WebVisions
Always one of my favorites and it’s cheap! Starts tomorrow.

Strands Portland Meet-up
Think Strands is all about Music and now Money? Think again. This meet-up will be a chance to preview the all new strands.com and meet more of the Strands team.

Portland Lunch 2.0 @ Vidoop
The Lunch 2.0 series continues at newly re-located to PDX Vidoop

Andy Baio talks side projects and acquisition at Portland Web Innovators
We’re thrilled to have Andy Baio, founder of Upcoming.org leading the discussion. Should be awesome!

TwitterWhere

TwitterWhere is a cool new project from local Portland developer Matt King. Similar to how Local Signal tracks an assortment of feeds for a specific city to filter and discover news, events, and people, TwitterWhere tracks Twitter activity for a given location, making it easy find local breaking news and other Tweeters. (Silicon Florist and Read/Write Web coverage)

ChoiceA

ChoiceA is a new national real estate FSBO site (Silicon Florist and Read/Write Web have more).

Platial

Platial made a pretty bold move it seems in acquiring one of their direct competitors in the social mapping space who had been doing better, traffic ranking wise. Should be interesting to see what happens with the combined companies.

With CLIQ now in public beta, anybody can join, so get over there and sign up if you’re looking for a little bling for your blog and want to connect with other Portland bloggers.

Jump right into the Portland news to take a look.

LocalSignal is built for 3 types of uses:

1. Quickly get the latest news, event info, and social media content from around the web for your city
2. See what’s happening in a city you’re traveling or moving to
3. See who’s online around you in your city

As is my custom, I usually give a back story when launching an app (here’s Web 2.0 Innovation Map and NetworthIQ). Basically, I was subscribing to a whole bunch of Portland feeds, and it was beginning to clutter up my reader. Feed readers are great, but the more feeds you follow the more difficult it is to keep up and need arises to find faster ways to filter. Also, when I took a trip last year to San Diego, I had been looking for something like this to get an idea of what was going on down there, maybe if there were any Web 2.0 type companies or events to check out. I also like to know what’s happening in Seattle to get a feel for overall Northwest happenings, but I certainly didn’t want to subscribe to those feeds, and didn’t want to build a new page in PageFlakes/Netvibes for any city I all of a sudden cared about. Finally, I’ve met a number of great people locally here in Portland as a result of my online activities, and would like to continue that tradition by finding the local people using various social platforms.

Putting those ideas together with my increasing use of Original Signal for news scanning, and the city-based single page aggregator now known as LocalSignal was born. Originally I was just trying to filter out universal social media platforms for local content (topix, newsvine, del.icio.us, technorati, MetaFilter, Ball Hype, Upcoming). If a site had feeds and some way to filter content by tag or location, I tried to utilize it. Unfortunately, I think the vision falls short by only relying on that method. Some feeds were too stale for that fine grained of content, and some too busy to find anything useful. For that reason, I’m starting to add more locally produced content.

If you’re wondering what the heck I’m doing building another app right now, as if I have the time. Well, I wonder myself sometimes. Focus was never my strong-point. But, I like to tinker and the feed plumbing was built back in February as I was brushing up on my PHP. Todd and I discussed some organization and design ideas in Aprilish, but I still let it simmer. Some recent events have given me the motivation to bring it down from the attic and get it out the door.
There’s still a number of things to do: UI improvements, showing new items since last visit, showing popular items (determined by clicks), and of course content content content (adding, removing, ordering) for the 53 cities currently being tracked.

Here’s some additional resources about news filtering methods:

• 5 News Aggregation Methods Compared
• Tracking the web with Single Page Aggregators

This is interesting to me, one because I love trying collaboration tools and two, because I noted LUNARR way back last february and for the longest time, I was getting a good chunk of my paltry traffic from google searches for Toru Takasuka, the CEO. I’ve now been relegated to page 3 of the google results.

So, now that LUNARR is out, let’s look at the description from back then:

“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.”

The collaboration part is definitely there, and I see some interesting things there. The whole “turn the page over” idea is kind of cool, and importing web sites to comment on was a nice touch. We’ll see how the cell phone and television part plays out.

If you want an invite, let me know.

