The Rise of ThePortlander.Com

Most websites when they first start barely have enough momentum to survive especially ones that have almost no funding . Apparently the exception to this rule has been www.theportlander.com . Within one month of launching there Web 2.0 news website they have garnered over 70,000 ad impressions and served over 1,000 unique views , to top this those 1,000 visitors have viewed over 20,000 pages. The founder of the site is now being mentioned on websites like www.technorati.com , www.Oregonlive.com ,www.northwestnoise.com, smallworldpodcast.com and countless others. It appears Portland that we have our first full fledged Star here in Portland. This blogger recommends that you check out there site as you will undoubtedly here more about it as time goes on.

ThePortlander.Com From idea to a soul changing event

The story of theportlander.com is one of insight not only into how to start a business with nothing more than an idea.But also into ones soul. When the founders of theportlander first met to discuss ideas for what they thought would be the next big thing they never realized that what they were putting together would transform not only the news world in there city but also themselves. Sometime in November 2006 two men met to discuss a website idea for downloading free mp3's and generating revenue from the google adsense program. Little did they know google was about to buy YouTube and offer a way for anyone to grab some of there popularity with adsense. So needless to say after doing some research they found that there idea was already out there in the form of Reever.Com and other notable websites. What to do give up or push on with more brainstorming. Then New Years night roughly 10 minutes after the crystal ball dropped in times square one of the founders had an idea. Why not create a website where all of the news and information for Portland OR, flood into one main site and use Web 2.0 technology to run it all. how could it fail . Well it could and from that they ran with there idea.Over the next 6 months the idea of theportlander transformed from something akin to Myspace to what it is now and what it will become over the next few months. They had no money and very little programming knowledge.But they had a dream and would find any means possible to build it. Through this they gradually pieced together what is now theportlander. One founder told me that throughout the experience he gained more into who he was than he ever thought possible. here is a quote from one of the Co-Founders " Holding onto this idea and never losing site of it even when others were saying you'll never launch it pulled me down sometimes but it changed me in that I said no I will do this and I will make it successful, because of this my whole outlook on life changed and my life went from I hope I can do this to I will do this and every aspect of my life has changed because of it" . I think alot of startups don't always have a chance to go through this, as most go into it with funding or some type of guidance. From theportlanders point of view they had nothing and had to create something with nothing more than an idea and the perseverance to crawl and scratch there way to a successful launch. Because of this they now have pride and respect for the business they have created and will work harder to make it a success and to top it off they have no debt going into it. This blogger wishes all of the crew over at ThePortlander.Com all of the success that they wholeheartedly deserve. Congrats guys on a successful launch :)

8 Startups That will surface Soon

The Under the Radar: Why Office 2.0 Matters conference starts later today in Mountain View, CA. It’s a chance for lesser-known companies that provide web-based business solutions to strut their stuff. The 32 companies that will be presenting at the conference are promoting their ideas on how to make business more collaborative and productive. Here’s a roundup of those presenters that offer true social benefits with their services.

SlideAware - SlideAware provides online storage and collaboration solution for slideshows that’s fully integrated with PowerPoint. This provides transparency for the team. Presentations can be sent to clients, and metrics give details about who looked at the presentation, and how long they viewed a particular slide.

Big Contacts - Big Contacts serves up an online Rolodex, wiki-style. Keep track of meetings, anniversaries and clients’ spouses. One-click access to Word templates pre-populate letterheads and greeting cards for any contact. Added notes and assignments from multiple users are wiki-style to see the history on any client.

Koral - Koral is a private workspace for your docs that can be shared with a group. An improved search makes it easier to find the right document, and their sync function alerts other team members when a new version of your document has been added. Koral keeps everybody on the same page, at all times.

Spresent - Spresent provides a web-based alternative to PowerPoint. Their Adobe flash-based service is optimized to create feature-rich presentations that can incorporate YouTube videos and Flickr photos. Presentations are shared online, and prove to be far more engaging than a PowerPoint presentation.

Stikkit - Post-it meets wiki. Stikkit, a recent SXSW finalist, lets you type notes on your Stikkits, and they’ll be kept up to date. Shared Stikkits can be edited, making it a mobile wiki. Email yourself a Stikkit for it to be automatically converted into an email format for furthered sharing purposes.

Teqlo - Teqlo is an application that lets you mashup your widgets. It aims to provide a way for non-tech savvy people to create customized solutions, such as a drag-and-drop feature to place sales leads on a map and automatically provide a list of phone numbers every morning. Removing the need for coding and developer knowledge broadens access to the furthered democratization of business and social tools alike.

Worklight - Worklight uses ajax and RSS to offer better access for employees within the corporate structure. Other ways they update businesses are desktop and web-based widgets, bookmarks, and mashups. Businesses are usually slow to adopt new trends like these. So Worklight may not change the masses, but could usher in the next era of business communication.

Xcellery - Xcellery enables online collaboration of Excel sheets. Their service may seem to be very similar to other online document management systems such as Google Docs and Zoho Sheets. Xcellery’s main point of differentiation is the fact that revised documents aren’t replaced, but are extended. This is a useful feature that many of the established players have yet to take into account.

Starting With a Dream Ending with a Nightmare

When you first sit down and start dreaming about the website or product you want to release upon the world, you soon find that your dream has alot of flaws. A great example of this is CitySearch.Com when they first came to market they had a grand vision of becoming a hot bed of business listings for anyone who needed to find anything from a great place to eat to help from an attorney. One problem there dream became a bloated nightmare over time. They have now sunk into nothing more than a bloated online phonebook. What happened ? there dream was so clear yet they turned into something that there founders would have never imagined a few years ago. Two words Buy Out . When they sold there company to AOL a few years back they turned a corner and havent looked back since. They are now headed down a road that they cannot come back from. for most people citysearch is there only viable search engine for finding local businesses. When you start a business you have a dream but what happens to that dream when you walk away . Do you start another dream and forget about your past glory or do you hold onto it and transform it from a dream into an empire. Both are difficult at best. Googles founders have turned there dream into an empire based exactly on this philosophy. If you truly believe in your dream you can turn it into an empire. But if you dont it will turn into your nightmare.