I am passionate about seeing a technology ecosystem blossom in Utah. I want scores of small software shops springing up throughout the Wasatch front, ala 37Signals or the Robot Co-Op; the kind of small independent places building hosted applications that empower people to be more efficient and creative. If the last week’s news is any indication, however, we’ve got a long way to go before we turn that corner.

Take, for example, the two Utah Valley partners who were pulling in $71k in two months. If numbers where everything that would be an impressive penny. However, they were doing it with splogs – or spam blogs. Splogs are sites purposely meant to attract search engine traffic by using a raft a nefarious search engine optimization (SEO) trickery. With sites now atop search lists they sprinkle in a few ads and *POOF* - a business model built on deception. They add no value, confuse searchers, and often use content gleamed from other sites. That’s why Microsoft is now suing the pair.

In a sad similar bit of news we have an individual who was not only piggybacking off the popular social news site, Digg, but also using its content. DiggGames has received a cease and desist letter from the Digg legal crew for doing some trademark wrangling. To be fair, DiggGames does seem to provide something of a service – what it is highlighting can be a cumbersome thing to weed out of the normal Digg garden. However, aping a domain name is still a trademark no-no.

Finally, Friday brought an alarming plea for help from the recently expunged Provo Labs development team. Reading the lead’s blog is at times fascinating and terrifying. To be clear I am in their corner. I want shops like theirs to succeed. But their situation reminds me of the Thelma and Louise movie. The crew seems incredibly exhilarated by their new found freedom – I just hope they don’t drive themselves off a cliff in the name of independence; their vehicle seats ten.

Two superstars in their respective categories, Jamis Buck (Ruby programming) and Cameron Moll (design) no longer even call Utah home; both having evacuated this summer. The trouble seems to go clear up through the ecosystem to the redwoods of the area: SCO’s Linux claims against IBM have been found baseless, Overstock’s has an embarrassing tit-for-tat clouding the air, and Novell is spinning hard to get Linux traction. It all makes me wonder what state our flower patch is in.

I know there’s more going on in the valley than domain squatting, legal threats, and desperate grabs for business. Where is the good Utah development press? Where are the successful, small, and ethical software shops and what are they doing?