News

Update: Thank you so much for all the nice emails and interest we have received. If you are looking for technical support, please read through the support forum and if you don’t find your answer create a new thread.

We have just open sourced two plugins and would love a review / thoughts for future directions, improvement and any wisdom on promoting an open source wordpress plugin.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/the-events-calendar/

The Events Calendar plugin enables you to rapidly create and manage events using the post editor. Features include optional Eventbrite integration, Google Maps integration as well as default templates such as a calendar grid and event list for streamlined one click installation.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/eventbrite-for-the-events-calendar/

Register attendees and gather money for your events. Eventbrite is FREE for no-charge events and takes a small commission for each ticket sold. This is the easiest and best way to manage your events and now it plugs directly into Wordpress!!!

Eventbrite for The Events Calendar adds Eventbrite integration to The Events Calendar. This plugin depends on The Events Calendar and has no standalone functionality. Both plugins need to be activated in order for Eventbrite functionality to work.

The Opportunity

We’re looking for a talented Wordpress developer with extensive plugin experience to join our crew on a handful of upcoming projects. This is a freelance position – we’re game for people located anywhere in North America.

Are you clued into the latest wordpress happenings and developments? Have a hankering to extend Wordpress in new directions? We’re currently working on high-profile Wordpress implementations that range between conventional to seriously bleeding edge. We will want to see plugin code examples – public plugins are ideal. We want people that are able to develop code that can withstand high profile sites and intense loads. You should be comfortable working as part of a team – your code will have to integrate into an existing architecture. If the tightly optimized code get’s you excited – you’re probably a good fit.

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Today our good friend Peter Koht, the Santa Cruz City Economic Development Coordinator, presented our work at GOV 2.0 Expo.  We’re proud to announce that we won one of five Showcase awards for the Santa Cruz City Budget Website.

What started as a volunteer weekend Wordpress project to help the City of Santa Cruz address the budget deficit has transformed into an adventure. Partnering with UserVoice and Rob Knight Shane, Peter, and Brandon Jones produced an integrated portal for community participation. Mayor Cynthia Mathews worked with Koht and a number of collaborators to produce content for the site and to articulate the state of the budget.

The resulting site instigated conversation amongst both the online and offline Santa Cruz community setting the tone for collaboration.

Our friend Jonathan Fields was just interviewed on Fox Business regarding his recently published his book, ‘Career Renegade‘. We are super excited to find that in his interview he mentioned our iPhone Surf App (at 5:15).

On a related note, Jonathan also interviewed Shane on his podcast, Career Renegades Profiles.

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We are delighted to announce the launch of our first complete iPhone app: “Surf“. Working in conjunction with WaveWatch.com, we’ve developed an iPhone app for surfers. The app features the first ever iPhone streaming surf cams, an intuitive user interface for reviewing current conditions as well as 6-day forecasts.  Surf also features:

• Tide
• Swell & Surf
• Wind
• Sunrise, Sunset
• Lunar Phases
• Weather Conditions

For more information or to download the app, visit the tunes store:
http://iphone.wavewatch.com/download

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We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been awarded 3 honoree positions in the 2009 Webby Awards. Giant Mag won a spot in the Magazine section as well as in the Celebrity/Fan section along side The Urban Daily.

David-Michel Davies, Webby Awards Executive Director, writes:

As a result of the exceptional quality of submissions this year, the Academy has recognized outstanding entries as Official Honorees alongside our Nominees and Winners. The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to the top 15% of all work entered that exhibits remarkable achievement. With nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 states and over 60 countries, this is an outstanding accomplishment for you and your team.

The Opportunity

We are in the middle of a pretty sweet gig. We’re looking for a Wordpress Plugin Master (no themer this time folks) to join our team on the project for the next 4 months starting now. Help build a high profile full-scale Wordpress suite of 54 sites with elements from various 3rd party web applications.
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The topic at hand: Freelance Camp!

We are beginning to put together a bar camp in Santa Cruz on the topic of freelancing and running a small service business. This is a community event and we are actively looking for volunteers to make this kick ass. If you can help find sponsors, spread the word, find a venue, get some grub lined up or perform general geekery – let’s talk. Hit me up by email or respond in the comment, add yourself to the wiki, and we can chat.

Freelance Camp: http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/Freelance-Camp

Hi everyone,

A lot of you probably know that Peter & I have been passionately working on our next adventure, stealing moments of time between clients, travel and family. I am excited to announce that the beta has finally arrived! I hope that you will check it out and give us your feedback. I love the community we have developed along with our blog and couldn’t think of someone I would rather hear from. I trust your opinion and want this to be the best it can be.

Sign Up for the Beta!

So here is what have we been doing off in the bat cave:

Sproutwire came about because I love to read but I am far too busy to go hunting through the internet for the few gems. My RSS reader was overflowing and most of what was in there frankly was underwhelming. In fact, a lot of you know that I quite vocally renounced the use of an rss reader. In the end, I was only reading the links my friends were sending me and started asking them to do it regularly. And so Sproutwire was born. A favorites list from an editorial team of writers and entrepreneurs who really get what it means to launch a startup, grow a small company, run a microbuiness and work freelance.

Peter & I went off and collected a team of up-and-coming and renown business owners and bloggers, who will review and select the best fresh content we can find on the Internet for small business. Blogs, newspapers, ebooks, presentation slides, journals, video, newsletters, anything that we think will help you be better at what you do and live a happier life. Those items that make the cut will be summarized and linked to. Our goal is to keep it fresh, smart and personal.

Sproutwire offers you a daily dose of the best small business articles that the internet has to offer.

We are looking for leads on great content to review, so if you run into something cool that you think truly stands out, email it to contribute@sproutwire.com. If we pick it, we will give you a shoutout and link to your site so include a link.

I want to send a huge thanks to our starting team of expert editors/reviewers: Jarrko Laine, Sara Smith, Jonathan Fields, Naomi Dunford, Christine OKelly, Eric Davis, Brandon Jones. A special thanks to Brandon for the branding and design and Eric for beating the code into submission and late night business chats. Go check out their blogs and leave some intelligent feisty comments for me!

Also, if you know someone you think might be stoked to check it out – please feel free to pass this invitation on.

Now I am off to go work and play in the sun for a long week with our business team in El Salvador! I’ll post pictures when we get back.

-S

The time has come! We posted a challenge to our readers a few weeks ago to interview themselves. Many people responded. Peter & I read and read and laughed and cried. We got some amazing stories and wanted to bring to you a few of our favorites and pass on our congrats to the winners and the community at large. We are giving out 3 prizes. One for our favorite interview, one for the best original question and one award for sheer determination and chutzpa. The winners get to pick one book from my personal reading list. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.
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