Our friends at Portland-based Jive Software are holding a preview show and tell of the new version of Clearspace, a collaboration software. The entire Portland blogging, podcasting and influencer community is invited to attend the sneak peek dinner on Tuesday, September 11 at 5:30 p.m. at the Jive Software headquarters. You need to RSVP.

Jive has a lot to celebrate, since it just grabbed $15 million in investment from Sequoia Capital.

-posted by Rachel

Everyone's gotta have a marketing niche. The National Science Foundation, the Public Library of Science and the San Diego Supercomputing Group are debuting SciVee, which is being billed at the YouTube for scientists. SciVee enables researchers to upload technical papers and video presentations that demystify the more complicated topics. First up: “Structural Evolution of the Protein Kinase-Like Superfamily.” I don't think Obama girl has a lot of competition here...yet.

-posted by Rachel

Ever catch yourself dreaming up a new gizmo and praying it will come to market some day? Maybe I've been living under a rock, but Engadget just brought the Sony Reader to my attention (...a concept I thought I had invented some time ago...). The Reader is the size of a paperback book, carries around 80 full-length titles and provides enough battery power for 7,500 page turns. The display looks like old fashioned ink on paper and the text size adjustable. While you can't make calls from it, the Sony Reader does allows users to upload your favorite photos for sharing.

-posted by Lindsay

Well, I would be remiss to not do a blog posting on a new game being released from one of our clients, Sandlot Games. Cake Mania 2, follow up to the most downloaded casual video game of 2006, will be available to the public on 8/27. More than 40 million people have downloaded this game and the new release is set to carry the momentum forward. You can check out the mini-site that will launch on Monday, or hit up Sandlot's newly designed website to download the game.

In the meantime, here are some exclusive pics from the new game, enjoy...

-posted by Justin

Want to get the inside scoop on your favorite TV show? BuddyTV, a start-up out of Seattle, offers communities around TV shows featuring inside news, celebrity interviews and gossip. You can also read a recent nPost interview with BuddyTV CEO David Niu.

-posted by Adrienne

Last month on its corporate blog, Kirkland-based CatchTheBest announced it will be releasing its applicant tracking solution for the small business sometime this fall. Seems as if the human resources tools space is getting very crowded in the Seattle tech arena, what with Ascentis and others already fishing for clients in this market. We'll be watching for the CatchTheBest launch to see how its product differentiates itself.

-posted by Rachel

As a writer for WIRED, Josh Davis has covered the Internet from top to bottom. Now he has a new challenge: in 12 months, find the next big thing in the Web 2.0 world and turn it into something at the level of YouTube and Flickr. He'll be using his own money to start but, in return, hopes to witness at ground zero how the pressures of running a startup can be rewarding. Initially, he's selecting three startups to help find initial funding: one in the UK, one from a digitally developing country (think Estonia) and one from anywhere else. He'll negotiate his own equity in each firm (this is where the reward comes in). Patrick Sullivan at lov.li, who used to be with our friends at Marqui is helping Josh out and posted more about the project at LinkedIn. This is one of the more intriguing projects I've heard about lately.

-posted by Rachel

Interesting article in the NY TIMES on the new wikiscanner service, which identifies the source of edits to various Wikipedia entries. This of course means that anyone can track changes made by non-objective parties – for example changes made by an ExxonMobile employee regarding the Valdez spill. It brings to light interesting questions regarding the ethics and objectivity involved in writing and editing Wikipedia entries. We often get involved in the creation of wikis on various client products, etc., but if our employees or clients ever edit a particular entry written by somebody else, I would hope that they identify themselves and work through the sites "talk" mechanism. Still, interesting reading...

-posted by Paul

It's Monday, so in keeping with the intense need for coffee I think it's time to announce our website du jour. Check out the Oracle of Starbucks – it can accurately predict your personality type based on your favorite Starbucks drink. Awesome.

-posted by Rachel

Szia! Hungarian Telephone and Cable Corp., the second largest fixed line telecommunications and broadband ISP in Hungary, has a major Seattle connection. Turns out the company is based here. Hopefully, I'm not the last person on earth to discover this -- the company was founded in 1992, so it's been in town for awhile. I'm sure there's a very good reason why the company is in Seattle and not with its customers in Hungary, but I'm still wondering what it might be.

-posted by Rachel

As long as I'm going down memory road, here's another update on a former co-worker: Erick Saks. After pushing the button to drop the ball on Times Square with Mayor Bloomberg last January (and being on the Carson Daly Show), he was deployed to Afghanistan with one of the Air Force's new Contingency Response Groups. Cpt. Saks is in charge of his unit's public information -- and he must be doing a great job, as he and his team were featured last month in a Newsweek article. We like to think he obtained his media skills from us.

-posted by Rachel

Clients often ask us about company or product awards... what's the advantage, how do you get them, are they worth it, which ones should we go for, etc. A major award from a reputable source can be worth gold in terms of the validation it provides, and we spend a significant amount of time managing award programs for clients. Much of that time is spent sifting through the various opportunities to identify the awards that are worth it – in other words, those that are reputable, on target and offer a reasonable chance for success.

Then again, there is certainly a lot of crap out there. So what are some awards worth? Not so much, given that you can win for a product that literally does nothing.

-posted by Paul

Must be the season for CEOs to move on. Lumera announced today that its CEO, Tom Mino, is stepping down. At least the company did him the honor of a press release; embattled Zango CEO and co-founder, Daniel Todd, just got a company blog mention discussing his departure at the end of August. It's probably coincidental timing that PC Tools today announced it won the first round in a lawsuit instigated by Zango. PC Tools makes anti-spyware that neutralizes Zango's adware.