It’s been years since I’ve attended or even watched a game on tv as they’ve fielded teams that were terrible on and off the court. I’m definitely not alone, as the team has suffered huge decreases in attendance and financial performance. It doesn’t take a genius to predict that with this stroke of luck, the team should now have a city starting to get behind it again.

I used to play a lot of sports and do a little coaching before I got bit by the side-project entrepreneur bug, but not enough to warrant the use of TeamSnap. I don’t think it will help my golf game much either. If I start playing or coaching sports again (which I definitely want to do), I’ll have to remember to give this a shot.

One of the questions that came up during the Inventrepreneurship session (slides) at WebVisions was where to find people to help build projects. Groups like PDX Web Innovators and PDX UX, as well as any of the groups in that list is probably a good place to start.

When it comes to web innovations, Firefox definitely fits the bill. I remember first discovering Firebird (as it was known before the name change) a few years back along with the Edit CSS plugin, and was amazed that I could edit CSS on the fly and see the changes live. Its been my browser of choice ever since. I didn’t even bother with Safari when I recently bought an iMac, took it out of the dock on the first day in fact. It’s only used for compatibility testing. The main reason I use Firefox? For the plugins. No other browser can compete with the sheer volume of useful plugins. This speaks to a compelling reason for offering an API as well, if you can get developers building cool stuff on your platform, the users will follow, and I do believe Firefox will take over IE.

I’ll be interested in the discussion around offline apps as well, one of the most mentioned features of Firefox 3. What, with the recent buzz around Adobe’s Apollo launch and then DHH’s remarks.

Come out if you can, here’s the details:

Wednesday, April 4, 2007
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Where
ISITE Design
115 NW First Avenue, Suite 500
Portland, Oregon 97209

Description
Dietrich Ayala will talk about his work with the Mozilla Corporation and what’s coming in Firefox 3.

http://www.pdxwi.com/events/4

There’s this crazy idea floating around that Oregonians don’t know how to drive. You hear it mentioned every once in a while, usually by someone from the busy roads of California. I admit I have seen my fair share of people going 65 in the left lane on I-5, driving along in ignorant bliss, as the lineup behind them is preparing to run them off the road. But, usually this is an occasional annoyance.

However, I’m starting to come to the conclusion that we Oregonians do indeed do not how to drive. Every day when I drive home from work, I prepare myself for the psychological torment of the Scholls Ferry merge. I work in Beaverton and live in Sherwood, so the quickest route there is to take Scholls Ferry to Roy Rogers (no, not named after THAT Roy Rogers). Scholls Ferry is bad enough with its stoplights every two car lengths, but then we hit the merge. The great traffic engineers of the city of Beaverton designed this splendid system of roads that will go along in two lanes and then merge into 1 lane about 3 feet after a stoplight. Walker Road (by Nike campus) has a lot of these as well. No, it’s not really 3 feet, but that’s pretty much how they’re treated since only the hooligans or the newbies cut ahead of the backup in the left lane by driving up the right line and merging in after the light as everyone in the left lane tries their hardest to not let them merge, cursing them vehemently.

But, are they really hooligans? Or, are they the smart ones, and the other 99% of the drivers in the left lane are the idiots. When I first encountered these things, I always patiently waited my turn and fumed at those who tried to beat the system. But, now, I’ve realized that I can cut a good 5 minutes or so off of my commute by driving up the right lane and save my sanity. It’s at the risk of inciting road-rage, I know.

The way I see it, these layouts are designed to prevent just the backup they cause by letting more cars through the lights, and letting them merge. There’s also some purpose to allow cars that are turning right before the merge to bypass the congestion, but I think the bigger issue is reducing congestion by letting more cars through. So, due to the societal norm of waiting your turn, the system backfires and the congestion remains, serving very little improvement over a single lane system.

Not a very usable design, huh? How should this be fixed so people feel free to use the right lane? Or am I cheating and need to get back in line?

There are also a couple of blogs now (main and news), which for me anyway, is a much easier way to get information these days.

Both new features are welcome additions to the site and turns it into a must have resource for local entrepreneurs.

This week has seen a relative slew of new locally produced social sites to launch or that I noticed.

Gone Raw
PDX Web Innovators Ray and Kandace from Needmore Designs launched their newest creation at the Wednesday meeting, which unfortunately I skipped this month, so I didn’t get to see it there. Looks like a nice entry into the social food space and seems like a great site to help people get started and maintain when they go raw. Gone Raw follows Cuppin’ which launched earlier this summer.

