One Step Forward DC, Two Back

It seems that the DC area cant get the monkey off its back, no matter how hard we try. As you have read here, as well as elsewhere, there is a groundswell of a pretty cool tech community building here in the DC area. Granted we are fighting many stigmas and preconceived notions about the area and its viability to produce solid startup ideas, nonetheless we continue to try. A little help would be nice though.

On the heels of a great Mashable event in DC the other night comes a not so glowing review. Those of us that were there had a great time chatting about the various projects everyone is working on, for profit or just for fun. It is continued evidence of a the great vibe here in the area. So to be honest I was more than a little disappointed to read an article from the Washington Post recapping the event. Dan Beyer’s started out with

Washington has been trying to build a Web 2.0 community for more than a year. A cluster of AOL alumni, local college graduates, and people in their 20s and early 30s are trying to show that D.C. can be, if not Silicon Valley, a major presence for social networking Web sites, user generated content and cutting-edge Web apps.

and I couldn’t agree more. It was how he finished off the article that took me a back a bit.

Therein lies one of the big issues facing the local Web scene. Local venture capitalists are pretty skeptical of these companies, many of which have big ideas for the Web but little idea about how to make money from those ideas.

…

Unclear what some, or all, of those companies do? Join the club. (Hey–I’m not a luddite–I use a bevy of Web 2.0 tools in my daily life and know what the programming framework Ruby on Rails is. I even like white boards, the method of choice for diagramming sites in meetings. But it’s not clear how all these ideas are going to turn into businesses.)

It is absolutely true that the VC business is just that, a business and they need to be assured of a promising return on their investment. But a little enthusiasm for the local team would not hurt would it. And while he is looking around to see what startups have viable money making business plans, he should look elsewhere. Is it only the local companies who need to find the holy grail to get funding ? I doubt it. Lets see, I am not sure even now, Twitter has a business model. They have a user base and that seems to be enough for them, because if you build it and the users come, money will follow some how or another. Has he seen some of the shitty products out there that have actually been funded … why do you think TechCrunch has a “Dead Pool”? and I don’t see too many DC startups on that list.

What kind of got me even more was his down tone on the local companies. We have an uphill battle we are fighting here to begin with and it does not help when the local mainstream media continues to question the locals attempts at success. Interestingly enough at the Mashable event I had a was chatting with Nick O’Neill and Aaron Brazell and Nick made mention he was happy to see some of the Post writers at the event, and how a lot of what is written in the local press is so negative about the community. So I was very happy to see this post the next day by Post writer Kim Hart. But then it was all tempered by this dash of negativism.

As a growing community, we need all the help we can get, especially from the mainstream media. Like it or not, that is how many get their news. Unless that news becomes a little more positive the road will be long and hard to show people the possibilities are here. A long road yes, an impossible drive, No.

2 Days of SXSW, Twitter Going Strong

Well I must admit, if I was a betting man, I would have bet we would have seen one of those “Something has gone technically wrong” screens as we tried to use Twitter by now. But much to my pleasant surprise, we have not. Actually it just dawned on me this morning as I was finishing up some final touches on the blog redesign. I thought “Heh Twitter has not crashed yet ..”

I mentioned previously about a post by Allen Stern over at CenterNetworks detailing the preparations by the Twitter team leading up to SXSW. The included increasing capacity, reducing API calls allowed, as well as some other measures. And apparently it has worked pretty well up until this point.

To be honest though, this is how it should be. We should not being using one of our favorite web services while in the back of our heads, we are just waiting for it to crash out from under us. But i am happy to see up until this point, I have been proven wrong. I figured we would all be running for the Pownce hills.

Maybe this is a corner turned for the Twitter folks. This will be a big feather in their cap if they can sustain the momentum and carry it out of SXSW into a bright future. Great job so far guys.

Event: Fight the Maryland Tech Tax !

Some of my regular readers (all 12 of you … sheesh)  remember the post I wrote recently about the Maryland Tech Tax.  We got some good feedback on the issue.
Well apparently there are some hearings being held i the State legislature next week and the Tech Council MD is organizing a little rally.

As we said before, the tax is really bad for small tech businesses in Maryland

Why: This new tax, which takes effect July 2008, will put many Maryland businesses at a severe disadvantage. Small businesses — the least able to sidestep the tax — will be particularly affected. This tax will hurt the welfare of industries beyond the Tech sector and will also drive some businesses out of state! Imposing a 6% sales tax on computer services like computer facilities management, network maintenance and custom programming is bad policy.

