it.

Click to see the Sidecar admin screen fullsizeSidecar is simple. Ridiculously so. And that’s the best compliment I can give it. It took me less than five minutes to build that Silicon Florist widget—and that was with the not-ready-for-prime-time admin panel. The same thoughtful simplicity that informed the design of the widget interface clearly permeates the widget configuration tools, as well. (I’ve provided a screenshot of the beta admin screen for reference.)

There are a bevy of reports and dashboards, as well: feedback, pages, users, and widget-use metrics. But I can’t say much about those until there is actually some data from the widget.

The only downside to Sidecar, at this point, is the installation, which is still a bit geeky. Not overly geeky mind you, but it requires mucking with code. And while that will have little to no impact on the Web-app developer adoption, it may curtail adoption with a broader market. I’ll be interested to see how StepChange puts its simplicity-smarts into making the widget installation (WordPress widget or plugin, for example) as simple as widget creation and management.

I don’t have any word as to when the Sidecar beta goes from private to public beta, but I will be continuing to provide feedback to the StepChange team on issues I encounter and the features I would like to see. If you’d like to chime in, you have two ways: commenting on this post or, preferably, using the widget (hint, hint).

For more information on the widget, visit Sidecar. For more on the people behind Sidecar, visit StepChange.[

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for April 2, 2008

Rick Turoczy on April 1, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

VC funding for open source hits an all-time high

I don’t know about you, but I tend to think of Portland as an Open Source Mecca, of sorts. If you’re of the same mind, this can only bode well for us.

Wiki (Birthday) Wednesday

It’s an extra-special Wiki Wednesday at AboutUs this week, marking the birth of the Wiki. And I mean, really. What better way to celebrate the birth of the Wiki than with its father, Ward Cunningham?

Reality check

Not that this is Portland-based, but hey, sometimes I need to provide context. And that’s what this is. An extremely interesting comment on the state of Web 2.0. It’s a rather sobering reminder about the actual “saturation point” of the tools in which we tend to live on a daily basis. This is New York. And it’s youngins in New York, at that. Still a lot of folks out there who could become your “target market,” startups.

Announcing Ruby on Crack

This April Fools’ post was included purely for the RailsConf 2008 reference. Yes, RailsConf is a Portland event, you silly goose. For those of you with delicate sensibilities, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along.

Sneak peak at new Jive video

Portland-based Jive Software has got some stuff simmering on the stove and cooking in the oven. But they’re going to give you a little taste of what’s in store. Sam Lawrence writes “I’ve seen the thing so many times now I may have convinced myself it makes sense so let me know what you think it means before you get the context of the rest of our new site. Love to hear your ideas.”

Startupalooza Photos

Aaron Hockley writes “Shooting Startupalooza on Saturday was a lot of fun, it was a great group of people in an environment with a lot of creative and positive energy. I love shooting events, from small gatherings to crowds of hundreds or thousands. I posted over 140 shots on Flickr, and here are a few shots that are representative of the event.”

InnoTech Oregon: Rollercoaster Ride

Sean Lowery writes “Producing an event of this size is like planning for the Superbowl or a giant wedding. You plan for six months and hope someone shows up. We expect close to 2000 people for InnoTech this year. Right now we have 500 people registered.”

Portlanteau: PDX, a Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That

Nate Angell writes “And so I present a term that describes this wordly phenomenon: portlanteau, n. a portmanteau word that links the name of the city of Portland, Oregon to another word or concept.”

Startup Weekend Legal Issues

Steve Morris writes “I had wondered how the Startup Weekend process dealt with ownership issues — but apparently the SEC is the real problem. There’s a Startup Weekend project scheduled for Portland May 23-25.”

