Adam got the ball rolling with his post. I’ll spread the word a little more here. We’re looking to start a new, more informal group for Portland web types to get together. Inspired by groups in Boston and San Francisco, we’re calling it Portland Web Innovators. We know there are many great developers, designers, and entrepreneurs around, so check out the wiki and sign up if you’re interested.
We’re looking to get a first meeting setup sometime in March.
Fresh off the buzz of the Innovation Map, we turn our attention back now to NetworthIQ. This is an exciting time at NetworthIQ headquarters (virtual headquarters that is) as this week’s issue of Business Week features an article (free right now) on personal finance blogs and NetworthIQ is mentioned. Needless to say, the rest of the Fourio team and I are pretty happy to get this level of exposure. First the NY Times and now Business Week. Two big wins with barely a penny spent on marketing (ok I ran a couple of Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing experiments). Maybe there’s something to this viral marketing thing.
It’s really funny too, because I was heading on a vacation to Sunriver (central Oregon) when the NY Times article ran and I’m heading back to Sunriver tomorrow for the weekend. I should really get to Sunriver more often if this keeps happening.
Update:
The article is free right now, though I don’t know for how long that usually lasts:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_10/b3974111.htm
One of the perks of developing the Web 2.0 map has been the response from other Web 2.0 companies, both well known and those that had escaped my radar previously. I was amazed at some of the people submitting their sites or corrections for the map. It was quite a thrill.
One of the companies that had escaped my radar was Platial, a company right here in Portland doing some exciting things with maps. Platial is billed as a collaborative atlas. You can create maps of places meaningful to you, share them, tag them, and connect with other users. I really dig the combination of a map visual with a storytelling aspect that goes along with it. It’s understanable that they’re flying under most radars, the site is in its very early beta stages (launched in December, just hit 1000 users yesterday). I imagine the buzz level will be escalating before long.
So, anyway, after hearing from one of their developers, I put them on the map and got a note from one of the founders, Di-Ann Eisnor. Being the budding entrepreneur, I took the opportunity to do a little networking and so yesterday I went to visit Di-
Ann and the rest of the Platial team. They really have some extremely bright people, which when it comes down to it, usually determines the success of a company. I had a great time learning about what they’re doing and sharing a bit about what we’re doing. It’s fun finding people that are passionate about the same things you are (and hold that thought for a later post, Adam DuVander and I are thinking of something for Portland to make this a more common occurence). I anticipate big things from Platial and am looking forward to seeing what’s coming. Thanks for letting me stop by.
The irony though is that they had actually started a Web 2.0 map (seen here) about the same time I started mine. If their map had taken off before I finished mine, I never would have had this opportunity. Goes to show, the release early motto can pay dividends. I’m also now intrigued about integrating my map more with Platial.
I checked out Ma.gnolia today. First the good: groups and private bookmarks are nice and the UI is clean and simple. But, there is some bad, enough of which to keep me away for now. A few things really bug me:
1) The domain name is terrible (as mentioned previously).
2) The masked URLs are lame. Use some unobtrusive javascript or something to track clicks if you must. But, I’d really like to see the real link in the anchor tag, so I can easily right click and copy the url (should I want to). This is too obtrusive.
3) Build a firefox extension. Bookmarklets are ok, but an extension with quick access to adding, viewing, viewing popular, viewing tags, etc. makes it much easier to use a social bookmarking site.
So, it’s back to delicious for now, but if they keep at it, I’ll try it again later on.
Update
I emailed them this same feedback and I got a response back from Todd Sieling, the product manager. Sounds like the domain name is here to stay. But, they may be open to changing the re-direct urls into something a little less obtrusive. Todd also reports that an API is on the way which may spur more tools/extensions.
I’ve been pretty slammed over the last week and this week looks pretty busy as well. So, I only have time for a couple quick thoughts.
Thought #1
Dang, Zillow.com (previously discussed here) sure shot to the top. Have you seen their numbers? I’m impressed. Looks like they came through that inital rough patch with barely a scratch. I hear about them everywhere it seems. Newspaper, local news, co-workers, in-laws. I’ll have more to say about the response to Zillow.com in the real estate community in a future post.
Thought #2
Ma.gnolia.com came out of beta the other day. Another social bookmarking tool with a funny domain name. C’mon people, if you want to break out of the techie/early adopter crowd, stop with these funky punctuated domain names. I’m always surprised how programmed most people are to type “www.whatever.com” (they always seem to start with the www, even if you don’t say it) and it is hard to get them out of this groove. So, make it easy on them. How difficult is it going to be for me to tell somebody, “check out magnolia,” and they go to magnolia.com, which is apparently part of Exxon/Mobil. Must be an another oil conspiracy. At least del.icio.us bought the real thing. (somebody else discussed this recently, but I can’t remember who/where)
The reviews are mixed, though I am seeing enough positive response to give it a shot myself. Zeldman’s team did the design, so it’ll be worth it just to check out their work. But, can you believe it took six people to do the UI? Crazy. I thought that was a joke the first time I read it. I’m all for great design, usability and clean markup, but that seems like a bit much. I hope Gnolia got a good deal.