It will truly put many local businesses at a disadvantage and I invite everyone who can make it to head out to Annapolis to join the fight.  Here are the details:

When: March 12, 9:00 AM

Meetup: http://taxreform.meetup.com/27/calendar/7472261
Facebook:  http://taxreform.meetup.com/27/calendar/7472261
And also please follow their Twitter stream as well: TCMMdBio

Please mark your calendar to SPEND THE MORNING IN ANNAPOLIS Wednesday, March 12. The rally will crescendo just before 10 a.m. as legislators walk past the rally to their floor sessions in the State House.

Later that afternoon, Tech Council of Maryland staff and volunteer leaders will testify in hearings on the six percent Computer Services Sales Tax issue in both the House and the Senate. If you care about this issue, please mark March 12 on your calendars. We will need a huge business presence in Annapolis for the hearings.

Fight Tech Tax Coalition members include Tech Council of Md, the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Baltimore Tech Council, the Charles County Tech Council, Montgomery County Chamber and Howard County Chamber. Thank-you for your support!

Thanks so much and please let us know if you have any questions, Mitch <mitch@techcouncilmd.com>

All those who have an interest in this as well as our fellow tech workers who want to join forces, please help spread the word.  This is our chance to be heard and make a difference and show the politicians the error of their ways with this possible legislation.

So Didd It, Stumble It, just get it out there for us.

Event Recap: MashMeet DC Remix

I know this post is a little late, some of us have to work … LOL just teasing, but seriously.  Much of the local DC tech scene was out last night in advance of the mass exodus of SXSW’ers.  We were all at the MashMeet DC Remix event help at Ogilvy Public Relations in DC.  As usual it was great to see old friends and meet some new ones.

I will say the setup was a little difficult with demonstrations trying to go on with no sound system and much of the crowd being told to keep the noise down so the demonstrators could be heard … but otherwise it was a great event.  I did not get to see much of the demos, but I do know that our local favorite news sharing site, Mixx, presented and I heard some good talk about Kluster.com.

There was a good mix of people there.  I got to finally check off a few real world introductions to some fellow dc twitter’s like Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs and and Keith Casey programmer extraordinaire  of the WhyGoSolo Team.  I met up with the social media swami Shashi B and rode the metro into town to gather pre mashMeet with a group to include Aaron Brazell, Ann Bernbard, Andrew Wright, Keith Casey, and Jonathon Trenn.

It was an interesting event, I got to follow up on some chatter about the post I wrote about DC area startups developing a complex, my subsequent appearance on teh District of Corruption with Aaron and Geoff Livingston, and Aaron’s follow up post about it.  It generated a lot of talk and honestly that is a good thing.  People are weighing in on both sides of the fence, but in the end I think we all agree, we are onto something special here with a great group of people and I am happy to be able to call them my friends and be able to help them out as much as I can.

It is great to see these events continue to grow and grow in popularity here and we are totally looking forward to the ones in the near furture, like PodCampDC and BlogPotomac.  Events like these will continue to bring together all of the great people and make our little town here special.  There are so many poepl starting to attend, I always leave wishing I had talked to a few more people, but that is what the next one is for.  See you around town.

Event Reminder: MashMeet DC Remix

Just a friendly East Coast Blogging reminder about the MashMeet DC Remix event being help tomorrow night.

Registration is still open, so head to the eventbrite web page to purchase your tickets.

Here a the details for you

Date
Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Time
7:00 pm ET - 10:00 pm ET
Location
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
1111 19th Street NW
10th Floor
Washington, DC 20036

If you are going and want to meet up, send us a twitter msg

Hope to see many of you there !

Don’t Forget to Register for BlogPotomac

We posted about this event when it was announced back in January, but now registration is open. Here is the post from over at The Buzz Bin with all the fab details.

Attendance at BlogPotomac costs $75 and includes attendance, a T-shirt and sticker. At this time the fee does not include meals, but if enough sponsors sign up food and refreshments may be provided. Attendees will be notified one week in advance of the event about possible accommodations.Our opening Keynote is Lionel Menchaca, digital media manager and chief blogger, Direct2Dell. And our Lunch Keynote is Frank Gruber, community manager, AOL and author of Somewhat Frank. Other speakers includeAdditional speakers are:

• MyDD’s Matt Stoller
• Author KD Paine
• Social Media Group’s Maggie Fox
• Kami Huyse, Communication Overtones
• Jeremy Pepper, Pop! PR Jots

My co-chair Debbie Weil will emcee with BlogOrlando (and BlogX series) founder Josh Hallett. Full details about BlogPotomac are currently available here. Also, updates are available vis a vis Twitter, too on twitter.com/blogpotomac.

Update: BlogPotomac will be an official Social Media Club event! Thanks to Chris Heuer for his support.

