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Tag: Portland

Ignite Portland 5: And the presenters are…

Rick Turoczy on January 30, 2009

Ignite Portland

Ooh. We’re getting close now. The Ignite Portland team just announced the lucky people who get to deliver presentations for Ignite Portland 5.

So who gets to spend a nerve-wracking and seemingly interminable five minutes on stage? Here are our latest victims presenters:

Now is also a good time to remind you that tickets will be going “on sale” on February 5.

Congratulations to all those selected! I’m looking forward to seeing you on stage, dazzling 500+ of your closest friends with your burning ideas.

Versionista exposes wiki-like views of edits for any site

Rick Turoczy on January 26, 2009

You may remember Portland-based Versionista from last year, when they stepped into the limelight as the McCain camp used the tool to highlight recent changes to the Obama campaign site.

Now, they’re allowing Web site owners to expose those changes, themselves, with a new service that provides the date of the last change and highlights the content that has been revised.

This feature is particularly useful for Webmasters who wish to offer full edit transparency to viewers. By inserting a simple JavaScript snippet, any tracked Web page will automatically include the date of the last edit, and a link to the revision history of that document.

Here’s an example using Silicon Florist’s recent changes.

It seems appropriate that the town known for its wikis—and home to the father of the wiki, Ward Cunningham—is home to a service inspired by the wiki view of recent changes. Even if you don’t let your readers edit your site, it’s always nice to let them know what you’ve changed.

To test drive this feature or to add it to your site, visit Versionista.

Beer and Blog says “Konnichiwa!” to Tokyo and “Hello!” to Houston and Phoenix

Rick Turoczy on January 24, 2009

Beer and BlogBeer and Blog, the weekly Portland get-together started by Justin Kistner, was been growing by leaps and bounds.

What kinds of leaps and bounds? I’m glad you asked.

Currently there is Beer and Blog Portland, Beer and Blog Corvallis, Beer and Blog Eugene, Beer and Blog St Louis, and Beer and Blog Las Vegas.

But does it stop there? Oh no, my friend. Not by a long shot.

Tonight on Strange Love Live, Justin announced the launch of Beer and Blog chapters in Houston, Phoenix, and—with its first international chapter—Tokyo.

Sniff sniff. Our little Beer and Blog is all growed up.

Congratulations to Justin, his Portland-based team, and all of the chapter leads! It’s great to see something that has so strengthened the Portland tech community getting the chance to work its magic in other towns.

OpenID curious? Portland contingent on RWW Live can help

Rick Turoczy on January 19, 2009

OpenIDI like to proffer that Portland, Oregon, is the hub of OpenID (whether it’s true or not). That’s why I love days like today that only add credence to my assertion.

Today, RWW Live—the podcast for ReadWriteWeb—will be focused on OpenID. As such, it will be pulling in a whole bunch of Portland connections to participate.

But just how much Portland-associated influence will there be on the show? Well, we’re lucky to have some of the heavy hitters from the world of OpenID—and Portland—in attendance. Brian Kissel of Portland-based JanRain, Scott Kveton of Portland-based Vidoop, Chris “@factoryjoe” Messina of Vidoop (who doesn’t live in Portland, but thankfully, travels up here on a regular basis), and David Recordon of Six Apart (who is originally from Portland). And, of course, Marshall Kirkpatrick, who heads up ReadWriteWeb content development, is a Portland resident, as well.

That’s a lot of Portland. And a lot of OpenID knowledge.

Today, the group will be discussing ideas for increasing adoption of OpenID, plans for the OpenID Foundation, and opinions on Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect. If there’s a topic you’d like to propose, visit the RWW Live post to offer it as potential discussion point or throw it out in the chat room during the call.

Speaking of chat rooms… it would probably be wise to tell you how to participate:

The show will be broadcast LIVE at 3.30pm PST Monday (6.30pm EST). We invite you to tune in and interact with us via the chat, by clicking here. You can also use the Calliflower Facebook app to listen and participate.

Can’t make the show? No worries. RWW Live is a podcast, after all. You can always listen to the discussion by heading over to ReadWriteTalk, the archive of all ReadWriteWeb podcasts.

So whether you’re saying “Open wha…?”, a staunch OpenID proponent, or an OpenID opponent, it would be well worth your time to swing by the podcast and hear these knowledgeable folks talk about the future of managing your identity on the Web.

REMINDER: Portland SXSW Interactive meetup tonight

Rick Turoczy on January 19, 2009

SXSW InteractiveJust a quick reminder that if you’re from the Portland area and you’re going to SXSW Interactive 2009, thinking about going to SXSW, or should be going to SXSW (you know who you are), then tonight would be a great opportunity to meet up with some folks of a similar ilk.

That’s right. I said “ilk.”

Surely, we can eclipse San Francisco’s paltry attendance of 250 people, can’t we?

What’s that? Oh. I see.

Well, in any case, come on out tonight! The get-together will be held at the Fez Ballroom, starting at 6. For more information, see Calagator. To RSVP, send an email to interpress@sxsw.com with “Portland” in the subject. As in “Portland is awesome,” “Portland r0xx0rs,” or “RSVP Portland meetup.”

Still on the fence? Maybe this will help:

Also, one lucky attendee at the Portland party will win a FREE registration to the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival. Bring your business card so you can enter the drawing!

It will be great to see what kind of Portland contingent is headed down to the event. And it’s never too early for us to strategize about who’s going to save seats at Iron Works and Las Manitas.

Looking forward to seeing you tonight.

REMINDER: Inaugural WordPress Portland User Group tonight at 6 PM

Rick Turoczy on January 15, 2009

WordPressJust a quick reminder that if you’re a fan of WordPress—and I know you are—you’ll want to make it to the first official gathering of the WordPress Portland User Group.

