Checked on the Kiko auction (the AJAX calendaring app) today and it’s been pulled. What’s the scoop? I was curious to see the result. There was a bidder earlier this week.
Update
Looks like it was just an eBay technicality that forced them to re-list, here’s the current auction.
Here’s a list of Seattle internet startups ranked by Alexa traffic (via Mike Davidson). Wow, that’s a long freakin’ list! P-town has a long way to go, and this is a great example for my point at the nPost event last week about how Portland’s a great city, but we just don’t see the same level of startup activity right now.
Also interesting to note that the UserPlane (company acquired by AOL last week) fouders are from Oregon. Glad to see the local connection.
Business Basics for Engineers appears to be an oldy, but a very helpful resource for those interested in the nuts and bolts of putting a startup business together. I’ve read many posts by various VC and entrepreneur bloggers on the topic and this ranks among the best.
Tags: startup entrepreneur
My idea was approved, now it’s on to the IdeaWarz. Feel free to vote for it if you feel so inclined.
Tags: cambrianhouse crowdsourcing
The latest entrant into the Web 2.0 tracking game came out this week with Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List at alexaholic.
NetworthIQ is at 441, pretty much right in the middle.
I signed up for Cambrian House last night in an attempt to see if ideas are in fact worth anything. Cambrian House is attempting to capitalize on the “crowdsourcing” movement, which merges a few concepts like “Wisdom of crowds” and open-source software, to enable teams to come together and develop commercially viable products.
I’m intrigued because I’ve got a few ideas kicking around and figure it’s worth a shot to see if they can be developed through Cambrian House where otherwise they would languish in my project queue probably never to see the light of day. I submitted one idea and it’s currently pending, so I’ll update its progress here as the experiment progresses.
I can’t say I’m surprised to see Kiko for sale on eBay (via OnStartups). Not that I thought Kiko was bad (though it ran up against Google as noted previously), but because I agree with Dharmesh and think this will become a rather common occurence in the not so distant future.
With all of these Web 2.0 sites coming out, it’s easy for them to fade away and get lost in the noise. When the founders realize that they’re spending all their time on something that isn’t meeting their goals and expectations (whether monetary or something else), they’ll try to sell it and find something better to spend their time on. Why do I think this? Because I’ve had these thoughts about NetworthIQ, and I’m sure there are hundreds of others who have considered it as well. It’s business. Fortunately, I’m not competing against Google and I still have a lot to do before I reach that point.
Hello activeCollab. I’ve been wanting to have more projects in Basecamp for a while, but am extremely resistant to shelling out money on tools. Now, thanks to activeCollab, I don’t have to. I downloaded it earlier this week and was going to set it up on one of my domains, then I noticed that it was a one-click install on Dreamhost (affiliate). Even better! 5 minutes and it was ready to go.
Now, it’s not a complete clone with features such as writeboards (use writely) and time-tracking not there (a feature which I’ve yet to look at in basecamp), and I think basecamp feels a little smoother and more polished. But, I can sacrifice these if it means it’s FREE! (assuming you already have a hosting account or server). Check out Slacker Manager for more detailed comparison of the two
Oh, and of course, if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that whenver I go on vacation, NetworthIQ gets some significant press exposure. Well, it happened again (the 3rd time in the last 12 months). Scott Burns, a syndicated financial columnist, included NetworthIQ in an article about Tricia, a personal finance blogger (and one of our users) chronicling her family’s climb out of debt. Congrats for the writeup Tricia, and thanks Scott! With the power of syndication, and the article being in Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News and several others, it looks like the impact was about equal to that of the Business Week article earlier this year.
I’m on vacation this week and from last Friday until last night I was out of town and completly unplugged. No laptop, no Internet. It was a refreshing break from the constant information processing that usually marks my days (not that I’m complaining, I enjoy it tremendously).
This year we headed off to see some friends in northern Idaho, outside of Sandpoint. It’s a beautiful area, and I’d recommend visiting if you ever get the chance. With the lakes and mountains it really is a outdoorsman’s playground. We stayed for a couple nights up at Schweitzer and were able to take a lift up to the top and hike down. Too bad for the smoke coming over from various fires, because there was a bad haze that reduced visibility. I imagine when it’s clear, you can see forever. Speaking of forever, while driving from Tri-Cities to Spokane, is it just me, or is it impossible to tell where the earth ends and the sky begins? It’s just so vast. A good reminder of how small our little spot on earth is.