This looks like it is going to be a great event and I for one am happy to see this taking place here in DC. Hopefully it is only a sign of things to come as we tip our tech community over the edge into a full fledged place to be and be seen.

Look forward to seeing some of you there.

Will Twitter Survive SXSW ?

Here we are on the eve of the ever ever growing in popularity SXSW conference in Austin, TX.  Last year the darling of the dance was our favorite, yet fickle, micro-blogging platform twitter.

Over the last year, Twitter has seen exponential growth and experienced the growing pains that go along with that growth.  We have seen events in the recent past take Twitter to its knees and many fear that may happen again as we get ready for SXSW.  CenterNetworks had a good post on Twitter’s preparations for the event.

Frankly, I think this may be a make or break week for Twitter.  Many of there biggest fans will be at the conference and be wanting full and unfettered use of Twitter to get news out.  This same group is and can be a very fickle group whose loyalties will wane as quickly as they come.  If Twitter hiccups this week, it may be their last.  I think the likes of Pownce, fresh off the release of their new API, can pose a serious threat to Twitter this very week if things do not go smoothly.

So here you go Twitter, here is your big shot to step up and prove all the naysayers wrong.  Personally, I am preparing for the quick switch over to Pownce, which has been made all the easier with their new API.  Good luck twitter, I think you will need it.

Are DC Startups Developing a Complex?

There is obviously a lot of good things happening here in the DC area with regards to our local tech community and some of the startups that are being born out of it. But I can’t help but feel that many of us here have developed a bit of a complex, whether we know it or not. I am as guilty as the next person. I mean one of the reasons I started this blog was to bring some more focus onto the great things happening here in the area. I have been so happy to meet such good people in the process who are doing great things and fighting the good fight to get their glimmers of ideas to come to fruition. However, I think we have developed the “We are trying to start a company here in DC and its definitely not Silicon Valley, or Seattle, or Boston, or …”. Many of us are constantly striving to find that tangible, or intangible thing we seem to be missing here is DC and many a posts are being written and comments left on the subject.

All that being said, this idea of the complex popped into my head the other day while catching up on some reading I had set aside. The article I was on was a Washington Post article featuring LaunchBox Digital. We have written about LaunchBox here before after we saw one of the founders interviewed on The Social Times and Nick O’Neill. At the time it seemed like LaunchBox was the perfect company at the right time for DC. A local incubator that was going to help get the blossoming tech community here off the ground. The firstpart of the article was about some actual funding the group received lately from some local investors. What caught me off guard was the next part.

San Francisco ? Isn’t that somewhere near Silicon Valley ? Don’t they have lots of VC money out there ?

I’ll be honest, I was a bit surprised, and frankly a bit disappointed. And I wasn’t the only one. I saw a comment by Ann Bernard, CEO of WhyGoSolo a local DC startup

My thoughts exactly. For a firm that proposed to help support and grow the local “DC” tech community, I am not sure this was a terrific first step.

So with this in mind, is it surprising to think that we may have developed a bit of a complex ? How can we not to be honest ? A local firm decides to invest their first bit of cash on the other side of the country ? I think it will be very curious to see how many local startups actually get selected to participate in LaunchBox08, their summer startup incubation program along the lines on Y-Combinator.

So what do you think, complex or not, or just growing pains ?

Moodblast: Let ‘Em All Know How You Feel

A little while back we wrote about a cool little web app called Hellotxt.com that alows you to send a message to many of the social media sites, like Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, etc.

Today I got an update to another one of these apps I had tried previously called Moodblast.  The update was a welcome one that added Pownce integration on the heels of the release of the new API this week.

I really like the new Moodblast, as it is  a desktop app versus a web one like Hellotxt.com.  The one drawback (not for me) is it is a Mac only application.  My advice, buy a Mac.

But anyway, as you can see form the pic, you can choose any number of platforms to blast your mood out to, including Skype and iChat, and even Adium.  So this is a bit of a twist on the other tools.  Now you can even send messages out to those friends you communicate with via chat tools like Skype.

So if you are a Mac user, I advise you to give Moodblast a go and let us know what you think.

Maryland Biotech Firm Celera to California

The 270 corridor in near Rockville, MD has long been the hub of the biotech industry.  Companies located there, like HGS and Celera, were instrumental in mapping the human genome during the last decade.  They have brought good economic times and notoriety to the local area.

Unfortunately I read and article in the Washington Post today stating that Celera was moving their headquarters to northern California.  This caps a 2007 where many of the local biotech firms were bought up by larger international companies.  While these purchases has created great wealth for some in the area, it has shifted the focus of this vital industry away from Maryland.

Hopefully the money will stay in the region and can be put to good use in helping the budding tech community here grow and thrive.

« Previous Page — Next Page »