Is It Time to Ban Bicycling at Night?
The Desertification of Seattle Has Begun
Elevator or Hellevator? Maybe Take the Stairs
Seattlest emailed a bunch of local tech professionals and asked them for the best of the Seattle tech scene in 2007. They responded and we threw all their suggestions in a list, looked it over, and scrapped 90% of them and then made up a new list off the top of our heads. And, yes, it's too late to talk about the year passed and we're more than ready to look forward, but we didn't manage to get this posted during the holidays.
9. Halo 3
This locally-produced game makes the list for enabling more racist, mysoginist, homophobic chat amongst 14-year-olds than any game previously produced in the history of ever. No, the real innovation here is Bungie's break with Microsoft after the game came out. Here's hoping the studio has a hell of a 2008.
8. Infinite Hoops
If there's a theme to the rest of the list it's that the best technology out of Seattle this year really shines when it's facilitating real-world contact. InfiniteHoops.com helps you find pick-up games in your area.
7. The Mcleod Residence
The Mcleod gallery/cafe came into the world after members of the Robot Co-Op wanted to build a real-world hangout for themselves and their techno-artist friends late in 2006. Thankfully they didn't leave tech behind entirely: the Flickr-enabled photo booth was a big hit and the space hosts enough cool tech events to place on the list. Happy Slightly-Belated Birthday Mcleod Residence. Lookin' forward to your 2008.
6. Redfin
There's lots of real estate-centeric technology to choose from in Seattle, but Redfin's editorial and blogging activities set it apart as a company that gets community on the internet.
5. Noonhat
Another local site that takes virtual connections and makes them real, Noonhat finds you people to have lunch with. Simple, and cool.
4. UrbanSpoon
A couple of Jobster refugees came together late last year to put together this Seattlest favorite late last year. Traffic to this alternative to CitySearch/Yelp has been growing exponentially throughout the year making the site more useful and interesting by the minute.
3. iLike
iLike has been around for a bit, and we passed them by in the past for being yet another site that promised music community at the expense of too much personal info, but this year their Facebook app dropped and suddenly the thing seemed so damn useful. What a difference someone else's social software wrapped around your application makes, eh? You get over Zombies, Superpoke and Likeness matches pretty rapidly at Facebook, but iLike has lasting value. We're embarassed to admit how dependant we've become on iLike's concert updates.
2. Ignite Seattle
When we emailed Bre Pettis for suggestions for this list he responded, "you've got hackerbot labs/ public n3rd area there and that's pretty much the coolest thing going on in the world" and, yeah, those are pretty cool things, but the even cooler thing that makes them possible is the Ignite Seattle series of tech events Bre and fellow O'Reilly writer Brady Forest put on in Seattle.
1. Portal
The best tech coming out of Seattle this year is Valve Software's game Portal. Originally put together as a student project the game became a surprise hit after Valve included it in The Orange Box. Leaving aside the fantastic gameplay and the brilliant AI storyline, there's the song. Name a video game song. Name one that's actually good. Next time it comes up, you'll be able to cite "Still Alive."
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
You're not belated: McLeod's birthday is this week.
Hey Dan,
Thanks for including InfiniteHoops in your best tech list. We have a number of pickup games in the Seattle area and eastside. Great for working on those New Year's resolutions. Join up.
http://InfiniteHoops.com/Search?q=Seattle
- TM