Welcome to Seattle, Facebook

Hot on the heels of Michael Arrington's announcement that he will be moving his primary place of residence to Seattle, Facebook has announced that they will be opening an office here, as well. Ari Steinberg is leading the expansion, which will be primarily an engineering office. Along with their offices in Tokyo and Austin, this will be only the third Facebook office outside of their headquarters in Palo Alto.

Facebook joins a large number of prominent technology companies in the Seattle area, including Microsoft (with their headquarters) and Google (with a local office).

Welcome to Seattle, Facebook!

Hi, Michael

Well, if you haven't checked out TechCrunch today, we just got some big news for the Seattle tech startup community. Michael Arrington, the founder of the leading technology blog TechCrunch, just announced that he will be moving his primary residence up here to Seattle from Silicon Valley.

Though he admits that his frequent travels mean that his primary place of residence doesn't matter nearly as much anymore, the fact that he chose Seattle does say quite a bit about the vibrant community we have here surrounding technology and startups.

So Hi, Michael, and welcome to Seattle, from all of us here at Sound Startups.

Upcoming Event: Growing Business Partners with Social Media

The Washington Technology Industry Association is hosting an upcoming event entitled Growing Business Partners with Social Media. Social media has already become extremely important for any business, and is becoming increasingly important as time goes on. Though many businesses have already done well using social media for promotion and interaction with their end users, most businesses struggle with using social media in their business to business relationships. This event seeks to solve that problem.

Key Topics, from the event page:

-Maximize tradeshow presence, increase conversion

-Understand competitive gaps, identify revenue

-Develop shared opportunity projects, reduce risk

Program Structure, from the event page:

30 minute Introduction and Presentation

60 minute Breakout session, Hands On Training with Tools, Peer-to-Peer with Coaches

60 minute Open Conversation, Networking, and Wine Tasting

Date:

June 2, from 3:00pm to 5:30pm.

Location:

Disney Interactive Media Group

Speakers:

Tim Reha, Managing Director and Co-Founder of New Media Synergy

Barry Hurd, Co-Founder of New Media Synergy

Upcoming Event: NWEN April Think Tank - The Advent of Android

The two primary smartphone operating systems have become, without a doubt, Apple's iPhone OS and Google's Android. Though the iPhone has previously sold consistently more than Android has, Android phones just recently surpassed the iPhone in sales. Coming up on April 27th, the Northwest Entrepreneur Network will be hosting their April Think Tank, on the Advent of Android. Come hear speakers talk about many aspects of Android, and what it means for mobile computing. In fact, you'll even hear opinions on whether Android might "herald the beginning of a new age of mobile computing."

Date: Tuesday, April 27th - 7:00PM

Location: Seattle University, Wyckoff Auditorium

Speakers:

Geoff Empress, Venture Partner at Voyager Capital

Wesley Chan, Investment Partner at Google Ventures

John Sangiovanni, Co-Founder of Zumobi

Colin Prior, CEO of Reaxion

Organization Profile: Ignite Seattle

Ignite Seattle is part of the worldwide Ignite movement/organization, loosely related to TED and TEDx. With Ignite, presenters 5 minutes on stage with a limit of 20 slides, automatically rotated every 15 seconds. Within those 5 minutes, they give a presentation on nearly any topic.

Ignite was founded by Brady Forrest of O'Reilly Radar and Bre Pettis of Make. It was started here in Seattle, but has spread worldwide to cities that include Portland, Sydney, Boulder, Baltimore, and New York City. Here in Seattle, Ignite has grown from 250 attendees at the first Ignite to over 500 attendees at the most recent event.

Ignite Seattle 10 is scheduled for June 14th, at 7pm. The location is the King Cat Theater downtown. Just to give a sense of the type of presentations you can expect to hear, Ignite Seattle 9 presenters spoke about hardware development, a trip to Vietnam, business lessons from Star Wars, a DIY kite for energy, NoSQL, and microfinance. A notable speaker was Ben Huh, of I Can Haz Cheeseburger fame, presenting about the evolution of the meme.

Organization Profile: Seattle Tech Startups

What is Seattle Tech Startups? In one sentence, they are "a group of entrepreneurs in the Seattle area who give and seek advice on running technology startups."

This group meets one to two times per month, at the Douglas Forum at the Executive Education Center of the University of Washington. Come for the two-hour event, which includes both prearranged presentations and less structured time for conversation and networking. Stick around afterward for more informal conversation at a nearby pub. They have some great speakers who are deeply and personally involved in tech startups here in the Seattle area. Plus, they have been nominated for a best event award by Seattle 2.0.

Interested in technology startups? Put the Seattle Tech Startups events on your calendar! The next meetings are tonight, May 12th, and June 9th. Look for future posts with more information.

Upcoming Event: Seattle Tech Startups

Seattle Tech Startups, a group of entrepreneurs in the Seattle area, is having their next meeting coming up soon. You won't want to miss this stimulating meeting, with some great participants!

Date: April 17th, 6:45PM

Presenting their startups at this meeting:

Marc Barros, Co-Founder and CEO of VholdR.

VholdR produces two wearable HD camcorders, the ContourHD and ContourHD1080p, which are perfect for sharing high definition recordings of your sports exploits.

James Dailey, Co-Founder and CTO of MicroEnergy Credits.

MEC leverages technology to connect individuals interested in offsetting their carbon emissions with microfinance borrowers around the world who are developing clean energy.

Maya, Bisineer, Founder of Memetales.

Memetales is an online marketplace, where authors and illustrators can sell books, as well as related customized children's merchandise, without being forced to go through a publisher.

Ken Watson, Co-Founder and CEO of ir2020.

Over the course of two years, ir2020 has been developing a product for the investor relations market. Come here about their development progress and future plans.