LaunchUp.org
I was at conferences all week last week. My time in Salt Lake happened to coincide with LaunchUp so I and Joel figured we'd head down and mooch free dinner.
I've been to a lot of different user groups around the state, but I have to admit that LaunchUp really impressed me. It's a great gathering of young and old who are trying to get a startup up and running. The room was packed. The last time I'd been to and event like that was a Facebook meetup in Silicon Valley.
Phil Windley and Stephen Fulling showed off Kynetx. I've known Phil for a number of years and have been down to IIW a conference he heads up. iactionable showed off a hosted achievement system that looks pretty cool. I think that more and more businesses are looking to use external services to deal with cool features that they don't have the resources to develop in house so I'll be interested to see where the company goes. simler showed off a social network that helps you to meet people that you don't already know. Meeting people that you don't already know is a great idea. I find myself trying to engage in broader conversations on topics I'm interesting in - ruby, startups, the latest cycling gear. I really like that last one. The trick with sites like this is trying to decide how much to let your community take it's course. FriendFeed started out as a way for people with similar interests to find one another and hang out. It turned out that most people just wanted an easy way to find sex.
Justin Ball is a software consultant and entrepreneur with a passion for Ruby. He evolved from a C++ and .Net monkey into a python programmer and finally found Ruby. In the rare moments when he isn't writing code, talking about code or measuring his code productivity in profanity per hour, you can find him on his bike in the mountains or on the roads surrounding Cache Valley. 