Art Face Off
Social networking company for artists, curators and art lovers. (via)

12 Step Space
Recovery oriented social networking. (via)

See previous discussion of the Portland web startup scene here and here.

We’ll have to get Zack out ot the PDX Web Innovators next month.

I’m adding nPost to the Portland Technology/Entrepreneur group list.

To keep up to date with the group, use our ultra-modern web 2.0 discussion software over at Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/group/pdxwebInnovators

Here are some related API resources if you feel like studying up:

• ProgrammableWeb (discussion and api/mashup listings)
• How to Add an API to your Web Service (howto)
• APIFinder (listing)
• How To Provide A Web API (another howto)

Also interesting to note that the UserPlane (company acquired by AOL last week) fouders are from Oregon. Glad to see the local connection.

But, a couple of things struck me as a bit off. I don’t really understand this software they need money to develop. Pre-built, pluggable modules? Seems like a tough market, as “automatic integration” into an existing website is a pipe dream (though many businesses could very well like to learn this the hard way) and using them to build a site from the ground up is a questionable approach. For proprietary, little-used technology, it would be difficult to find somebody to maintain your site, but I guess Site9, like any good drug dealer (I mean web agency) will surely maintain it for you.

Then they go and try to attach themselves to web 2.0:

“The Web site design and Web 2.0 software development firm”

Hmmm, ok, if you say so. Seems like a questionable use of Web 2.0 that contributes to its derision in cynic circles. Finally there’s this:

“Next-generation features like social networking, podcasting, video-on-demand, RSS feeds, AJAX interfaces and blogs are integrated into the tool.”

A little buzzword happy are we? I mean, c’mon where are the tags? And the APIs? And mashups? How can you be a Web 2.0 software development company without those?

I wish them luck, but I think their marketing needs some tuning. But, who knows, maybe it works, cuz it got me to blog about it.

Some other good news too. One of the other three Portland Web 2.0 companies on the map, Platial looks like they had a good week at Where 2.0 last week and have been getting some GREAT press. Cuppin’ did aweome in the RailsDay competition and I’ll have to add it the map. I’m continuing to push Fourio / NetworthIQ as well, though there is much to be done there, and was even sourced in a recent analyst report on Family 2.0 sites. Pretty cool, but I’m not going to spend $700 just to see my name .

So how is the Portland scene these days? I found it interesting that Paul Graham mentioned Portland as a possible next Silicon Valley, yet Idaho is beating us, there are only three flags on the Web2.0 map, and the Silicon Forest is struggling. Obviously there is a lot of work to do to meet that standard. Open Source is big here with the OSDL and Linus in town. But, where are the Internet startups? Is it the supposed anti-business environment in the city and state? Is it the struggles of the state education system? Is it the fact that the biggest city in the state does not have the premier university? Is it the local angel and VC market? All issues I’ve heard mentioned by local entreprenuers, journalists and investors. Is this something a half billion dollars in faculty hirings going to solve (refer to Graham’s essay)? Well, I don’t see that happening. But, if we can get a good cycle of successful entrepreneurs investing in other entrepreneurs like you see in Seattle and SV and continue to push the education angle, then I think you can start something. It’s a chicken and the egg dilemma, isn’t it.

Unlike other organizations, Starve Ups membership is only open to the founders, management and core team members of idea, emerging and established stage companies. This unique approach, which eliminates investors, consultants, vendors and service providers allows Starve Ups to encourage full disclosure among its members.

I need to check it out a bit more and see if it complements the PDX Web Innovators and OEF events.

Tags: portland pdx entrepreneur starveups

• PDX Web Innovators (cross between developers, designers, entrepreneurs)
• DevgroupNW (design focused)
• PDX UX (cross between designers and developers)
• SAO – Software Association of Oregon
• OEF – Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum
• IPN – Internet Professionals Northwest (now part of SAO)
• PADNUG – .Net User Group
• PDX CFUG – ColdFusion User Group
• PJUG – Java User Group
• POSSE – Portland Open Source Software Entrepreneurs
• PDX.rb – Portland Ruby Brigade
• PDXPHP – PHP User Group
• Internet Strategy Forum
• CHIFOO
• pdxMindShare
• OregonStartups.com – Great collection of resources for local entrepreneurs
• Starve Ups
• Northwest Entrepreneur Network
• nPost.com

There are others like Mac, Linux and PC user groups, Podcasting Meetups, Entrepreneur (general) meetups, but these are the main ones I’ve come across. What others do people know of or enjoy?

