Buzz

This week's Consumed column in the New York Times Magazine takes a look at how people are using new web services to attach stories to their things.

One of the services is by a St. Paul startup called Itizen, which launched in beta in June. Users can affix a tag to any item, and when someone enters the tag's code on its website, it displays a story or anecdote about the item.

Co-founder Dori Graff tells the magazine that they were interested in how brands were using new forms of bar codes, and also noticed they were doing more swapping of clothes and other items in their personal lives. "Our big superlofty goal would be to influence a shift in how people view their possessions," Graff told the magazine.

MedCityNews reports that Twin Star Medical, a startup that's developing micro-porous catheters, is moving in November to the Excelen orthopedic and bone research center in downtown Minneapolis.

Twin Star Medical currently leases space at the University Enterprise Laboratories. Its CEO said in a statement that the company is growing and needed a new location that could accommodate that growth. It will lease 4,000 square feet in the Excelen building, which is next to the Hennepin County Medical Center.

Minnesota's largest medical-device company is looking to get even larger.

Medtronic CEO Bill Hawkins tells Bloomberg that the company is on the hunt for acquisition targets as a way to restore its sales growth.

Hawkins tells Bloomberg the company is focusing on "tuck-in" acquisitions that plug holes in its existing businesses. But it won't rule out acquisitions as large as $1 billion if "we see something that is a good strategic fit."

"If we see something that's a good strategic fit, we have the ability to act on it," Hawkins told Bloomberg. "We're not in a reactive mode, like we have to go out and do more acquisitions now."

St. Paul topped a new list as the city where residents enjoy the fastest Internet speeds in the nation. Minneapolis came in seventh. But the Star Tribune reports there are local skeptics:

"Ookla, a well-known Seattle company that measures the speed of Internet connections, says St. Paul has recently become No. 1 in the nation in residential Internet download speeds. Minneapolis is no slouch either, coming in seventh in the current Net Index report.

"But some local experts say Ookla's numbers are questionable. They point out that 18 months ago the state-sponsored Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force found that average residential broadband speeds in Ramsey and Hennepin counties averaged 6 million to 10 million bits per second, also called megabits.

"But Ookla's average speeds -- 14.5 megabits in St. Paul and 12.3 in Minneapolis -- were significantly higher."

Read the rest of the article here.

The small indie music venue known for more than half a century as the Turf Club got a big-time visitor when Lady Gaga dropped by during her two-night stand in St. Paul. City Pages sampled the stir she sent through the scene via Twitter messages:

"That'll teach ya not to go home early on a school night. .... As soon as news of her arrival hit the Twitter stream, several locals bolted to the small St. Paul club to hang with the megastar, talking to Gaga and having their pictures taken with her in the Turf's dingy old photo booth."

Meanwhile media outlets around the world, such the English newspaper The Guardian, took note of the new song Lady Gaga debuted in St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center:

"Live, the song proved to be a melancholy piano ballad, but we're willing to bet our last pair of Alexander McQueen 10-inch heels that Living On the Radio will come with a banging, Euro-pop backing track by the time it's released."

Read the full City Pages article here.
Read the full Guardian article here.

Tech.mn has a round-up of Minnesota technology companies that made this year's Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing U.S. privately held companies. They count 20 product-based companies and another 15 in the "IT Services/Consulting" category.

Jobs2Web tops the list at No. 226. The Minnetonka company makes an online tool to help companies recruit employees. Others include Quantum Retail of Minneapolis, Lakeville-based ImageTrend, and EAC Product Development Solutions in Burnsville.

MedCityNews' Thomas Lee concludes that Minnesota's angel investor tax credit is performing "exceedingly well" through its first month. The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development awarded $573,000 in the past month. That puts the state on pace to award about $6 million over 12 months--less than the $11 million allocated for the credit this year but encouraging considering the climate.

Minneapolis-based DoApp is included in a Mashable list of startups by former Google employees. Joe Sriver was Google's first user interface designer before he founded DoApp, which, as the blog notes, is the creator of the Whoopie Cushion App, among others. The company has also developed a product to help news organizations create custom mobile apps.

A group that seeks to limit the impact of billboard's on St. Paul's urban environment lost a round in court this month. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Clear Channel Outdoor, over the advocacy group Scenic St. Paul, as Courthouse News Service reports:

"For several years, Clear Channel regularly granted its customers temporary billboard extensions that gave them greater creative freedom over the signs.

"But as complaints about the extensions mounted, a local group called Scenic St. Paul suggested banning billboard extensions altogether, instead of charging a permit fee for each extension, as the city's zoning committee had discussed.

"The ordinance, adopted by unanimous vote in March 2006, stated, 'No sign shall be enlarged or altered in a way which increases its nonconformity. Billboard extensions are not permitted.'"

Read the full article here.

It started as a one-room school house before Warren Burger's grandfather expanded it into a humble residence. The future chief justice of the United States Supreme Court lived there from the time he was seven years old, sleeping on the porch. Now the house on the East Side of St. Paul stands vacant, but there's an effort afoot to give it its due, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports:

"Local preservationists hope someone steps forward to buy it and prevent further deterioration.

"'I kind of thought some attorney might want to live in the home that Warren Burger was in,' Trimble said.

