Article posted on Apr 30
If you read Blogs in Utah at all you have probably seen a fair amount about Seth Godin recently. 
You might ask yourselves why… Why have so many Blogs been trying to get you to think about Seth Godin… and who the heck is he anyway?
Well, let’s start with who Seth is: He’s a writer. He’s a writer who get’s to the point, and says some of the things we all really knew anyway, in a very in your face way that hopefully gets us off our butts. He’s also one heck of a speaker. Odds are that if you’ve read any good self help, or energizing books recenlty Seth either wrote them or is quoted in them.
Okay, that’s all fine and good… but there are a lot of cool writers and speakers out there. Why are the local Blogs so active on this guy? The answer: Because it’s not just about Seth Godin. It’s really about a bunch of people who are not making any money on any of this, who sat down and wondered why it seems that Utah gets less of these types of opportunities than most other big cities. Who wondered why the technology community here in Utah doesn’t have the pull it should. Now note: I say the technology community. There are some very powerful technology leaders. But the grass-roots, sheer force of numbers and will community has not had the ability to make itself heard.
This is not about Seth. It is the first effort of several folks to “rally the troops”, and come up with a way to give the folks pounding out code, building sites, testing products, supporting customers, making sales, and building brands to make their voices, and their wills heard.
So if you have wished that there was a way to get events, people, and opportunities here… and have always wondered why “someone” wasn’t getting it done… then come become part of that “someone”. Join up with a bunch of someones who are in the process of becoming “something” that can get these things done. I have put my Blog, and my corporate sponsorship dollars behind this effort. Maybe you are luke-warm on Seth or maybe you love him… either way, support this bigger effort to build wordmob so it can help with this, and it can be a force to bring the people and the opportunities here for you and for all of us.
So I ask you, either click here, or get passing this along to someone who you think might.
Article posted on Apr 30
Josh Kenzer, a co-worker of mine (as well as an avid Spotlight attender, and the person who whipped 
me into blogging in the first place) recently conducted one of his wonderful “5 question interviews” with Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of Wordpress, and very involved in Akisment, bbPress, and Ping-o-Matic.ÂÂ
There is no question that the way the world is communicating is constantly changing, and is currently in the middle of a fairly radical shift. At 23, Matt is clearly one of the folks poised to be instramental in many of those new ideas and solutions. Go here to read the full article.ÂÂ
I did want to pass along one quote from the interview however… I think this is a key component of the successful entrepreneur, “My general approach to life is just to experiment, fail fast, and run with what sticks.”
Article posted on Apr 30
We are please to announce that we have chosen and booked a Utah tech company for the May event (June has been chosen as well… look for an announcement in the coming weeks). May 18th we will be spotlighting HireVue, who will have Ryan Money, and Mark Newman come talk to us about how their technology (recently written up by USA Today, the New York Post, and Time) is changing the way that companies interview and hire.ÂÂ
We’ll be at the Bohemain again this month, which means a real cool atmosphere, the whole upstairs reserved, and free drinks. It starts at 3:00 sharp, so we’ll see you there.
Article posted on Apr 27
Last night I attended my second Utah Blogger / Utah Tech Geek event. I gotta tell ya, I just love these. 
It’s different than most events… I really don’t think of it as a networking event at all. It is a lot more close-nit than that. If you blog, you’ll find that meeting with this group of folks is a lot more like hanging out with a bunch of your best friends than it is like “networking.” I learn so much at these, and the folks there are always so helpful with those of us who still haven’t attained our blackbelt at Blog-Fu.
Want to know how to get your company’s message out? Want to OWN the google search results for whatever phrases resonate for your company? Willing to turn yourself into clay a bit, and put in some hard work to help be molded? Then these are some folks you want to know.ÂÂ
This is definitely one of the coolest events I attend. Excellent place to learn. Probably not the best place if your goal is to hand out business cards and peddle product.ÂÂ
I should have a list of attendees up later today.
(Thanks go out to Ash’s post for the picture I stole 
)
Article posted on Apr 27
Okay, so forgive me for diverging a bit from Utah technologies… but I just couldn’t pass this one up. 
For starters I have a confession to make: I hate shaving. I do it. But I hate it.ÂÂ
You know, we all have ”that day”, the day you didn’t shave. Or maybe you got stuck overnight on a trip. Your meeting is about to show up, and you look like crap.ÂÂ
Well, check it out. A USB electric razor. That’s it… I’m buying one.