Tags: pdx portland

Tags: pdx portland

Whether or not we get to that point though, it’s still a lot of fun hanging out with other web people. For people who follow the web all the time, it’s not everyday that you meet people that read the some stuff you do and share the same ideas. Just to run down who was there:

• Adam
• George
• Ray
• Will
• Greg
• Kyle
• Kandace
• Marcus
• Jacob
• myself

Maybe it’s not that surprising, but just about everybody had their own web shops. The discussions were a great mix of design, programming, blogs, podcasts, business. I’ll try to remember some of conversations:

Rails was a big topic. I hadn’t even realized Portland was such a leader in Rails development (With the O’Reilly Rails book author in Portland and his company Planet Argon being a big Rails shop), and I pride myself on knowing a lot of stuff.

Ray and Kandace talked a bit about their web-based, hosted CMS package, Ladybug. Sounds like a great tool for Flash (and non-Flash) sites. I believe we have our first presenter for next month.

Marcus shared some his experiences with software in the Music business and Tables Turned, his team’s initiative to let podcasters legally play music. Billboard wrote it up, and it sounds like it’s getting some great traction among the labels.

Jacob talked about his work in design (you have to check out the design on BePrivy), email marketing and learning Rails. I wrote about email newsletters before, so you’ll have to let me know how far off-base I am.

Adam and I discussed his work on Best Places, and some of the issues they were working out, including the transition to ASP.NET 2.0, something I’ve been spending a lot of time on lately. Adam has a lot of biz ideas going too, including the just released onBlOCK spam fighting service.

There was some interesting talk about business models, design, and adsense and how ugly sites seem to do so well. Scoble’s post on anti-marketing design is an interesting follow-up on that topic.

I talked a bit on NetworthIQ (shocking I know): specifically about funding options, APIs, Quicken integration, and growth of the site.

I missed the topics from the other end of the table, so feel free to join the converstation with your own writeups.

So, where is this going to go? Sounds like everybody was up for getting some space and a projector for next month. Definitely keep the social aspect, but add a presenter or two. We can take that conversation over to the google group.

Thanks for coming everybody and we’ll see you next month.

Tags: pdxwi, pdx, portland

• Acquirit -Agricultue technology/software
• IterationZero – agile software development tools
• DOCUMAX Enterprises – Accounts Payable technology
• ParaMedia – “iTunes for print media” was the analogy used (comic books was the prime example)
• iKnoodle – Ad toolbar that benefits charities

Unbelievable, only 2 of these companies have a web site? I know they’re not exactly web companies, but sheesh, what year is this? How am I supposed to learn more about the company? Even if you’re early stage, it seems like a site would be a good idea. Throw a blog up at least.

Anyway, they all got some good questions from the judges and the audience. IterationZero got the most pushback, mostly because the pitch gave some pretty big numbers (i.e. 84% of software projects fail) but I think there are some good ideas there. Their angle is to help companies adapt agile methodolgies more gradually, by identifying the areas of agile most likely to succeed and starting with the easy ones. There’s a lot of talk about the dangers of “building to flip” in the web 2.0 world. That’s their business model, get something out and get bought by the IBM’s of the world.

I don’t know much about agriculture or Accounts Payable tools. But, both seemed like viable ideas. I’m not sure about the ad toolbar. I think I’d rather just write a check to a charity rather than suffer through intersital ads. But, who knows. The “iTunes for print media” idea seems like it could have many large competitors in no time flat, but if they can be first, all the power to them.

It was a good experience to go. I think it’s something we’ll aim to do with Fourio/NetworthIQ, perhaps for next month if we can get on the list. Although public speaking and I don’t exactly get along too well. So, Todd may get the call .

Technorati Tags: portland, pdx, oef, entrepreneur

We’re looking to get a first meeting setup sometime in March.

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.

Tags: platial geo maps

“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.

Tags: Lunarr Portland groupware