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UrbanDrinks improves profile pages

Rick Turoczy on August 12, 2007

Web applications are designed to solve problems. And when you live in a town like Portland—where there are reportedly more bars per capita than any other town in the nation—then finding a happy hour is a problem.

Well, there are a number of folks in town trying to solve that problem.

One of the teams taking on that challenge, UrbanDrinks, has recently announced an upgrade to its profile pages. And they promise more to come, including adding “social network” features you’ve come to expect.

UrbanDrinks.com is the work of a small group of friends who have made it their mission to provide you with the most up-to-date happy hour information.

Related Portland sites: Unthirsty

(Hat tip to PDX Pipeline)

Viva la Platial

Rick Turoczy on August 10, 2007

Heading to Mexico in the next few weeks? If not, need an excuse?

The Platial team has left Portland, en masse, with plans to do some thinking, building, and learning in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, you’ve been invited to drop by.

We scored a fantastic house in San Miguel from friends from which to start this experiment. It’s hard to tell if your indoors or outdoors in every room of the house. Fountains, tilework and patios abound. The experiment goes something like this; If we are building a global resource doesn’t it make sense to be untethered and actively collaborate with developers, artists, thinkers and users around the world? The challenge is to do this cheaply, effectively and with visible advancement and development.

Platial enables anyone to find, create and use meaningful maps of Places that matter to them. It was created with the hope of connecting people, neighborhoods, cities and countries through a citizen-driven common context that goes beyond geopolitical boundaries.

Consider San Miguel officially connected.

Jive Software unveils “Adopt a Customer” program

Rick Turoczy on August 10, 2007

As part of an effort to better understand and interact with its customer base, the folks at Jive Software have implemented an “Adopt a Customer” program.

The idea is that one of the best ways to get great reference customers is to have each member of the management team “adopt” a customer. This means they have to visit them, listen to their needs, help plan their rollout, understand the metrics they’re tracking, and basically act as a free implementation consultant to guide them towards a successful rollout. In return, we learn about what it takes to make our product successful at a ground level, and hopefully we get a solid case study.

Jive Software develops award-winning collaboration software that improves a company’s productivity through open collaboration among employees, partners and customers. In addition, they have become quite the corporate citizens, actively volunteering to host a number of local events, including a recent impromptu gathering when Scoble was in town.

StepChange hints at new widget under development

Rick Turoczy on August 10, 2007

Nothing to see here. Yet. But, StepChange has announced that they have a new widget under development that should be available within the next few weeks.

Speaking of, we’ve got a widget coming out that we built in conjunction with Offermatica in a few weeks. Check out CLIQin if you want to get on the beta list.

StepChange is a product strategy, design and development firm, based in Portland, that helps companies “leverage the latest market engagement strategies and internet technologies to create new products and growth opportunities. “

SplashCast adds email notifications

Rick Turoczy on August 10, 2007

Fresh on the heels of its NPR Podcast player for Facebook, SplashCast has announced the addition of email notifications to its interface. This new feature simplifies the cut-and-paste-a-link process by allowing SplashCast publishers to quickly and easily notify friends about updated content–without leaving the SplashCast application.

For more information on this feature, watch the SplashCast support channel entry, below.

http://web.splashcast.net/go/so/1/c/GDKJ3095GI

Add SplashCast Support Channel to your page

The SplashCast service enables anyone to create streaming media ‘channels’ that mix together video, music, photos, narration, text, as well as RSS feeds, PowerPoint presentations and PDF documents. These user-generated channels can be played and easily syndicated on any web site, blog, or social network page. When channel owners modify their channel, their content is automatically updated across all the web pages ‘tuned’ to that channel.

PDX PHP OSCON 2007 Recap

Rick Turoczy on August 10, 2007

OSCON 2007 is nothing but a fond memory. Almost.

For those that attended and want to participate in a post mortem on the event, the PDX PHP group is hosting an OSCON 2007 recap at CubeSpace on August 14.

As many of you know PDXPHP had a booth at OSCON. We met lots of interesting folks and learned about many intriguing projects. Come down to our August meeting and share what you learned at OSCON or learn what was shared at OSCON.

The Portland PHP Users Group is a community forum for people to share, meet and learn about PHP and Open Source technologies. The group strives to be a valuable resource for anyone interested in PHP regardless of their skill level or background. Through sharing and communication we believe we can foster a creative and successful community of PHP developers.

Matt Beck named to Shopify Advisory Council

Rick Turoczy on August 9, 2007

Recent changes in the Shopify pricing structure have had unfortunate effects on a number Portland-area developers. And some of them, like Matt Beck of CouldBe Studios, are letting the Shopify team hear about it.

Beck voiced his displeasure on the What Could Be blog, highlighting the problems with the way that Ottawa-based JadedPixel, makers of Shopify, handled the pricing change.

The problem we had with the situation was not the new rates which are actually quite reasonable, but that the change was carried out in secrecy, which left us in a potentially sticky spot as we had bids out to potential clients which were based on their old pricing model, and even worse projects currently being developed that had their pricing model changed! How were we supposed to handle that? We’d quoted people based on their old pricing model, started working on the site and then had it change mid-way through.

No good deed goes unpunished. So, with his thoughtful comments, Beck has been rewarded with a position on the newly formed Shopify Advisory Council.

The Council is made up of a handful of Shopify users who are particularly passionate and active in the forums, and we will be bouncing ideas off of them concerning both how we communicate changes to our users and specific strategies for improving Shopify in general. This means that the Shopify team will be able to get user feedback on things before they are quite ready to be announced publicly, and we’ll then be able to balance our priorities and adjust our efforts accordingly.

Portland Web Innovators discuss OpenID, September 5

Rick Turoczy on August 9, 2007

Portland Web Innovators has just announced the topic for their September get together, “Digital Identity and OpenID.”

Hosted at Jive Software, the event will feature Scott Kveton.

Digital identity promoter Scott Kveton will talk about his experience with OpenID and the future of digital identity on the web. He worked at JanRain (creators of MyOpenID) as CEO and helped it reach Business 2.0’s list of Startups to Watch. Now Scott consults and speaks on identity and open source.

To RSVP, visit Upcoming. For more information on Portland Web Innovators, see the PDXWI site.

Ultimate Blogger 3 from Urban Honking

Rick Turoczy on August 9, 2007

Local collective blog, Urban Honking, has announced that it is now accepting applications for Ultimate Blogger 3.

Applications are now being accepted! You have until August 30th to apply and the application process is very easy: Shoot a video of introducing yourself and telling us what qualities you have that will make you the winner of Ultimate Blogger. Tell us about where you’re from, what you do, and what makes you the best contestant. Then upload your video to Vimeo.com and add the tag “UB3app“. We’re looking for bloggers who are willing to take the competition even deeper than the amazing performances of last season’s game. We’re looking for the BEST BLOGGERS IN THE WORLD! Ultimate Blogger 3 is going to be bigger, faster paced, and more popular than last season.

Think you’re made of the right stuff? Get to applying.

Urban Honking is a collection of blogs with more than 50 bloggers providing content. In the words of Urban Honking, “It feels like a real community of creative people. “

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