NEW: Lullabot Unveils New Sector at Providence Geeks
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Despite what you may be reading about a shrinking technology bubble, Providence’s tech startup scene continues to flourish. Evidenced by last night’s Providence Geek Dinner, proudly self-labeled “geeks” remain keen to network and learn of new ventures. The monthly dinner took place last night at AS220, drawing more than 100 to come out and listen to Jeff Robbins, CEO of Providence’s Lullabot.
Early in the night, drinks were served from the bar, and the room was abuzz with networking conversations and excitement about Lullabot’s presentation. “Empire Street is Providence’s Silicon Valley,” said Bryan Jepson, co-founder of Providence Geeks, about the startup culture that has grown here. Everybody was waiting to hear about the next groundbreaking, cool idea.
Lullabot
And Lullabot delivered. A Providence-based company headquartered just a few hundred meters from AS220, its main objective is to conduct training sessions about Drupal, an open-source content management system used for building Web sites, dubbed “Wordpress on steroids” by Robbins. The company writes books, articles, and makes videos and podcasts about Drupal. It has helped the development of Web sites for MTV UK, Sony Records, and Lifetime Television, all of which operate on Drupal.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTDrupal is used by massive sites such as Whitehouse.gov, Economist.com, Fastcompany.com, and Grammy.com. Robbins explained how his company has helped to keep Grammy.com up and running throughout the annual awards show, where in past years it has ritually crashed.
Introducing: Videola
But Lullabot is not satisfied with this success. The front man of the 35-person company unveiled the new sector of Lullabot at this year’s Geek Dinner, a product entitled Videola, which uses Drupal as an operating system to create a video-delivery platform based on the user. The room was electric with interest.
“It is Netflix based on Drupal,” said Robbins. What he means is that his new product allows the user to organize any group of video files through an open-source platform, and allows for flexible categorization and searching of video. It also allows for opportunities to monetize the watching of videos, a key revenue question for many Web sites. The CEO pointed out that it could be used for essentially anything from sports videos to company training videos.
Jack Templin, who started Providence Geeks with Bryan Jepson 6 years ago, is also a tech entrepreneur who sees “much potential to use Videola on the web, in my startups as well as others.”
In keeping with the open-source culture, there is an option for free download on http://videola.tv, or Lullabot offers a hosted and supported version through their company.
After Robbins’ short presentation, the excited Geeks asked a series of questions before the event reverted back into the relaxed drinking and networking environment that it began as. Already, Providence’s Geeks were discussing the next great idea.
Providence’s Geek Dinner is held for free at AS220 each month, at 115 Empire Street. The next Dinner is March 14th, from 5:30-8PM.