If you’re interested in learning AJAX, take a look at AJAX Lessons. (and if you click on that link you’ll help me win free books. What can I say, I’m a sucker for free stuff)
Maybe it’s just because I made one myself and tend to notice these things more now, but it seems there are an over abundance of web 2.0 tracking sites popping up. However, there is still not a clear winner when it comes to providing a way of finding the best of the new online services. This weekend Pete Cashmore launched his Weblist blog which adds detailed reviews and user ratings to the mix. Another one that’s gaining steam is this list on listible which actually started back in January. The diggwatch blog has added a list, based on the Web 2.0 logo mashup. All of these go along with the previous set:
Web 2.0 Blogs (news/reviews/analysis):
Web 2.0 Listings
Best of lists:
These all serve their purpose in one way or another . Mostly, they are best suited for promotion and demonstrating the explosion of internet services along with keeping early adopters in the loop of new stuff. But, say I want to find the best calendar app with reviews, ratings, a screenshot, in a easy to navigate list. Where do I go to get that info? Seth Godin tells us categories matter, yet only eHub and Hinchcliffe’s lists (which aren’t perpetually updated) have some sort of categorization.
The blog format of TechCrunch, WebList, Web 2.0 Explorer, and Solution Watch is great for an initial review, but breaks down quickly when it comes to trying to scan hundreds of applications. TechCrunch does try to solve this with the occaisonal rollup of a segment. eHub is more concise and has categories, but lacks reviews and ratings. The innovation map lacks descriptions, categories and ratings. The listible list is also concise and has a rating feature, but lacks reviews, categories and editorial control, so at some point it will probably become worthless.
One of the commenters on Pete’s Weblist introduction mentioned a versiontracker.com type site. That’s exactly right. What we need is something like Programmable Web’s api and mashup databases. These have a nice concise listing, with descriptions, creator, tags/categories, popularity, ratings. Take this and add a TechCrunch/SW/Weblist style review, screenshot, and comments to the detail page. Expose an RSS feed and a simple API to enable mashups like the innovation map. Then you’d have something great. That would really help people discover Web 2.0 apps of interest.
Since Weblist has ratings, it’s probably closest. Add a rollup page like Programmable Web’s, track click-thrus for popularity, and add tags and you would pretty much be there. Hopefully somebody will build this. If you’re looking to promote something or yourself, this would be a great way to do it. If not, I’ll add this to my todo list, but I really do need to focus on my other projects, so don’t tempt me.
Seeing that Edgeio is getting some pretty good buzz this week and ready to launch in a few weeks, I thought I’d comment on the name and it’s similarity to our company name, Fourio. Not that anyone would ever confuse the two. Because of who’s behind it (and its potential), they’ll be getting more press than we dream of and we won’t be competing or anything. But, I want to make it clear that Fourio is an original name.
Fourio, the name, was created by Todd almost two years ago now. He put it in the header of our team blog, and at first the response, to Todd’s dismay, was a bit underwhelmed. I thought it was the name of the WordPress theme. But, after hearing that it was the company name, I was like, “hey, that’s pretty cool.” Very unique and appropriate. The name sums up the fact that there were four of us (then three, now four again), taking ideas (input) and creating apps (output). Back then, there was a lot of input, but not much output, as is often the case when building stuff outside of your day job. With NetworthIQ and the Innovation Map, the output finally started to pick up and with the next project moving towards a prototype, we’re downright sprinting right now ;-). So, that’s how we came to be known as Fourio.
I haven’t been very good about reading the paper recently. Mornings are usually spent working on my projects, then off to my job, then home with family and maybe a little more work at night. But, today I caught an article about a Japanese software entrepreneur, Toru Takasuka, and his plans to base his new web startup in Portland. Takasuka will be pouring $10 million of his own money into the project. The company name is Lunarr Inc., but he doesn’t go into much detail about what the product is exactly. This is the most we get:
“He says he will develop a Web-based product that will allow business people to handle their computer needs, boosting productivity through collaboration. Information will be accessible via anything from a personal computer to a cell phone to a television.”
Hmmm, can’t get much vague than that. But, based on his track record with Cybozu and its groupware, it will be interesting to see what the result is. It’s Good to see some things happening in Portland. As you can see from the Innovation Map, we’ve got a lot of room for growth.
This week’s Carnival of Entrepreneurship is up at Small Business Trends and it happens to include the Innovation Map .