Article posted on Apr 26
Outlook rules don’t work well enough, or catch things they shouldn’t. Filters, While lists, Black lists, Gray Lists, SPF, 
Goodmail, Badmail, What-The-Heck-Can-I-Do-To-Stop-This mail… There have been a lot of techniques to try to cutt off, or even check the growth of spam. The most common teqniques thus far however, have really focussed on the content of the email (which is immensely dynamic), or who exactly is sending it (wich, with the vast amount of senders, and even worse, infected “bot” computers, has a whole new set of issues).ÂÂ
But Unspam, a Utah company headed up by Matthew Prince and Eric Langheinrich, has not only adopted a new strategy, but they’ve locked arms with the big-boys, and are taking it to court.
Here’s the gist of it: Project Honey Pot (Which is some really cool stuff cooked up by Unspam) generates unique, spamtrap email addresses each time a web site is visited. It also records who was hitting the site when that address gets generated. So if spam shows up at the trap, they know who gathered the address. As Matthew stated in the Washington Post Article, “We’ve found that the Internet addresses of those doing the harvesting is a much smaller universe of those who are actually sending the messages, and locating [the harvesters] may give us good indicators of who out there is at the top of these spam operations.“
Matthew aknowledges that this Lawsuit will not solve the spam problem, “But if we can take two or three major spammers offline, that’s a huge victory for the Internet as a whole.”
Want to see even more coolness that Unspam is doing to help out Bloggers? Check out this gems from their 5 days of announcements around comment spammers.
Article posted on Apr 25
For small companies one of the quandries has always been, “okay, so I have a cool printer… but what am I going to print?”  
 Just because you can produce marketing slicks, doesn’t mean you know what to put on them. With its acquisition of Arteis, the privately held company that operates LogoWorks, HP has taken a step in helping those companies.
Highlights from the full article state that “HP plans to leverage Logoworks’ technologies and services to provide small businesses with access to professional design solutions at a fraction of market cost. Supported by hundreds of graphic designers worldwide, Logoworks’ affordable packages range from simple logo design to the development of a full suite of marketing collateral.”
Nice job folks! Thanks go out again to Phil Burns, who is feeding us all sorts of good stuff today
Article posted on Apr 25
Those of you who were at our March Event, or who have listened to the podcast from it are aware  
of who Berkeley Data Systems is, and a bit about their product, Mozy. Well, we just heard some big news, and wanted to pass it along. According to the Salt Lake Tribune Article Mozy beat out several other online backup firms to close a deal with GE for roughly ten million dollars (that’s a lot of zero’s!)
Good job to Josh Coates and his crew! Thanks go out to Phil Burns for keeping us all abreast of this exciting news.ÂÂ
Article posted on Apr 24
Jon Butler from Mediaport talks to us about his company, and their music ATM. This provides some interesting insight into some of the financial pains that the music industry is facing, and creative steps that Mediaport is helping them take to address them.
Listen Now (34.2 MB, MP3)
Article posted on Apr 23
I want to thank everyone who came out to our April Utah Tech Spotlight event. 
This month we spotlighted Mediaport, makers of a a digital content distribution kiosk, or “music ATM.” As many of us have seen recently, the parking lots of Blockbuster or Holywood Video continue to become more and more empty (although they still never seem to have the movie you’re looking for), while redbox units are popping up all over the place. So the question is, as music sales continue to decline, will music stores continue to become more and more empty, just like the video stores have been? Perhaps, but Mediaport offers an exciting solution to not only help bolster up music sales for struggling music stores, but to offer a wider selection of music and other media in locations where a full-blown store is impracticle.
Due to the large amount of data that can be held on a decent sized disk array, a Mediaport unit can hold far more music than all of the shelf space in the rest of the store. This combined with the fact that the vast quantity of music still being purchased is 4 years old or older, allows a store to instantly offer the selection that they couldn’t before. Think about it… how often have you walked into a music store, ready to buy, but walked out empty handed?
It all sounds good, but is it just a theory, or have the proven it? Well, the stores where the units have been placed have showed that roughly 10% of all revenue coming through the store is coming through the kiosk.
There is no question that media purchasing and consumption will go through some major changes over the next several years. I think there is no question that 5 years from now we will all be streaming media over the airwaves to our cell phone/ media player combos. But there is an interim step… not everyone adopts that fast, and technology never seems to become ubiquitous as quickly as it seems. Mediaport is currently the lead player to capitalize on the “redbox” step of music and many other forms of digital media (podcast, movies, etc.) If they play their card right in that transition, they could definitely be in the mix for wherever media is headed.
They’re here, they’re hip, and they’re hiring, and I for one am happy to have a Utah based company at the forefront of such an exciting industry.
Want to learn more? Check out the podcast to hear an interview with John from Mediaport. Thanks again for attending.