-posted by Rachel

Two of my former co-workers have individually launched great blogs that talk about one of my favorite things: food. At Lunch in a Box, you can learn how to build a better and healthier lunch, accompanied by photographs that would make a food stylist scream with envy. As an example, the site recently featured cassava and wild salmon in a nifty divided box, complete with a cute grape-inspired critter as a garnish. Kudos to Deborah Lamascus Hamilton for creativity and...well...fun! And over at Cafe Fernando, Cenk Sönmezsoy comments on the food scene in Istanbul, again with glorious, mouth-watering photos. But my favorite blog entries are the ones that document his attempts to create new and interesting dishes, such as the smoked salmon tarte. Note to the boss: I need more free time.

-posted by Rachel

Our friends at Paladin Partners alerted us to the fact that a new animation studio has opened in Prosser. American Animation Studios has its first release now available on Amazon.com, with a second coming up this fall. Both feature American heroes in keeping with the company's goal of bringing historical content to 3D animation. "Patrick Henry: Quest for Freedom" is also available direct.

-posted by Rachel

As we mentioned before, VOXUS is up for a Mobile Village award. It's a reader's choice award, and if you're interesting in helping out, voting steps are below. Signing up and voting takes less than five minutes; don't ask how we know. We certainly didn't vote for ourselves. We would never do that.

Voting ends 9/26.

1. Visit Mobile Village
2. Click on the top right hand "Sign Up Now" link
3. Fill in required fields and submit (“Thank you for registering!” will appear upon completion)
4. Next, click on "click here" and then "vote here" to select VOXUS in the following category: Wireless/Mobile Technology PR Firm
(you will need to confirm your email address at the end of the ballot)

A number of other VOXUS clients are participating, including AirMagnet, CipherLab and Formotus.

-posted by Paul

Here's an added take on our earlier post about Pepcom... We occasionally are asked by clients whether or not they should consider participating in additional paid opportunities to meet with the press while at major trade shows such as CES and CTIA. There are always several functions being offered, such as breakfasts, cocktail hours, etc. One organizer I've been asked about is Pepcom (www.pepcom.com), one of the more aggressive marketers of these types of functions. I think Pepcom just made my answer to clients a little easier in the future, as the company has majorly ticked off a very influential reporter -- David Berlind of CNET and ZDNet, who is calling for a professional boycott of all future Pepcom press events. Suffice to say, Pepcom just shot itself in the foot by trying to pull a power play on a journalist...you'd think the company would more highly value its core constituency.

-posted by Rachel

Dan Rayburn of media outlet StreamingMedia.com takes a press release from EdgeCast out behind the woodshed for a beating. Interesting reading if you want to know how "marketing-ese" can be perceived by the media. (And no, we didn't write it, thank god.)

-posted by Paul

There's an old adage from the bygone era when print journalism used to be, you know, printed... "Never argue with a man that buys ink by the gallon." Well, apparently the owners of the Pepcom trade events have never heard of this. At least, that's the only way to explain their threat to "ban all CNET and ZDNET journalists" from the trade events they sponsor. In a nutshell, Pepcom got its panties in a bunch when CNET hosted a free after-the-event get together, presumably because it was parasitic in regard to the Pepcom event. Which is ironic coming from a company that makes its living putting on "sub-events" that take advantage of such shows as CES and CTIA. For more, read this post from ZDNet's David Berlind.

-posted by Paul

Redfin has a post up highlighting the recent NakedTruth event. This is how the media works.

-posted by Paul

As part of our recent launch campaign for CozyBug's unique new local online classified service (think: eBay and Craigslist mashup), we arranged for a radio spot on the nationally syndicated Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline show. These are always fun to script, and you can check it out below.

Podcast

-posted by Paul

I'm sorry to read today that the Fake Steve Jobs, an anonymous blogger who took on the persona of Apple's egotistical CEO Steve Jobs, has been outed by the New York Times. It's a sad day for VOXUS founder Paul Forecki, who reads Fake Steve and has written about him in our blog. He's probably at the local watering hole now, toasting to his memory...which is why I'm left to write this update. BTW, it turns out the blogger is a well-respected technology reporter that we've worked with in the past; kudos to him for creating an alter-ego and keeping it a secret for more than a year.

-posted by Rachel

Yup, it's another Seattle-based startup... Zeenami is still under wraps, but it looks like it hopes to tap the goodness of social networking and couple it with a regular and talented cast of individuals to assist individuals in reaching their goals. Zeenami plans to become a self-improvement destination with tools to help sort through products and services already available. The founder is Bruce Worrall, most recently of GalleryPlayer.

-posted by Rachel

At long last, the episode "Jerry was a Man" in the television series Masters of Science Fiction airs August 18 at 10:00 p.m. on ABC. Starring Malcolm McDowell and Anne Heche, the episode features Voxus client CipherLab's 1266 hand held barcode scanner as part of the set design.

-posted by Rachel

Another stealthy startup is about to launch in Seatlle. LiquidPlanner, formerly code named Team46, will offer an online project management application that somehow blends social networking features with key project analytics, such as budgets. The brains behind the company are Charles Seybold and Jason Carlson, formerly of Expedia.com. Whatever the company is up to, it's doing something cool this month by sponsoring the next nPost networking event, being held August 21 at 6:00 p.m. at the Del Rey. You can sign up here.

-posted by Rachel