OEN PubTalk™: Reducing Startup Risk

(Full disclosure: I used to work for Dave Moffenbeier and I continue to do work for Pete Grillo. And what’s more, Pete has some folks working for him who used to work for Dave… Still, this sounds interesting.) Serena Regazzoni writes “OEN has put together a great panel of entrepreneurs who will discuss these risks as a way to help guide entrepreneurs towards minimizing each one, and maximizing their rewards. The panel will include three successful serial entrepreneurs: Kanth Gopalpur, CEO Monsoon Inc, David Moffenbeier, Co-founder/COO, Absorbent Technologies and Pete Grillo, Founder/CEO Iterasi.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Vidoop secures Michael Richardson

Rick Turoczy on April 1, 2008

The recently founded Portland Vidoop office, headed up by Scott Kveton, continues to make waves in the local tech startup scene. This time, Vidoop has announced that local Reed-schooled Python-magician Michael Richardson has signed on as part of the Portland team.

You may know Richardson as the coding muscle behind such hits as “Pulse of PDX” and “Tweetpeek.” He’s also a regular at Portland’s weekly Beer and Blog gatherings. And just an all-around scary-intelligent coding type.

According to the Vidoop blog:

Michael will be a software developer in the ever-growing Portland office working on OpenID, distributed social networking and other “open web” related initiatives.

For more on Richardson, read the Vidoop post announcing his hiring. For more information on Vidoop and its technology, visit Vidoop.

Grabb.it redesigns, incorporates personal MP3 tumblogs

Rick Turoczy on April 1, 2008

Portland-based Grabb.it, the service which has the potential to help catalog Web-based MP3s for music lovers everywhere, picked a rather inauspicious date to release a new version of the Grabb.it site. But they’re not fooling around.

The new site now enables anyone to create tumblog posts based on the MP3s they grab.

Grabb.it is the group music blog where anyone can contribute. Sign up to create your own personal mp3 blog about songs you love and to send your posts to services like Tumblr, Blogger and Facebook.

This new feature holds promise, both as a way of allowing users to easily create reviews of the tunes in their respective libraries and—hopefully—as a means of increasing the reach and promotion of the Grabb.it service to active tumblog and Facebook types.

What’s a “tumblog“? I’m glad you asked. According to Wikipedia:

A tumblelog (or tlog) is a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, tumblelogs are frequently used to share the author’s creations, discoveries, or experiences while providing little or no commentary.

Other noticeable changes to the Grabb.it site include a highly simplified UI and a very slick, intelligent bread-crumb trail.

For more on the MP3-finding service and its new tumblogging capabilities, visit Grabb.it.

Portland Web Innovators: Five reason to attend

Rick Turoczy on April 1, 2008

[Editor: Given the wealth of cool events happening in Portland on any given night, I thought it might be beneficial to have the people who drive these get-togethers give you their take on the events. “Why should you attend [whatever]?” So, with that, I introduce a new Silicon Florist series: Five Reasons]

Portland Web Innovators

Adam DuVander gives us five reasons we should all consider attending Portland Web Innovators.

  • You enjoy topics that are a mixture of tech, design, and business.
  • You like to learn about new projects and find collaborators
  • You love building on the web, no matter what your job title is or what technology you use.
  • You think about what can happen tomorrow, not what can’t happen today
  • You want to learn from a live collaborative discussion between passionate people.

Sound like you? Well you’re in luck. Because the next Portland Web Innovators get-together is this week, Tuesday (April Fools’!) Wednesday, April 2 at ISITE Design beginning at 7 PM. Entitled “Publishing Platform Wars!” the gathering will provide the opportunity to join the pdxwi types—the real users of these publishing systems—as they compare site publishing tools like Drupal, Bend-based ExpressionEngine, and WordPress.

To RSVP, visit Portland Web Innovators on Upcoming. For more information, visit (the spiffy new!) Portland Web Innovators.

InnoTech Oregon 2008: Too much good stuff

Rick Turoczy on April 1, 2008

InnoTechI’ve been watching the InnoTech Oregon Conference grow into its own over the past five years. And while I was always close to attending (I think I may have even registered, last year), I never quite found the time to make it.

This year, I’m making time to attend.

