Vidoop Leaving

[Conan71]

Sheesh.  I don't know if it's you changing or me changing, but I'm agreeing a lot more lately with what you've got to say HT.  For a dyed-in-the-wool lib, you have very capitalistic leanings.

Our leadership has been incredibly impotent for the last 100 years when it's come to rallying against the BOR of the universities.

I'd kind of thought the "New Kind of Energy" (or whatever the slogan is) was our "new identity".  

Only lay off the "direct flight" issue for the time being.  That's sort of a sensitive issue in the city right now. []

[TURobY]

I realize this topic is a little old, but I just wanted to let you know that nearly the entire staff of Vidoop was laid off relatively recently. This news comes from talking with a friend who moved out to Portland to work with them, but I didn't think to ask how long ago they laid everyone off (since I assumed it would be a sensitive subject).

[Townsend]

"Bad news for Portland-based Open-ID startup Vidoop (as well as Vidoop partners like AOL, MySpace and Flock): it's apparently out of business. Earlier this month the company announced layoffs, but based on an email string that was forwarded to us... From CEO Joel Norvell to Vidoop insiders, where he says that the company has no funds to pay wages or other liabilities, and that employees are being offered computers in lieu of wages."

http://siliconflorist.com/2009/05/30/vidoop/

Sucks no matter what town they ended up in.

[TURobY]

Sucks no matter what town they ended up in.

Thanks for digging up that info.

What's really bad, according to him, is that they moved up there and then got laid off in a city with a dramatically increasing unemployment rate. He luckily found a job in San Francisco, but it would suck to have to move again so soon. I've been in my house for 2.5 years and I've still yet to unpack every thing.

[cannon_fodder]

Holy crap.  I take it the move was more expensive than they figure it to be?  Either that or the company was on shaky financial grounds and had no business committing people to a move halfway across the company.  Too bad for the employees.

Lesson:  Don't move out of Tulsa. 

[godboko71]

Holy crap.  I take it the move was more expensive than they figure it to be?  Either that or the company was on shaky financial grounds and had no business committing people to a move halfway across the company.  Too bad for the employees.

Lesson:  Don't move out of Tulsa. 

My guess would be who ever said they where trying to sell was correct, I would take it a step further and guess that the move was in hopes that even if an out right sail fell through that they thought capital might be more available in Portland then in Tulsa.

Either way though I am sorry that the company didn't succeed, it is bad for both Portland and Tulsa. That said Vidoop wasn't first tech start up and it will be not be Tulsa's last Tech start up.

[TURobY]

That said Vidoop wasn't first tech start up and it will be not be Tulsa's last Tech start up.

Of course not; you and I are both examples that Tulsa is a great place for tech companies. 

[wagebo]

Could we become more of a college and research town? We see how young people create businesses "Vidoop" and you need young educated people to work for new, high tech and high paying jobs. It keeps coming back to the chicken and the egg thing, what do you do first?  We want to attract young educated people. We want encourage start up companies, new businesses. We want to have a thriving, urban, core, thats attractive to the YP and creative class set. But how do you "force" that to happen? What can you as a city do? Best thing I can come up with is to invest in our colleges and research oriented programs at those colleges.

Sure pushing for kewl amenities, parks, trails, museums, etc. can absolutely help. I think an improved River Parks will help with our quality of life attraction. But having colleges on top of that will definitely be important.




We actually are quite lucky to have these booming suburbs. All those young families, equal loooots of young people that Tulsa can capture as their city of choice. A large, youthful, educated workforce.... thats a great draw in this time of age demographic shifts.


This I think is very important....


We also need to just "rebrand" and sell ourselves better. Its about competition with other cities. We all know how to highlight our strengths at a job interview. You know how to sell yourself, your product or your business. We already have some great assetts. We just dont seem to sell it, even to ourselves. The River and all the stuff that goes with it, D-Fest!, Tulsa Tough, Brookside, Cherry Street, The colleges we do have, cost of living, Mountain Biking, Kayacking, beautiful city, skyscrapers, high end shopping, great clubs and music scene, fantastic new Arena, Philbrook art museum, etc. etc. etc..... You could SO sell Tulsa to the younger set. I find that the locals are far more negative about Tulsa than the visitors. Thats sad.  If you get the positive image out, become hip, it will attract more people and businesses. Even though we arent as great as we would like to be, we are improving and it could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy in no time. We dont have that far to go on many fronts. But selling ourselves can really make a difference. If Omaha can create buzz about itself, good lawd, we could rock.

Sorry to bringing this old thread back but....  high end shopping?  Where's that.  Did I miss the Crate and Barrel, IKEA, REI, Nordstroms all within wallking distance of one another and the restaurants, movies, bars?