TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Comcast is introducing its WiMax service in Portland this week -- a new offering called High-Speed 2go that relies on the network of its Kirkland partner, Clearwire. As part of the offering, Comcast will provide a data card for laptop computer users at a trial price of $49.99 per month for the first year. For $69.99 per month, customers also will be able to access the Internet over Sprint's 3G network when they travel outside the WiMax territory.

Maveron's Debra Somberg has moved to Germany where her husband has accepted a faculty position at the University of Hamburg's medicine department. The former investment banker, who joined the Seattle venture capital firm in 2000 as a managing partner, plans to continue with the firm as a venture partner. In that role, Somberg will continue to advise companies and sit on boards.

Matt Heaton knows what it takes to build a social networking platform for a targeted audience. After all, he co-founded the popular Active Rain real estate network in 2003 -- a Bellevue network that boasts more than 150,000 real estate professionals as members.

Now, Heaton -- who left his day-to-day duties at Active Rain last summer -- is giving it another whirl in a completely different arena: amateur sports. This week, he's launching Timu, a new service that he says is designed to help baseball, basketball, soccer and other amateur athletes more effectively communicate with their teammates.

Does the world really need another social network -- especially one that is tailored to recreational sports? Heaton -- an amateur athlete himself who came up with the idea after growing frustrated trying to stay connected with his sports teams -- certainly thinks so.

Former Microsoft executive Scott Oki and former AskMe Chief Technology Officer Digvijay Chauhan have created a new non profit called SeeYourImpact, which utilizes camera phones and other technologies to get a glimpse at how their donations are helping people in need. Kristi Heim of The Seattle Times has the story, which also notes a similar effort from Microsoft Research's Adnan Mahmud who has established the Jolkona Foundation with his wife.

VentureBeat has details on the latest offering from AdmitOne -- the keystroke analysis security company formerly known as BioPassword. The Issaquah company is now touting an analytics business called Scout Analytics that indicates how and when people log on to the corporate network.

Bellevue's DreamBox Learning -- a maker of online math games for Kindergartners to second graders-- has named education experts Dr. Francis "Skip" Fennell and Dr. Catherine Fosnot to its advisory board.

Self-described Web geek Keith Vance pulls the plug on the Seattle online news publication, The Seattle, Courant, and explains why it did a "belly flop." 

TechCrunch lists the top 100 most "networked" venture capital firms and finds that Draper Fisher Jurvetson -- which has an outpost in Seattle led by Bill Bryant -- is at the top of the list. Others who have strong networks include familiar names such as Sequoia, Accel, Intel Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The first and only true Seattle firm on the list is Bezos Expeditions, the venture arm of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. It ranked 73rd. Meanwhile, VentureBeat's Matt Marshall wonders if this is the best way to rank VC firms.

Web hosting provider Rackspace encountered some technical issues today, knocking some Web sites offline.

Zillow's app

Zillow.com says that more than 500,000 people -- including quite a few real estate professionals -- have downloaded its iPhone application since it was released in late April.

With news that Yahoo's Maven Networks will be shutting down, Seattle upstart Delve Networks is offering customers of the online video company a "bailout program" so that they can continue to offering online video capabilities.

Inrix, the Kirkland provider of real time traffic data, is working with GeoDecisions to assist the U.S. Military and Department of Homeland Security with logistics planning in order to ensure that sensitive materials are properly routed.

Headline of the day comes via A Smart Bear: "Sacrifice your health for your startup."

The venture industry is broken. At least that's what the majority of venture capitalists think, according to a survey from executive search firm Polachi. PeHub.com has the details, noting that 52.9 percent of the VC respondents called the industry "broken," while another 60 percent said they are less confident today than they were six months ago.

Rand Fishkin

There's been a lot of chatter on this blog and others recently about the merits of bootstrapping a business, with some of the discussion taking on a bit of an anti-VC perspective. That's why I found Rand Fishkin's recent writings on venture capital so fascinating.

In one of the more candid blog posts I've read from an entrepreneur, the SEOMoz co-founder lays out the positives (accountability, connections, long-term thinking, etc.) and the negatives (loss of control, time suck, dilution, etc.) of taking on venture capital. But, at the end of the day, Fishkin says he's glad he took outside money. (And it turns out, he's now considering another round of financing.)

Msnbc.com has released a free iPhone application -- built in conjunction with Seattle startup Zumobi -- that allows users to quickly access the news of the day by clicking on a colored peacock feather. For example, if you're looking for sports news just click on the green peacock feather. Politics is shown in blue, while science and tech appears in yellow.