I’ve always found InnoTech interesting because of its variety. Traditional business and cutting-edge technology. Green tech and CIOs. Non-profits and eMarketing. To me, it has the opportunity to be one of the few annual tech events that truly helps start and continue conversations among the different groups that work and live in Portland and the surrounding areas. Be those groups factions of the same business or complementary businesses working together.

In fact, there’s so much happening at the conference, I’m going to have to break it into multiple blog posts.

But I wanted to start with this. The folks at InnoTech have offered a 25% discount to all of you Silicon Florist readers. So, if you’re considering attending, please take advantage of it:

Discounted InnoTech Oregon Conference & Exhibits Pass includes Breakfast Presentation with Don Tapscott, Author, WIKINOMICS, at the reduced rate of $45.00 per person ($60.00 per person standard price.) Click to select INNOTECH GENERAL REGISTRATION and enter Discount Code SIL45D to confirm your place at the breakfast.

There is literally a busload of interesting speakers at this thing. But I wanted to highlight some of the Silicon Forest startup types, especially, like:

Look for more information from me as we get closer to the actual event. But if this post has piqued your curiosity, please take advantage of the “SIL45D” discount code at registration.

For more information, visit InnoTech Oregon.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for April 1, 2008

Rick Turoczy on March 31, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

April Fool

Platial’s Tracy Rolling writes “April Fool’s Day is my favorite holiday after Halloween. Get inspired for your own pranks by reading up on those perpetrated in the past on the Hoaxes Map.”

PDX RE Blogger Recap

Ron Ares writes “Some of the Portland real estate blogging community met Friday night for a little chat, note sharing, and some brewskis. Nice people, nice time. Thanks to Joel Burslem for organizing and all of you that attended.”

Portland Creative/Tech Event Reviews

I may have just found that elusive “event correspondent” I’ve been seeking in Bram Pitoyo.

Can we fool you?

Vimeo is running an April Fool’s Day contest. Maybe. “We, the Staff, collectively challenge you all to a treasure hunt of sorts. Somewhere in the dungeons of Vimeo, perhaps where you least expect it, perhaps closer than you could ever imagine, lies a quirky little April Fools tweak to the site. We challenge you…. no, we double-dog dare you to find it. Those who do, will win 500mb extra storage a week. Those who do not, will be banned from Vimeo FOREVER!”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

GoLife Mobile: Chatting with James Whitley, CEO (Part 2)

Rick Turoczy on March 31, 2008

Last week, I published the first part of my interview with GoLife Mobile’s CEO, James Whitley. That post focused on the discussions of the GoLife Mobile Vadowerx framework. Now, I’d like to touch on our discussions about Portland, it’s culture, and the potential it holds to become something extraordinary.

(As an aside, it was a pleasant surprise to run into James at Startupalooza. “Where’s part 2?” he asked. Right here, Mr. Whitley. Right here.)

Portland as a venue for startups

I’m always interested to get anyone’s take on Portland. But it’s especially interesting talking to people who are running businesses here. They often have a multitude of things that they love about Portland, but there are still those little perturbing issues that keep the environment from seeming “too perfect.”

Luckily, those perturbing issues are generally issues that are surmountable. That’s why I’m always happy to help people get those issues out on the table.

Whitley did.

And as I began to question him on his reasons—“Why Portland?”, “What does this area offer?”, and the like—his affection for the area was palpable. And his deep ties in the region only further that affection.

But what I got most from Whitley was not his impressions of the past—it was his enthusiasm for the potential here in Portland, for today and for the future.

“I would put the talent in this town up against talent anywhere else,” said Whitley. “The Valley, Back East, anywhere. The people here are exceptional.”

And, in Whitley’s opinion, that talent is not in limited supply.

“There is a ton of talent here in the Portland area,” he said. “I am always talking to people with whom I would like to work. I don’t think many people realize the sheer wealth of talent we have here.”