"'Someone from such a simple house on the East Side of St. Paul rose to such prestige and power,' said Matt Mazanec, a member of the St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission. 'It is such an important structure. We want to make sure it's available for future generations.'

"But at least some people in the area don't see it as much of a landmark.

"'Who's Warren Burger?' said Cindy Rowan, who lives across the street from the house.

"Things turned out differently for the Minnesota childhood homes of Judy Garland, Charles Lindbergh, Sinclair Lewis, Wanda Gag and Maud Hart Lovelace. They're all museum sites.

"Typically, that has happened because local fans decided the place where their hero carved his initials in the woodwork deserved to be enshrined and they found a way to raise the money to do it."

Read the full article here.

The "jewel of the crown" of Minnesota biotechnology wants a prominent place in China's growing biotech economy, too.

The Star Tribune reports that Techne, a Minneapolis biotech and hematology company, is seeing results from its recent expansion into China, despite challenges from knock-offs and counterfeits:

"Less than a year after its Shanghai division began operations in fiscal 2008, it made its first profit and sales grew nearly 22 percent, delivering the largest double-digit sales growth in Techne's biotech division in its last fiscal year," writes Star Tribune reporter Wendy Lee.

Techne, a growing company with 726 employees, creates proteins that are used in medicine and research, including in the development of drugs for cancer and AIDS.

A Minneapolis startup was spotlighted this week as one of the most promising solar-biofuels projects.

BioCee, a University of Minnesota spin-off we reported on earlier this month, was included this week on a list of the Top Ten Solar Biofuels Projects by Biofuels Digest, a website and newsletter.

The company is developing a method for converting sunlight, water and CO  into liquid transportation fuels. Its technology is a thin latex coating that contains living microorganisms that serve as biocatalysts.

"It is a fascinating technology, which immobilizes living, biologically active microorganisms in thin latex coatings, represent[ing] a paradigm shift in how living microorganisms are used as biocatalyst," local cleantech attorney Todd Taylor tells the publication.

Biofuels Digest says the use of solar to create biofuels is one of the most overlooked stories of the year.

Five counties that fund two major new Twin Cities transit lines will see refunds on their investment due to better-than-expected ridership and lower-than-expected costs, reports the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

"The Hiawatha light-rail and Northstar commuter-rail lines last year cost less to operate and generated more fare-box revenue than expected, allowing the Metropolitan Council to return $1.2 million to the five counties that pay for half the lines' operating costs.

"'It's a refund,' Met Council Chairman Peter Bell said.

"In 2008, the five metro counties agreed to form the Counties Transit Improvement Board and levy a quarter-cent sales tax to fund rail, bus and other transit options. The group, composed of Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, and Washington counties, estimates the tax will generate $85 million to $90 million per year."

Read the full article here.

Landlords anticipating competition in a hotter rental market are improving apartments to coax potential tenants who otherwise would go condo, reports the Star Tribune:

"The Twin Cities' vacancy rate for apartments was down from 6 percent in July 2009 to 5 percent this year--a situation credited to the creation of 13,500 jobs in the metro area in the second quarter.

"GVA estimated this has resulted in the absorption of 3,500 apartment units in the first half of the year--meaning thousands more units were rented than became vacant in the last six months. Some areas of the Twin Cities market have been able to sustain modestly increased rents.

"The improved fundamentals, however, have also sharpened competition among multifamily-building owners angling for the new tenants. The new breed of renter is looking for the kinds of amenities he or she may have received in new condos: new countertops, new appliances, sparkling common areas. That has prompted one prominent local apartment owner to embark on a major renovation effort for some of its properties."

Read the full article here.

The big question in Showtime's new TV series "The Big C" is how actor Laura Linney, in her role as a Minneapolis school teacher, deals with her cancer. A separate, less momentous question is whether the series, filmed in Connecticut at Linney's insistence, can capture the Twin Cities' vibe without its environment. Neal Justin in the Star Tribune seems to think it can:

"The show's creator, Darlene Hunt--a veteran sitcom actress who hails from Kentucky--has spent considerable time in Minneapolis, where her husband's sister lives, and thought it would be an ideal setting.

"'It had to be a city with distinct seasons, because it's about a woman going through the seasons of life. Setting it in L.A. definitely wouldn't do it,' said Hunt.

"She plans each 13-episode season of the series to reflect one of the four seasons, starting with summer. Producers won't say which town they used as a model, but think Edina, or St. Paul. ...

"'The first day I was there, I didn't quite have my bearings, said Linney, who had never been to the Twin Cities. 'But the second and third day I realized, Oh, this is a very, very cool place. The arts are so prominent and, for someone like me, that made my heart sing.

"'I really got a sense of how the city interacts with nature in ways you don't think it's going to, in terms of walking, running, boating and how the lakes and land interact with each other.' ...

"The show has some quintessential Minnesota touches, including an episode that revolves around Cathy trying to get someone to share a bicycle-built-for-two and a Scandinavian neighbor who guards her privacy."

But Minneapolis native Jessica Flint, writing in Vanity Fair, doesn't see it:

"The houses, restaurants, and cityscapes that appear in the show feel like something straight out of suburban Stamford, Connecticut--which, it turns out, is where 'The Big C' was filmed."

Read the entire Star Tribune article here.
Read the entire Vanity Fair article here.