DarrenRush.com » startups http://darrenrush.com random thoughts on the interweb Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:09:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 en hourly 1 Chatting with the LAWEBDEV Community http://darrenrush.com/2009/03/chatting-with-the-lawebdev-community/ http://darrenrush.com/2009/03/chatting-with-the-lawebdev-community/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:56:10 +0000 Darren Rush http://darrenrush.com/?p=141 I was fortunate enough to grab a speaking spot at yesterday’s LA Web Developer meetup in Glendale.  I gave a quick presentation on some of the lessons learned during the fundraising process with Koders, some of the interesting dynamics for new startup opportunities, and ended with some ideas on things the LA community can do to position itself for the next big tech upswing and re-opening of the IPO market.  
You can check out the deck here – sans all the pithy commentary:
View more presentations from dlrush.
]]> http://darrenrush.com/2009/03/chatting-with-the-lawebdev-community/feed/ 1 Freedomspeaks Widget and API Makes Getting Involved Even Easier http://darrenrush.com/2008/10/freedomspeaks-widget-and-api-makes-getting-involved-even-easier/ http://darrenrush.com/2008/10/freedomspeaks-widget-and-api-makes-getting-involved-even-easier/#comments Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:13:31 +0000 Darren Rush http://darrenrush.com/?p=93 Many people are cynical about their impact on the political process.

Does my vote really count? Do my representatives care what I think?

One innovative website is focused on helping answer these questions while making it easier for every citizen to get involved in the democratic process is Freedom Speaks.  This week, Freedom Speaks launched a new set of APIs and widgets to help make it easier to create new democracy-focused applications.

To understand the power of their platform in action, let’s see if you can answer this simple question:

Who are your political representatives in federal and state government?

If you move to a new home, aren’t really active in politics, or don’t want to visit 3-4 government websites to lookup this information, then Freedom Speaks is for you.

Of course, all of this information is available online, but it takes at least 2 searches to find your federal congressional reps, and every state has a different way of finding those state representatives.  Too much work, and yet another reason to stay complacent in the political process.

Try out their new widget, so you can be informed at your next dinner-table debate:

Developers should checkout the API Information here.

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