Matt Topper

"One of the things I always find interesting about going to these tech events is when I tell someone I work for Oracle. I usually get two reactions. Either they look at me like I have 8 heads and wonder why anyone would want to work for the behemoth or they say they want to grow up some day and work on the big (technical) problems a company like Oracle solves. I can normally break down the first group to understand that you really are solving the biggest software problems in the world and the acquisition strategy isn't all evil. The second group provides a great chance at recruiting opportunities. If they're attending tech events they're likely to be the type of person I like on my team. ;-)" - Matt Topper

"With an outro like that how can I keep my mouth shut. Personally I find all my upcoming dc events at http://www.dctechevents.com/. Ross owns the DC event market and does a great job keeping the calendar up to date. The nice thing is that because he implemented it in Google Calendar I can easily subscribe and it appears on top of my own calendar. Pretty much any night of the week I'm able to attend something interesting. The local startup scene has been a great way for me to get plugged into the DC tech scene. I migrated to the DC area from Detroit and being a consultant on the road for 2 years I never got a chance to meet the locals. These events got me plugged in quick and people who actually understand and listen to my babbling. Anyways, Startup Rockstars was great. Five of the local startups presented, all at different stages of the process. Three of the five really interested me. GamerVixens.com is a social network focused on women gamers. Did you know 40% of gamers (online and..." - Matt Topper

"I'll work on more car talk, I'm still coming down off the high from staining my deck this past weekend. So, back to location talk. I just installed "Around Me" on my iPhone, it grabs your location data and tells you where the nearest banks, bars, gas stations, etc. are to me based on my current location. The GMaps search functionality can do the same thing, but this seems much cleaner all in one simple interface." - Matt Topper

"I agree, it could be a business model, but I don't think I've seen any of the commercial apps written by the owning company become a pay app. Twinkle, twitteriffic, etc. have pay versions, but they aren't developed by Twitter. I would love to see the iPhone run gears or Android phones run cocoa apps. The money is really in the distribution of the apps themselves, control the platform, control the store, you own the market. I think we'll see more platforms go that way in the future." - Matt Topper

"I'm actually surprised the tube doesn't have wireless coverage, that sounds like a business model waiting to happen. I agree, offline apps are going to grow like gangbusters with the pipes to everyone's home getting bigger. Between Gears, Air, Shoes, and traditional thick apps its an exciting time to be a developer. I'm just waiting for the day when we're back on mainframe (with some new fancy buzzword) and all the old cobol guys get to give us an, "I told you so."" - Matt Topper