Enter Portland WordPress User Group, a new event designed to help newbies get the help they need, to ensure power users get more powerful, and to generally forge a stronger community among the WordPress types here in town.

The meeting will be held tonight at CubeSpace starting at 6 PM. For more information or to RSVP, visit Upcoming.

TwitterLocal: It’s back… and now it’s all AIR all the time

Rick Turoczy on January 13, 2009

Remember TwitterLocal ne TwitterWhere? That great site that allowed you to access a stream of tweets based on where people lived? And that provided a list of the 30 most Twitter-savvy cities?

Well, when Twitter changed their API rules to survive the summer of FAIL whale, it crippled the service. And, as such, we’ve been scrapping and scraping to find resources that allow us to find local folks.

TwitterLocal is back—as an Adobe AIR application. Feel free to download the brand spanking new version and get to searching.

TwitterLocal

Never let anyone say that Matt King won’t find a better way.

Since Twitter cut off their Jabber feed from TwitterLocal, we had to rely purely on the XML API, which meant that only about 20% of Tweets from the public timeline got into TwitterLocal. Now that Twitter has a location-based search API, we don’t have to cache the posts anymore. So now, TwitterLocal is going to be purely an Adobe AIR based application that allows you to filter Tweets by location.

With the new Air app, TwitterLocal supports regional searches with various radii. And it supports multiple tabs—so that you can watch a number of different regions at the same time.

TwitterLocal Tabs

Plus, the beauty of AIR is that it’s crossplatform, right out of the box.

So nice to have this tool back. Now, if we could only get Matt back from his Great Britain junket—our own local version of “Where the Hell is Matt?“

Ignite Portland 5: Five minutes of fame or 15 seconds of flame?

Rick Turoczy on January 12, 2009

Ignite Portland

Things are starting to heat up with Ignite Portland again. It’s almost time for Ignite Portland 5. Or as I like to call it, “el Cinco.”

This time around, Ignite is offering two ways to get your burning ideas in front of the crowd—five minutes of presentation magic or 15 seconds of screen time. Well, there are actually three ways to get your ideas in front of the crowd. But these are the two that are free.

Want five minutes? There’s still time to pitch your burning idea to the Ignite crew. You’ve got until January 24 to submit your talk idea.

Maybe something shorter and far less terror-inducing is more your speed? There’s a new format for Ignite Portland 5—“15 Seconds of Flame”—that may appeal to you:

Do you have something to share with Portland? Can you share it in 15 seconds? If so, here’s your chance to get your 15 Seconds of Flame! Send us a video of yourself sharing your “Flame”, and if it’s selected we’ll show it during Ignite Portland 5 on February 19th.

What can I share? Anything! Share an idea, a skill, a poem, or something you’re passionate about. Silly or serious- it’s up to you. Tell us your plan to save the world or why you love living in Portland, do shadow puppets, sing a really short song, bust a dance move or show Portland that you really can tie a cherry stem with your tongue. Be creative and be interesting.

What can’t I share? Nothing gross or “spammy” (promotional). We also tend to shy away from politics, religion and high pitched squealy noises.

Again, both options are absolutely free. What better way to share your ideas with more than 500 of your closest friends?

Flame or Fame? The choice is yours.

Submit a video by uploading it to a video site—I’d recommend Vimeo given their Portland connection—and tagging it “Legion of Tech”, “Ignite Portland” and “15 Seconds of Flame.” Then, send a link to the video to IgnitePDX@gmail.com. Make sure it gets there by February 3.

More into delivering your message in person? It’s an Ignite presentation for you, my friend. Submit a talk proposal by completing the proposal form. Again, the deadline for talk submissions is January 24.

I’m looking forward to seeing you on stage—in person or virtually—on February 19.

Jive Software hires McCracken as Senior Vice President of Sales, Lanfri joins Board

Rick Turoczy on January 12, 2009

Jive SoftwarePortland-based Jive Software recently announced that they have hired John McCracken as Senior Vice President of Sales. McCracken comes to Jive most recently from Inovis, a maker of supply chain management solutions. Prior to Inovis, he worked for Jive board member Tony Zingale at Mercury Interactive. Mercury was acquired by HP in 2006.

Jive CEO Dave Hersh says, “John is a hugely talented sales leader who has worked with most of our other execs during his time at Mercury.”

The company has also announced that Bill Lanfri has joined its Board. According to his bio:

Some of his more recent experience includes Operating Partner at Accel Partners from 2000 – 2003, during which time he served as CEO of the Accel / Sequoia investment Big Bear Networks from 2000 to 2001. Before joining Accel, he served in 1998 and 1999 as CEO of Avanex Corporation (NASDAQ: AVNX). Prior to Avanex, he was a founding investor and key advisor to RedBack Networks (NASDAQ: RBAK). He has served on numerous boards in both advisory and initial funding capacities, including network security company Network Alchemy, acquired by Nokia Corporation in early 2000.

For more on Jive’s leadership, see the bios of the management team and the Board.

Legion of Tech leadership shuffles a bit

Rick Turoczy on January 11, 2009

Legion of TechLegion of Tech—Portland’s benevolent free-tech-event organizer—has been refreshing the organization as of late with new Board members and a new Advisory Committee.

Now, they’re shuffling the upper ranks a tad.

What’s changed? Former Treasurer, Todd Kenefsky, has been elected Chair. Former Chair, Dawn Foster, is now Secretary. And Adam DuVander, who led the organization and management of the last Ignite Portland, has been named Treasurer. Raven Zachary, former Secretary, remains a member of the Board.

Congratulations to the new Officers! Err… Officer. And congrats to the old Officers in their new positions.

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