Friday, March 04, 2011

Web Innovators Group | WebInno29

Ten companies. Ten hundred networking opportunities. All in one room. All FREE.

If you are interested in previewing the latest innovations on the Internet and mobile devices, and networking with industry leaders, then check out the next gathering of the Web Innovators Group.


This 29th installment will feature the following presentations:

Main Dishes

Side Dishes

  • Heretoo | The game begins early 2011

  • Media Armor | an analytics company that helps the mobile display advertising industry

  • MobiFlex | build complex native mobile apps without a developer

  • Newsle | news about your people

  • Postpost | a news aggregator for the social generation

  • Synchronize.TV | enables developers to create applications that augment the television viewing experience

  • TapCity | a multiplayer city-building game with a real-world twist

Building Products That Win

A special optional breakout session will begin at 8:00 pm. The panelists will discuss how to launch great internet products and scale high performing product teams.

Moderator: Nitzan Shaer | High Start Group
Panelist: Ben Foster | OPOWER
Panelist: Adam Medros | TripAdvisor
Panelist: Fareed Behmaram-Mosavat | Zynga

Event Details

Monday, March 7, 2011, 6:30 pm

Royal Sonesta Cambridge

Registration is FREE and the networking could prove invaluable! Check out the Attendee List of more than 1,000 pre-registrants to determine if this networking event is right for you.

Registrants are encouraged to join the Boston Web Innovators Group on LinkedIn and connect with nearly 1,400 members.

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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Startup Watch | January 2011

As the job market for Web technology professionals heats up, the market for ninjas, gurus and rockstars is boiling!

Dharmesh Shah, Founder and CTO at HubSpot, is looking for developers. There is just one catch. Only awesome ones need apply. Refer an awesome developer and pocket $10,000. Check out the details in his blog post entitled HubSpot Fires First Shot in Boston Battle For Talent: $10,000 Bounty.

This is not just a Boston phenomenon. Rand Fishkin, CEO at SEOmoz in Seattle, has upped the ante to $12,000 for software engineers. Details at WANTED: Software Engineers REWARD: $12,000. To be considered you must be amazing.

GRANA Opportunities

So, are there job opportunities in the current market? Yes, if you can demonstrate GRANA skills:

  • Guru
  • Rockstar
  • Awesome
  • Ninja
  • Amazing

After all of the GRANA coders are locked up with long-term stock options there might even be a few opportunities remaining for mere mortals.

Startup Watch for January

Mass High Tech highlights startup companies each week in a series called "Five You Should Follow."

Here are 11 startup companies to keep your eye on:

[NOTE: Hover over company name to view a tooltip summary of that company's value proposition.]

» Acetylon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Boston

» Autotegrity, Inc. Cambridge

» Avantra Biosciences Corp. Woburn

» Baydin, Inc. Cambridge

» Gingko Bioworks Boston

» Grembe Apps, Inc. Marstons Mills

» MyPaperlessBills, Inc. Medford

» Novophage Therapeutics, Inc. Cambridge

» TerraVerdae BioWorks, Inc. Beverly

» UpRace Boston

» WaySavvy Boston

Five new startups are listed every Tuesday at Mass High Tech -- The Journal of New England Technology. Access Startup News for details. If your company was founded within the last three years, and would like to be considered for the Watch List, contact the Startup Watch editor.

Access previous Startup Watch lists:

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Friday, February 18, 2011

Ruby on Rails | Boston

The growing demand for Web technology workers can only be met by increasing the supply of skilled candidates. Skill is developed through a combination of training and practice.

Crisis or Opportunity?

The unemployment crisis is not abating. Yet, as reported in Boston Market | February 2011, the demand for Web technology workers increased steadily in 2010 and experienced an upward spike in January.

Still, many unemployed and underemployed workers are underskilled for these information technology opportunities.

Ruby on Rails

Let's dig deeper and explore a technology whose demand profile does not yet place it on the Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston list posted in the right-hand column:

~ Ruby on Rails | 43 job postings

This technology was developed by 37 Signals, creators of Basecamp, the popular online project collaboration tool, and authors of Rework, one of the Best Business Books of 2010. Wikipedia provides a nice overview of Ruby on Rails (RoR) which is defined as an open source web application framework.

You may already be using an RoR application and not even be aware of it. Twitter and Groupon are just two of many thousands of websites built using Ruby on Rails.

A recent Dice article confirms that "demand is high, but supply is low" for Ruby on Rails experts in the greater Boston area. There apparently is a talent shortage in other large technology markets as well, including Chicago.

Training Opportunity

A Cambridge-based venture capital firm, Fairhaven Capital, has joined forces with thoughtbot, inc., a Boston-based web design and development company, to offer Ruby on Rails training at a 50% discount. Not just anyone can sign up, however. You have to apply.

First, you must demonstrate experience in web languages such as Java, Python, C#, PHP, HTML, and SQL.

Second, preference will be given to developers from start-up companies.

If you feel you meet the qualification standards, then apply online for one of the 25 available training slots.

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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Boston Market | February 2011

Demand for information technology talent exploded in January!

Job postings for the top 20 Web-related technology skills in Boston increased 36 percent year over year, as detailed in the Boston Market | January 2011 post. From early January to early February these same technology skills experienced an average 49 percent increase!

  • Top 20 Skills (January 2010 - January 2011) 36%
  • Top 20 Skills (January 2011 - February 2011) 49%

We'll take a closer look at the numbers in a minute. First the bigger picture.

Job Growth 2010

According to the Labor Department three U.S. metropolitan areas added the most jobs in 2010:

  • Washington, DC
  • Dallas
  • Boston

All three cities are home to industries that are poised to hire this year:

  • information technology
  • biomedical research firms
  • government contractors

Details can be found in a Bloomberg Businessweek article.

Boston Market

The list of Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated for February and appears in the right-hand column. The list is comprised of keyword searches for web-related technologies mentioned in job postings at Boston.com (managed by Monster.com).

The usual suspects of programming and database skills populate the Top 10 including the following:

#3 - Java 53% in 30 days
#5 - JavaScript 57% in 30 days
#6 - XML 50% in 30 days
#8 - C# 54% in 30 days

The biggest mover, however, enters the Top 10 for the first time:

#9 - social media 73% in 30 days

A closer looks at the posted jobs that list "social media" in the description reveals that many of the positions are more suited for writers and marketers. None-the-less, the social media experience occurs on the Web and Web technology professionals should know how to incorporate social media content into Web projects. This content includes, but is not limited to the following:

~ Facebook integration
~ Twitter integration
~ YouTube integration

Social Media Opportunity

Social media is not a passing fancy any more than the World Wide Web is a fad that will quietly disappear. Web technology professionals should consider adding "social media" to their technology skill set.

The best way to start is to develop a 30-day action plan to incorporate Facebook, Twitter and YouTube into your business communications.

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Monday, January 31, 2011

Startup Watch | December 2010

There are five differences between Boston and Silicon Valley. When compared to its California counterpart, Beantown exhibits the following:

  • an abundance of non-Web 2.0 companies
  • an abundance of events
  • an abundance of marketing talent
  • an obsession with raising capital
  • an ignorance of how to raise capital

These observations were offered up by Jeff Seibert, Engineering Manager at Palo Alto-based Box.net. Seibert recently relocated to open the company's new East Coast office in Central Square, Cambridge. Details can be found in a blog article compliments of Greenhorn Connect.

[ Update: Nikki Smith-Morgan @publicwords provides one additional area where Boston lags behind its Left Coast competitor. ]

If you are looking to learn more about the startup culture in Boston consider attending the next Meetup event offered by Lean Startup Circle Boston.

Startup Watch for December

Mass High Tech highlights startup companies each week in a series called "Five You Should Follow."

Here are 18 startup companies to keep your eye on:

[NOTE: Hover over company name to view a tooltip summary of that company's value proposition.]

» AcceloWeb | North Easton

» Affectiva, Inc. | Waltham

» Basho Technologies, Inc. | Cambridge

» Cambridge Semantics, Inc. | Boston

» CFRx, Inc. | Charlestown

» Dear Panda LLC | Cambridge

» Edimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | Cambridge

» Ginger Software, Inc. | Lexington

» Healthrageous, Inc. | Boston

» ItsMYurls LLC | Boston

» MedicalRecords.com | Cambridge

» MobiLaurus | Newton

» NewPower Energy Systems | Boston

» Provasculon, Inc. | Cambridge

» SBR Health | Cambridge

» StopGoStopGo | Boston

» Swift Mobile, Inc. | Cambridge

» Worldwide Center of Mathematics LLC | Cambridge

Five new startups are listed every Tuesday at Mass High Tech -- The Journal of New England Technology. Access Startup News for details. If your company was founded within the last three years, and would like to be considered for the Watch List, contact the Startup Watch editor.

Access previous Startup Watch lists:

[ NOTE: Beantown Web is now on Twitter. Follow Beantown Web @webapprentices and on Facebook by becoming a Fan of Beantown Web. ]

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Boston Market | January 2011

An upward hiring trend is expected in 2011 and information technology (IT) workers are in best position to benefit from this increase in employment demand.

This finding was revealed in a report released by CareerBliss, an online career community designed to help everyone find happiness in the workplace. Here are the five career specialties with the highest anticipated job openings:

  1. Information Technology
  2. Sales
  3. Engineering
  4. Marketing
  5. Healthcare

Access Top Hiring Cities and Jobs for 2011 from CareerBliss for details.

Boston Market

Information technology is a broad category. In many instances specific technology expertise and experience are required to fill these positions.

The list of Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated for January and appears in the right-hand column. The list is comprised of keyword searches for web-related technologies mentioned in job postings at Boston.com (managed by Monster.com).

The average Top 20 technology has experienced a 36% increase in demand since early January 2009. Here are the technologies that have demonstrated the greatest job growth in the past 12 months:

Here is the biggest mover not yet in the Top 20:

Other technologies experiencing above average year-over-year growth include the following:

Web professionals who have developed an expertise in these technologies and can demonstrate projects that utilize these skills will likely command attention as the job market continues to expand during the first quarter.

NOTE: Beantown Web is now on Twitter. Follow Beantown Web @webapprentices and on Facebook by becoming a Fan of Beantown Web]

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Sunday, January 09, 2011

Best Business Books | 2010

Seven books stand above the rest as the Best Business Books of 2010.
What follows is Beantown Web's annual quasi-scientific analysis of the Best Business Books published in the previous year. The search began with an online review of 10 "Best of" lists from the following sources:
All told, 103 books were mentioned on at least one "Best of" list. Among these offerings twenty books were mentioned on two lists (The Honorable Mention).

Best Business Books | Runners Up


Here are the four books identified on three lists (The Runners Up):

Best Business Books | Winners


~ Third place, mentioned on five of the 10 lists: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
~ Second place, mentioned on six of the 10 lists: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
~ First place, mentioned on seven of the 10 lists: Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard?


Personal Recommendations


I can personally vouch for four of the seven books identified, having read and posted reviews for the following:
I look forward to chilly winter nights getting acquainted with the other three recommended books. [ Note: Check out additional bookshelf recommendations in the right-hand column. ]

Suggested Success Strategy


Identify one book from the seven listed above and commit to learning more about the business world. Making a study of best business practices can only help improve job prospects and career success as we continue to establish a foothold in "the new normal."
Check out previous lists:
[ NOTE: Facebook Fans of Beantown Web gain access to a list of the 20 additional books that made The Honorable Mention list. Become a fan today! ]
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Monday, December 20, 2010

Startup Watch | November 2010

Openings for IT (information technology) contract workers are at their highest level in more than a decade, according to a Boston Globe article. David MacKeen, CEO of Eliassen Group, an IT staffing firm, was quoted as saying, "I think we’re on the verge of a substantial growth cycle."

One place to look for opportunities is in the start-up community. According to StartUpHire there are more than 800 job openings at Boston area startup companies. talentGraphz provides a listing of nearly 300 startup companies in the Boston area.

Startup Watch for November

Mass High Tech highlights startup companies each week in a series called "Five You Should Follow."

Here are 23 startup companies in the greater Boston area that Mass High Tech suggests you keep your eye on:

[NOTE: Hover over company name to view a tooltip summary of that company's value proposition.]

» Active Interview | Cambridge

» BookBlunder | Boston

» CardStar, Inc. | Boston

» CaringWise, Inc. | Boston

» Carrot Medical LLC | Boston

» CellMosaic LLC | Worcester

» Entheogen Corp. | Boston

» EximFlow, Inc. | Boston

» eZuce, Inc. | Newburyport

» FloDesign Sonics, Inc. | Wilbraham

» iCar | Somerville

» Karyopharm Therapeutics, Inc. | Newton

» Media Armor, Inc. | Boston

» Nemucore Medical Innovations | Worcester

» Practically Green LLC | Boston

» ProctorCam LLC | Boston

» Retroficiency, Inc. | Boston

» Styleta, Inc. | Cambridge

» TapWalk | Medford

» Tarpon BioSystems, Inc. | Marlborough

» VisitorsCafe | Boston

» VivoPath LLC | Worcester

» Wingu, Inc. | Cambridge

Five new startups are listed every Tuesday at Mass High Tech -- The Journal of New England Technology. Access Startup News for details. If your company was founded within the last three years, and would like to be considered for the Watch List, contact the Startup Watch editor.

Access previous Startup Watch lists:

[ NOTE: Beantown Web is now on Twitter. Follow Beantown Web @webapprentices and on Facebook by becoming a Fan of Beantown Web]

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Friday, December 10, 2010

Boston Market | December 2010

Two new hiring reports promise a bright New Year for information technology professionals with in-demand job skills.

Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, Q1 2011

After five straight quarters of employment growth Manpower has released the most optimistic hiring expectations in more than two years.

A survey of more than 18,000 employers revealed the following expectations for the first quarter of 2011:

  • 14% expect an increase in staff levels
  • 10% expect a decrease in staff levels

The result is a Net Employment Outlook (NEO) of +4%. The following industry sectors have the highest outlooks:

  • Leisure & Hospitality (+12%)
  • Professional & Business Services (+11%)
  • Information (+10%)

Information technology professionals will be in demand in 2011. Access a press release for a summary or a more detailed 12-page report.

Dice Report, December 2010

For a drill-down into information technology skills most in-demand, access a Special Edition of the Dice Report for December 2010.

Six in ten hiring managers and technology recruiters expect to increase hiring in the first half of 2011 as compared to the previous six months. When asked what their top hiring priority was for 2011, developers held five of the top six slots as follows:

#1 ~ Java developer
#2 ~ .NET developer
#3 ~ Software developer
#5 ~ Mobile developer
#6 ~ Web developer

Nearly 850 human resource managers and recruiters responded to the Dice survey.

Boston Market, December 2010

The list of Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated and appears in the right-hand column. Consistent with the Dice findings Top 10 developer skills include the following:

#3 ~ Java | 510 job listings
#5 ~ C# | 288 job listings
#10 ~ ASP.NET | 160 job listings

Surprisingly, the following mobile technologies barely crack the Top 50:

#48 ~ iPhone | 21 job listings
#49 ~ Android | 20 job listings

Best Training Opportunity

If you are new to Web development consider joining the Boston PHP Meetup. The December 15 meeting will feature a presentation on Google Analytics by Jay Murphy.

The meeting will also feature an announcement of the introduction of PHP Percolate!, a virtual self-study group designed to help beginners learn PHP programming.

[ NOTE: Beantown Web is now on Twitter. Follow Beantown Web @webapprentices ]

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Friday, November 26, 2010

Web Innovators Group | WebInno28

Ten companies. Ten hundred networking opportunities. All in one room. All FREE.

If you are interested in previewing the latest innovations on the Internet and mobile devices, and networking with industry leaders, then check out the next gathering of the Web Innovators Group.


This fifth anniversary event -- and 28th installment overall -- will feature the following presentations:

Main Dishes

  • FanSwarm | A game that allows you to back real life celebrities and watch their buzz rise and fall.

  • HowAboutWe | putting the date back in dating: magical dates, simple dates, wild dates, lovely dates.

  • Moontoast | create connections with real impact -- on your audience and your bottom line.

Side Dishes

  • Ginger Software |the leading contextual spell and grammar checker on the market today

  • My-Take | the ultimate community to declare, discuss and share your opinions and earn rewards

  • Penmia | an application that allows you to record any moment in life

  • SocialSci | connects researchers with a global online community

  • Smashion | a social fashion site connection people with a passion for fashion

  • Promoboxx | create world-class social promotions and contests that drive leads

  • Woopid | watch free technology training videos

Event Details

Monday, November 29, 2010, 6:30 pm

Royal Sonesta Cambridge

Registration is FREE and the networking could prove invaluable! Check out the Attendee List of more than 1,000 pre-registrants to determine if this networking event is right for you.

Registrants are encouraged to join the Boston Web Innovators Group on LinkedIn and connect with more than 1,300 members.

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Sunday, November 21, 2010

.net Magazine Awards | 2010

The .net Awards celebrate the best in web design and development. Awards are determined via a combination of public opinion and the insights of a leading panel of judges.

The results of the 2010 awards will be published in an upcoming issue (#210) of .net magazine, a U.K. magazine for web designers and developers sold in the U.S. as Practical Web Design.

Best of The Web

Here are the 16 award winners for 2010:

+ Web application of the year » Typekit

+ Community site of the year » Ravelry

+ Best API use » Flipboard

+ Interactive site of the year » Chrome FastBall

+ Blog of the year » Smashing Magazine

+ Podcast of the year » Sitepoint

+ Video podcast of the year » The Big Web Show

+ Design agency of the year » Happy Cog

+ Innovation of the year » Node.js

+ Web personality of the year » Jason Santa Maria

+ Viral campaign of the year » Old Spice

+ Standards champion » Jeffrey Zeldman

+ Open source application of the year » Modernizr

+ Redesign of the year » BBC News

+ Mobile site of the year » Flickr

+ Mobile app of the year » Dropbox

Details are available at the .net Magazine Awards website which lists two additional nominees in each category.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Top 50 Requested Skills | Q3 2010

Freelance developers and designers can compare their current skill set with marketplace demand by accessing State of the Work-From-Home and Freelancing Economy. This third quarter report is presented by DoNanza, the largest search engine for work-from-home and freelance jobs.

Content Management Systems

The report begins with a comparison of the Big Three Content Management Systems (CMS):

CMS Conclusion

While the highest demand in the CMS freelance market is for WordPress developers, project budgets are highest for Drupal developers, perhaps because these projects tend to be more complicated and time consuming.

What is most striking is the average budget per project:

  • WordPress | $455
  • Joomla! | $473
  • Drupal | $915

Does this mean that in order to generate $50,000 per year in revenue, WordPress and Joomla! developers need to complete approximately two projects per week?

Bigger Picture

Buried at the bottom of this report is the Top 50 Requested Skills. A comparison of this list for freelancers with the Top 20 Twenty Web Technologies in Boston (right-hand column) for job seekers yields some interesting results.

Caveat: With all ranking systems someone will likely be unhappy. Just take a look at the NCAA College Football Polls. Apples and oranges comparisons should never be taken as gospel. The two lists in this comparison measure different things. None-the-less, general patterns emerge.

Twenty technologies appear on the Top 50 versions of both lists. Only six technologies are common to both Top 20 lists.

Top Six Skills

Web developers and designers who are open to BOTH job opportunities and freelance gigs can maximize their universe of possibilities by focusing on the following six technology skills (freelance ranking vs. job list ranking):

~ PHP | #1 vs. #14
~ HTML | #3 vs. #9
~ Photoshop | #9 vs. #20
~ CSS | #10 vs. #9
~ JavaScript | #12 vs. #6
~ Ajax | #19 vs. #12

Web professionals who want to be in position to play for a national championship should develop these six fundamental "blocking and tackling" skills and take on projects that demonstrate proficiency with these technologies.

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Boston Market | November 2010

Here are two reasons why Bostonians should be optimistic about employment prospects:

  • Boston ranks #2 in overall job creation over the past 12 months
  • Boston ranks #5 (tie) in job opportunities per unemployed worker

NOTE: Factoring in population size, Boston drops from #2 to #13 in overall job creation as many smaller markets outperformed Boston on a percentage basis. The only larger metropolitan area to outperform Boston was Washington, DC.

If you live outside the Boston metro area, check out the rankings for your home town:

Top 20 Web Technologies

Drilling deeper, what does the job market look like for workers with Web technology skills?

The monthly listing of Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated and appears in the right-hand column. The list is ordered by how many times that technology was mentioned in job descriptions at Boston.com (managed by Monster.com). As expected, programming and database skills dominate the list.

To add a new twist this month, let's explore emerging programming skills.

The Magnificent Seven

InfoWorld published an article entitled 7 Programming Languages on the Rise. Dice provides a compact summary listing the languages as follows (links to Wikipedia):

An analysis of the market demand for these programming skills reveals the following opportunities in the Boston marketplace:

** NOTE: Searching on "R" offers up too many false positives, such as nursing jobs (RN).

So, the major players in this shootout are as follows:

  • JavaScript (286)
  • Python (116)
  • MATLAB (79)
  • Ruby (52)

MATLAB is not used in Web applications, R is a mystery in the marketplace, and Erlang and COBOL offer few job opportunities.

Therefore, Web professionals should consider beefing up their filmography by adding one or more of the following character roles to help boost box office clout:

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