This week we learned Tech Crunch's outspoken, oft disliked blogging mastermind Michael Arrington has moved to Seattle - about 3 months after openly stating that Seattle pales in comparison to Silicon Valley in tech relevance. "If you don’t think you have what it takes to make it in Silicon Valley, maybe Seattle or other mini-tech hubs is the place for you." He proceeds to explain that Seattle is great ...we've got nature and culture and a wonderful lifestyle! But that those are selling points for pansies, people that don't have what it takes to commit 110% of their life to grinding at innovation. So sure, it's not shocking that we haven't exactly welcomed him with open arms. more ›

• Hey, Seattle--you gave Northwest Film Forum $44,000 just because they asked. That's short of the $70K they need to forestall any cuts, but still far better than a poke in the eye with a sharp film gate.
• As of October 14, you'll have a whole new Whole Foods to boycott on health care principles. Queen Anne View says the anchor tenant at the Interbay Urban Center "will feature an interactive healthy eating center, cooking classes and demonstrations, [and] a coffee shop."

TechFlash sat in on Microsoft's Mac unit conference call this morning, thinking the surprise announcement might be about Office on the iPhone (honestly, like our phone doesn't crash enough already), but it turns out they're just getting around to burying Entourage, and will offer an Office for Mac suite that contains Outlook. Finally Mac users in an Exchange environment won't feel like a red-headed stepchild. In the meantime, current Office 2008 users can download a more Exchange-friendly Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition here. more ›

The Washington state Department of Information Services has chosen Binghoo! to serve as the search engine for the state's website, says TechFlash. But the DIS spokesperson claims it wasn't about snuggling up to Microsoft: "the bottom line was to get the best search engine we can get." Seriously? What were your fucking metrics? Bing is almost two months old, and Google's search dominance is unquestioned. (We're fine with them picking Binghoo!, btw--just try to be proud of it.) We note that this is the same DIS that thinks access.wa.gov is a better URL than wa.gov. That "access" makes all the difference--it's...um..."accessier." more ›

• "Thousands" of Seattle residents have access to Qwest's superfast VDSL2 already, says TechFlash, with a top speed of 40 mbps download/20 mbps upstream, and all for only $110 per month...when combined with your monthly phone service.
• Don't worry, reassures the Seattle Transit Blog, light rail ridership will grow like kudzu. And then the Seattle Times will write about how crowded it is.

Google invited us to a media lunch but we were messing around with Slacker radio and missed it. Luckily, TechFlash's John Cook was there, tweeting about it, so look for a post from them later on. It'll be a TechFlash! We have a screenshot of the relevant Tweetery. But if you want to buttonhole Google yourself, drop by the Red Door tonight at 6 p.m. (to 8) for a happy hour meetup! more ›

TechFlash reports that a legaldango smackdown is brewing between Zoodango and Jobdango. As you know, dango is a word that means a start-up paid way too much to their naming and branding agency. Despite coming late to the dango party, after both Fandango and Handango, Jobdango's attorneys are asking Zoodango stop using that name. TechFlash says, "James Sun, the chief executive of Zoodango, called the trademark issue 'silly.'" No, James, your name is silly. Thank Jobdango for alerting you to that fact and move on. Oh, you have? New name is GeoPage? Now, why does that sound familiar? more ›

Seattlest went to Ignite way back in '06 and loved the shit out of it: "We learned so much about happenings in and around the Seattle tech world we feel like we leveled up like twenty times." more ›

Yesterday, Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson was quoted on TechFlash as saying newspapers don't have a future: "And there isn't even a present, unfortunately." Which is not to say that the digital platform is all pixels and rainbows. While the Seattlepi.com is busy reinventing itself, the Post-Globe posse might take a cue from our sister site Torontoist, who have been reinstalling themselves since last December, when they almost went dark: Three investors are now backing the costs of Torontoist's local operations--as Canadians, they're more evolved than we are--though the site will remain affiliated with the Gothamist network. more ›

Tech Flash got curious about Microsoft's new budget-conscious laptop shopper ad and did a specs comparison with a Mac, but they didn't cover one area that people will pay lots of money for, which is quality and customer service. more ›

• A Redmond-based firm's high-tech biomaterial is being used to treat dogs with glaucoma, reports TechFlash.
• Rainier Valley Post has a story about a woman whose laptop was stolen right out of her lap as she was working in a Southend coffeeshop.
• CHS is celebrating the release of a new infographic (!!) showing the busiest pedestrian areas of downtown, and wishing we had the same kind of map for the Hill.

We've now "observed" two future of news media via Twitter (the City Club and ONA events) and watched the Seattle City Council and "No News Is Bad News" events go down via their live stream (while eyeing the #nnbn Twitter channel). One caveat before we recap: what we've learned is mostly useless in practical terms. more ›

This morning Microsoft announced that they will be cutting 5,000 jobs across the board over the next eighteen months thanks to a serious profit shortfall compared to their estimates for this last financial quarter. Some 1,400 of the lay-offs are to happen today. The round of layoffs will be the largest in company history. more ›

Probably the first question P-I staffers need to ask themselves is, How badly do they want it? more ›

• John Cook, former newspaper reporter and current blogger at TechFlash.com, lists twelve tech meisters who could save the P-I. Among the illustrious names on the list: Crosscut's David Brewster and Rich Barton, the guy who started Zillow.com.
• Barack Obama must have been such a sweet, angelic child, like baby Jesus only with a bigger halo. Turns out that he lived on our Capitol Hill as a baby, and Capitol Hill Times found his address. Small children residing at 13th & Republican, you too could be President of the United States someday.
• Cameras were rolling at Seacrest in West Seattle this weekend when Tick Tock Productions used the location for six hours to film what was rumored to be a TV pilot. West Seattle Blog has photos of the...er...explosive shoot.

• CHS datamined the scoop on the newest new restaurant to hit Odd Fellows Hall, Tin Table: "We believe that food and wine should be an experience for the senses and a festival to spirit."
• Seattle Metblogs realized the hard, concrete fact that we all probably have been trying to avoid stubbing our emotional toe on: a decision on what to do about the Viaduct will never arrive. (In the meantime, Ballard is still holding out for a tunnel.)
• TechFlash reported on Amazon's economy-defying holiday traffic surge--their traffic was up 7 percent compared to December 2007. Though we wonder how much of that was Seattleites checking to see where their snowbound packages were.

TechFlash has a post today titled "Is Classmates.com Cutting Back?" based on what they're "hearing." What we're hearing is that a hiring freeze has been lifted (Exhibit A--look for jobs in Renton). And NWCN reports that Classmates.com is making money hand over mortarboard. (If that makes sense. We're just trying to keep it light, people. Mortarboard, it's fun.) So that's what we know. What do you hear? more ›

Issaquah-based Organic To Go (which bought out Briazz a few years ago) is cutting 30 percent of its staff, says Northwest Innovation, and that despite a terrific advertising push. Meanwhile, Seattle's Cobalt Group just laid off 45 people, reports TechFlash. Cobalt runs auto dealer websites, and its CEO says that "auto sales are at a 50 year low and that an estimated 900 auto dealers have gone out of business this year." We honestly don't know how organic car sales are doing, but we bet the situation isn't great for them, either. more ›

Last night we were trying to watch House, M.D., and one of those terrible Microsoft "Mojave" commercials came on, which implied that the reason Vista hasn't sold well isn't because it sucks but because consumers don't know you can make panoramic photos with it. That's a feature on everyone's must-have list for a new OS, isn't it? So then we were like, Great, this is what intracranial bleeding feels like. more ›

TechFlash reports that the list of downsizing Seattle start-ups--Avelle, Intrepid Learning, AdReady, PayScale, and Redfin--has a new member. Jobster, which underwent some widely blogged about shrinkage last year, is saying goodbye to another 15 staff. With terrific understatement, John Cook notes that Jobster "has tested a number of different business concepts since it was founded in 2004," and says that it now is all about "online recruiting software that helps companies manage job prospects." If only the software had a reverse switch, you know, so you could just flip that and manage layoffs instead. That would be a huge seller right now. more ›

Only Microsoft could send people fleeing from a free product. But users are abandoning Redmond's free Hotmail service, and they were leaving before the new interface that's got everyone else pissed off: says the P-I, "among the major Web-based mail providers in the United States, Windows Live Hotmail was the only one to experience a fall in traffic in September." (Gmail gained 26K unique visitors, in contrast.) Undeterred, Microsoft is playing stern dad, and forcefully upgrading laggard "classic" users to the new Hotmail interface, like it or not. Ironically, Todd Bishop over at TechFlash has been catching flack from Microsofties for his temporary Gmail address. That's Hotmail's problem! Todd Bishop! more ›