The New York Times has an interesting read on RealNetworks, and how the 15-year-old Seattle software company has stagnated over the years despite being one of the original leaders in distributing audio and video over the Internet. Reporter Brad Stone does a nice job of capturing the history of Real -- noting its missed opportunities and chutzpah in taking on big rivals such as Microsoft, Apple and -- most recently -- the Hollywood movie studios.

It's been another active week of discussion on TechFlash. Here are some of the comments that caught our eye. Keep up the chatter.

Anonymous on Startups and venture capitalists look to profit on Twitter mania: "The VC desire to latch on to Twitter reminds me of the VC craze for Facebook apps a year or two back. Any winners come out of the fbFund or other Facebook app funds?"

Mike on Is Bing Travel copying Kayak's popular travel Web site? "Microsoft is not copying Kayak any more than Expedia and all the airlines are copying one another. You have to display departure and arrival cities, dates, etc. to function as a travel site. And Kayak's approach is not very "innovative"...creating a list is nothing new."

Timothy James on Microsoft search execs reunite at eBay:  "I didn't know anyone still used eBay. No joke."

Mike Mathieu on Bill Gates wants a better beer keg: "Just a guess, but it probably came in a brainstorm related to cold-supply chains, which are needed to deliver some types of perishable vaccines to places without broadly reliable electricity, like sub-Saharan Africa. The ice cold beer is just a happy side effect."

Seattle-area Internet geeks and environmental groups came together on Microsoft's Redmond campus today to brainstorm about environmentally oriented Web applications in what was billed as a "Green & Geekalicious Hackday." Here are a couple whiteboards where they wrote down some of their ideas. (Click for larger versions.)

What do you think? See anything interesting? What would you add? People at the event focused on using the Microsoft Bing application programming interface, but don't limit yourself if you chime in below.

What is it with technology companies screwing up payroll for those workers getting the ax? According to TechCrunch, recently laid-off employees at MySpace have been asked to refrain from cashing their final checks due to errors in how the payments were calculated.

That's similar to an unfortunate situation earlier this year when Microsoft overpaid severance to some workers and then asked for the money back. The company changed its mind a few days later and allowed workers to keep the extra money.

Earlier this week, we told you about Dendreon's plans to spend $50 million to upgrade its New Jersey manufacturing and lab facility. Well, the Seattle biotechnology company -- which is on the verge of commercializing its prostate cancer treatment, Provenge -- also has some ambitious expansion plans for its hometown.

Our sister publication, the Puget Sound Business Journal, reports that the company is looking to double the size of its downtown Seattle headquarters as well as obtain about 250,000 square feet of lab space along the Seattle waterfront or in the South Lake Union Neighborhood.

Reporter Jeanne Lang Jones notes that the expansion comes at a good time for Seattle's struggling life sciences sector, which has been shedding jobs as companies such as Targeted Genetics, Northstar Neurosciences and ZymoGenetics reduce staff.

The super secretive mobile analytics startup Ground Truth has landed a high-profile technology executive as its top guy.  Sterling Wilson, the former president of Qpass and former chief financial officer at Concur Technologies, is now working at the Seattle startup as president, according to three sources familiar with the company and business incorporation records filed with the state

We're also hearing that the company is nearing completion of a venture round with Voyager Capital, the Seattle venture firm which counts Tom Huseby as a strategic partner. Huseby was among the earliest investors in Qpass, which recorded one of the more successful venture exits in recent years when it sold to Amdocs for $275 million in 2006.

Our weekly appearance on Northwest Cable News was preempted by the news of Michael Jackson's death. Nonetheless, here's the latest installment of Talkin' Tech which includes a segment on our story about venture capitalists and entrepreneurs joining the Twitter gold rush. Erik Sandoval also covers Windows 7 and the Portland Web site Stuff On My Cat.

More than 150 people turned out last night in downtown Bellevue to watch as 12 companies were chosen to participate in the final rounds of the Pacific Northwest's Clean Tech Open. This is the first time that the national business plan competition -- which started in California and has assisted more than 100 companies get off the ground -- has held an event here. 

The 12 finalists -- listed below -- will now compete for three $50,000 regional prizes. Later this year, they will have the chance to secure a $250,000 national prize, which includes cash and services.  Along the way, the companies receive training and support to help take their ideas to the next level.