Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:18:27 +0000

City: Portland

OK, here?s the deal. I?m in need of someone to build a website for me. I have some specific requirements in that direction, they are listed below. I know you get what you pay for, however I don?t have deep pockets (yet), so I?m not able to pay a lot of money for this. I will pay what?s fair however so if you are interested after reading the requirements below then let?s talk.

Oh, I want to get this site up and running ASAP so it would be nice if whoever took it on had the bandwidth to make it happen at least by the end of March. You can reach me at lkr-nw@gmx.com .

I have limited understanding of the nuts and bolts of what I am asking you to do but I?m very clear on what I want this project to be:

> Website focus is commercial/informational, generating revenue through affiliate partner links.
> I want the website to be search engine friendly, css and javascript are ok but if my readers can?t find me via a search engine, what?s the point?
> It needs to have a horizontal main menu, with dropdown sub-menus (possibly another tier of sub menus as well).
> It needs to be exciting but not bewildering (and remember needs to be viewable by many).
> I want to include the usual elements (search, contact, site-map, feedback) but I also want to be able to do blogging and/or forums on the site as well.
> It needs to have a link for people to sign up for an email newsletter that will allow me to capture those emails for campaigns.
> Some graphics will be required for the site ? affiliate partners will provide their own graphics but I will need more. I have the capability of generating them myself but would be open to options.
> Last, but certainly not least, I will be responsible for changing content on the page (as conditions in the marketplace dictate) so the design would have to allow that.

Original Posting

Eventually, the mobile space may suffer the kind of painful shakeout that befell other maturing technologies. App stores are already crowded as developers from all over the world converge to peddle their wares.

At the moment, though, mobile keeps growing. Developers anticipate a fresh infusion of app demand when Apple releases its iPad tablet computer next month. And, with startup costs low, sometimes a good idea is all it takes to thrive.

"That barrier has been brought down so that you have a one- or two-person shop that builds something and gets distribution and can make money," said Peter Farago, vice president of marketing for Flurry Inc., a California company that tracks activity in the mobile industry.

The rise of app developers is emblematic of a new direction in Oregon technology, where software historically played a minor role.

While the Silicon Valley and Seattle built large software industries in the 1980s and '90s, Oregon focused on high-tech manufacturing.

Many of those production jobs vanished in the dot-com contraction at the start of the last decade, never to return, as manufacturing shifted overseas. Fifteen years of job gains were wiped out, sending the state's high-tech employment back to 1996 levels.

Even as hardware was fading, software development became more open and collaborative, allowing small companies and individual developers to make headway in an industry largely dominated by power players like Microsoft.

With mobile apps, that trend has continued.

"We're big for an iPhone company," said Dave Howell, CEO of Avatron Software, which moved its seven employees from Vancouver last month to a new office on the 41st floor of the U.S. Bancorp Tower in downtown Portland.

The company, which makes a variety of utilities and apps for the iPhone, is toying around with ideas for the larger iPad tablet computer.

"We're thinking about what the demographic is for the iPad," Howell said who believes the larger screen will be especially inviting for young kids, given its gaming potential.

"The things we're going to be able to do, technically, are going to be much better than what we were able to do on a tiny screen," he said.

But even with bigger screens, Portland's mobile firms may remain small.

Competition is fierce, and today's independent developers might never grow really big, cautions Mark Beccue, senior analyst for consumer mobility at ABI research.

"It's not something that a lot of people are going to make a lot of money at," he said.

That doesn't mean these small companies are doomed, though. "If you're three guys in a garage, your relative sense of success is going to be smaller," Beccue said.

On that scale, the app ecosystem plays to Portland's strength, according to Raven Zachary, a nationally known iPhone developer in Portland.

"It's a very nice fit for that because most mobile development is coming from independents. Consolidation hasn't happened yet," said Zachary, whose 18-month-old firm, Small Society, builds apps for big brands, including Starbucks, Zipcar and Whole Foods.

It's not at all clear that Portland has a higher concentration of developers than other mobile hotspots -- the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and New York City among them. But Zachary said mobile software doesn't demand geographic concentration, and he finds plenty of developer talent here at home.

"So I think there's an opportunity for this to grow up and stay in Portland," he said.

Portland has "the right DNA" for an enduring mobile cluster, agrees Jon Maroney, who founded the Portland mobile publishing firm FreeRange Communications. But, to endure, he said, mobile developers will need to grow.

A Missouri company, Handmark, bought FreeRange last year. Maroney and his staff stayed on and now run Handmark's mobile publishing business from Southeast Portland. His clients include the Portland Trail Blazers and The Wall Street Journal.

Portland's mobile startups need more big projects like those, Maroney said, and big partnerships. And he said that while the city's developers have established an expertise on the iPhone, they'll eventually need to diversify to other platforms -- such as the Blackberry and phones using Google's Android operating system.

At the moment, one hot app is enough to sustain a business. But in Maroney's view, apps will ultimately be a means to an end, connecting users to a broad range of services, online and off.

"We're not going to grow an economy here and be successful just by doing iPhone apps," he said. "It's got to be more than that."

-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway