Raincity Acquires Bryght

Raincity Studios has acquired Bryght, who was our closest partner and hosting provider. The Raincity Studios/Bryght team now stands a a combined force of 22 all stars. Kris Krug gave Darren Barefoot the reasons why

“Our biggest clients like Warner Brothers and Sony want more from us than we’re able to give…We’re moving up market, our clients want it all. Strategy, design, development, marketing, training and support. Now we can give it to them end to end.”

Opening a Shanghai Office

Robert Scales has moved to Shanghai to start operations in China. This is a long continuation of growing relationships with other businesses from around the Pacific Rim. He and Kris Krug have been on multiple trade missions to China, thanks to our client and colleague Hal Josephson of China Access 2008.

A Story of Symbiotic Startups

I remember when Bryght was an idea in Boris Mann‘s head, before he built a fast growing business by providing open source content management system Drupal as hosted service. I moved to Vancouver to get to know Boris and build my west coast network. It didn’t take too long before I met two guys from BCIT who were winning awards, my Raincity co-founders CEO Robert Scales and Creative Director Mark Yuasa. I was the third leg of the team, filling the role of VP Sales and Marketing.

We bootstrapped our web design services firm thanks in a large part to the guys at Bryght. When they had hosting clients that needed a team to deliver great web design and community, we got to bid on the projects. Thanks to the chops evident in our portfolio, we landed bigger and bigger contracts. Eventually with all the sharing of friendships, clients, projects, ideas, homes, and victories it was a wise move for the two companies to combine forces.

It’s Always Bryght When You Bring the Rain

What’s next for Vancouver’s new internet powerhouse? I expect to see more of the hosted products we always talked about, and I’m sure the ideas have matured even more. I expect that the super talented team will continue to grow their reputations as some of the smartest and most creative web professionals in the world. I expect them to build some of the coolest websites on the internet that millions of people use.

Honestly, I’m just proud to call them my friends, each and every one of them – they’re like family to me. If you’re ever in Vancouver on a Thursday, stop by at noon for their weekly standing BBQ tell them I sent ya.

For life.

See the rest: photos of Tanzania and photos of Uganda

Will Pate, Community Ambassador, Flock/Rockstar
Out of all the evangelists out there, I’m likely to be the most jealous of Will Pate. Not because of his dashing good looks, (or so my wife tells me) or that he’s constantly surrounded by the ladies, or stylish garb, it’s because he makes it look so easy. I recently caught up with Will at the Community Next conference in Palo Alto and he described his role at Flock to be part community advocate, and part company evangelists. He helped to bring the requirements together, connect them, and build a better product. Today, Will can be found in Toronto, and he’s switched to a part time role at Flock, what’s next for Will? Greatness I’m sure.

If I make it look easy Jeremy, it’s only because being the community guy fits my personality so well. I’ve tried a lot of roles in the tech industry, and the “community guy” one just sings for me, personally and professionally.

As for what’s next for me, well I’ve got cool news coming on that very soon.

416-877-1801

If we haven’t chatted in a while, give me a call to catch up and make sure I have your number. If you don’t reach me, I love getting voicemails done in song.

“Will has been a force for good at Flock, helping them to reconnect to key players in the browser world and improving visibility into the goings on at the Flock organization. I have plenty more good things to say but LinkedIn bandwidth is low and telephone bandwidth is high. If you’d like to hear more, gimme a call.”
Asa Dotzler, worker bee, Mozilla

“Will has a passion for getting in the trenches and engaging with community members on their own terms rather than attempting to dictate from a broader marketing perspective how a community can be leveraged. His earnestness builds loyalty among users, which, in an open source project like Flock, is essential to improving the product.”
Daryl Houston, Web Developer, Flock

“Will’s unique insight and passion with community and technology makes him a bright shinny star in the industry. He was flying all over the place and never got tired of spreading great knowledge to everyone he meets. On top of that, he is such an awesome guy to hang out with.”
Cathy Wang, Information/Interaction Architect, Raincity Studios

“Will was great at keeping you up to date with community concerns and ideas for how to address them. He was very effective at using many means of communication to reach a depth and breadth of people.”
Jesse Andrews, Lead Architect, Flock

“I was working with Will during the Flock pre-1.0 period, and what strikes me most is that there’s always a cloud of positive energy around his head. Literally – Always. He made amazing job for engaging community around and managed it on many various levels at the same time with no problem. He was a great support for me with my community . Will has a great intuition in becoming a layer between different groups like developers and community, techy and non-techy ppl. etc. Social ninja he is.”
Zbigniew Braniecki, L10n Engineer, Flock

“Will is a crisp thinker who brings a fresh perspective to any organization looking to engage a community of users. His communication skills and his dedication to users have helped Flock become a more customer-focused company. Top qualities: Personable, High Integrity, Creative”
Geoffrey Arone, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Flock

“I mostly collaborated with Will on getting customers and contributors connected to the right Flock people or process. Will has a fantastic sense for the problems and solutions that will have the largest impact with customers of consumer software. He often was able to create a positive relationship from a negative initial customer experience. Will was also generous with his time in testing functionality in development and helping investigate customer problems.”
Lloyd Budd, Software Quality Assurance Lead, Flock

“Will is exceedingly talented at everything he attempts, a real pro.”
Andy Smith, Army of Coding Monkeys, Flock

“While an intern at Flock, Will was a great influence on me and the other interns. He was always available for a quick question if we needed help. He also was great a delegating work to us, to keep us on our toes.”
Jon Homan, Community Support Intern, Flock

“Will was community ambassador while I was engineer at Flock. He did a great job connecting us to our users, in both directions: explaining to the users our choices and the changes in the product, and reporting us the (good and bad) user feedback. The feedback I received through him boosted my motivation to make an even better software, and he reinforced our image as a young, creative and dynamic company.”
Erwan Loisant, Senior Software Engineer, Flock

“Will is one of those rare talents in the web industry that has the ability to take abstract concepts and apply them logically to real-world problems. Extremely savvy and brilliantly motivated, Will kept us focused on the project and made sure that we never lost sight of our goals. Will is a wonderful addition to any team and I would jump at the opportunity to work with him again!”
Matt Downey, President, 45royale, Inc

“Will is a strong community manager. His work at Flock reflects his community orientation, as well as his ability to leverage community behaviors. His community/customer orientation have been important to Flock’s development.”
Brian Osborn, Former VP Marketing, Flock

“Will has great energy, and a passion for creating and energizing online communities. He has solid experience developing and measuring online marketing and community campaigns. Will is also a fun person to work with, and is bubbling with creative ideas.”
Anthony Young, Founder & Lead Developer, Flock

“Will worked closely with all aspects of Flock’s community and helped build bridges between them and the Flock development team. He represented the community’s interests within the company and always sought feedback from all parts of the company on how we wanted to see the community developed.”
Ian McKellar, Senior Software Engineer, Flock

“Will brought energy, drive and passion to Flock’s community relations. He was able to develop an real affinity for the community, helping to bring the community into our product development process. Will performed his job with the excellence that loving you work creates. He will be an asset to any team he joins.”
William Tschumy, Former Director of User Experience, Flock

“Will is a talented, upbeat, insightful individual who has his finger on the pulse of the social web. He can help you get in touch with your inner user community.”
Chris Campbell, Senior Software Engineer, Flock

“Will amazes me. I swear there are clones of him because I will never understand how he manages to be literally everywhere at once. This guy defines both the words “community” and “ambassador.” So, if you’re looking for a guy that can empower your brand, make some noise and bring your users together all before breakfast – look no farther than Will Pate.”
Bryan Veloso, Owner, Revyver

“A few months ago, I was thrust into the manic environment of a start-up about to release it’s 1.0. With all due respect to the other lovely people at Flock, Will was the person whom I could come to with any question, any idea, and any concern. He always had an answer, idea, or reassurance. As for the level of his work, all the work I witnessed and was left with as the new Community Ambassador was top notch. Will knows how to do his job, even when his job is not fully defined. He would (and will) undoubtably be an amazing asset to any company that is worthy of having him.”
Evan Hamilton, Community Ambassador/Marketing, Flock

Here’s an obvious one: combine Google Reader and Blogger. Reading news feed subscriptions and writing blog posts is one of the most straightforward examples of participating on the web. How about a more seamless way to switch between the two modes? Flock does this already with the ability to start a blog post from an news feed item with a single click.

Come to think of it, any Google product that handles public information should have a “Blog this” button that gently nudges people to sign up for Blogger, while giving bloggers using other publishing tools something valuable too, like copy and paste HTML. If you’re going to put content online in this day and age, you might as well make it as easy as possible for people to share it. They’re going to do it anyway, it’s just a matter of how easy you want to make the process.

technorati tags:google, blogger, googlereader
Blogged with Flock

Easily the funniest parody to come out of the whole “Snakes on a Plane” meme. Don’t we all want to tell Sam Jackson he’s our bro?

technorati tags:snakesonaplane, dcluigi
Blogged with Flock