So, if we’re so talented, I asked, egotistically and presumptuously lumping myself in with the “exceptional talent” here in the Portland area, why aren’t we seeing more growth? Why aren’t we seeing more startups taking root?

And that’s when we get to those problems. Those issues that are holding Portland back from achieving its extraordinary position. Those problems that we have the opportunity to fix.

“Portland has a problem with being a classic underachiever,” said Whitley. “So much talent. So much promise. But we’re not capitalizing on it.”

In staunch agreement, I asked for further details.

“We’re always hearing how we’re ‘not as good as whomever,'” he continued. “And unfortunately, I think many people have begun to believe that. I don’t. But I think some people do.”

And in Whitley’s opinion, that stance is only exacerbated by another problem: finding sources of funding.

While a number of Silicon Forest startups have seen continued confidence in follow-on funding as of late—MyStrands, Jive, iovation, and SplashCast, to name a few—the prospect of early funding remains a bit of an enigma for Portland companies.

“Portland is lacking is terms of early startup funding,” Whitley said. “There really isn’t a good network for seeding smaller companies, at this point. We could use some people working to fix that because it would really help the town as a whole.”

And that lack of early stage funding, coupled with the underachiever mindset, is tending to suppress the vigor that is bubbling just below the surface. Tends to prevent us here in the Silicon Forest from realizing our potential.

“There are a number of incredibly intelligent people working jobs that aren’t even intellectually stimulating, let alone challenging,” said Whitley. “Simply because they haven’t found the opportunity and funding to pursue their passion.”

I’m sure Whitley would agree, that we’re on the cusp of something big.

No doubt, GoLife Mobile and Whitley could have a very big role to play in that growth and success. And our realizing the potential of the talent in this area.

I’m looking forward to being part of that change.

Experiencing technical difficulties

Rick Turoczy on March 31, 2008

While I’d love to claim that excessive amounts of traffic are causing my site to flicker, honestly that isn’t the case.

My host has been experiencing intermittent outages. I apologize for the inconvenience and I appreciate your patience. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved soon, so that I can proceed with switching hosts, where I have a reliable box all ready and waiting.

Interesting Silicon Forest gigs this week

Rick Turoczy on March 31, 2008

The Silicon Florist Gig board has started to, well, blossom. And I’m getting some good feedback for improvements, already.

Here are some interesting gigs that have been posted:

  • Rails Developer at Planet Argon
    “Enthusiasm for the web as a medium of communication and interaction is key. Ideal candidates should also honor best practices such as healthy dialogue, refactoring, TDD/BDD, and version control.”
  • Interactive Strategist at Wieden + Kennedy
    “The Strategist will be expected to lead projects that may include brand activation, immersive brand experiences and innovative applications of technology to provide solutions for our clients’ business challenges.”
  • Software Engineer at Jive Software
    “Our challenge is finding someone who has some experience with Java and development, but who also enjoys interacting with customers to understand the technical challenges they face and how to make our products work with their systems. This isn’t a customer-service or sales role, but calls for someone who is interested in coding, learning our systems and growing into more senior roles with a growing company.”
  • QA Engineer at Tripwire
    “We need a Software QA engineer to be a key contributor on our team testing the market leading IT configuration audit and control software tool-set. You will exercise the software with the goal of identifying potential problems early in the software development life-cycle and assist in all aspects of the testing and quality assurance process.”
  • Web Developer at WeoGeo
    “Our applications use Ruby on Rails on the server side and JavaScript/Ajax on the front end. Ideally you already have strong skills and experience in both of these areas so you can get up to speed quickly.”
  • Web Application Developer at Intrigo
    “Intrigo makes web applications nearly exclusively. Over half of our client base is made up of startup companies so you’ll be working on some of the more innovative and interesting projects out there. We are continually testing the limits of standard web technologies and we push them in interesting ways.”

For the entire list of jobs, visit the Silicon Florist Gig board. Interested in posting an open position? It’s only $50 for a two-week posting.

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