Drexel uses Twitter to notify accepted students, build commuity

If you went to college, it is likely you know what it’s like to anxiously check the mailbox everyday, waiting for your college acceptance letter.

However the rite of passage is about to be added to the list of things Twitter could change forever.

At Drexel, the school has begun using the microblogging tool to not only follow up on students who have shown interest in the university, but @DrexelAdmission will even notify them of their acceptance (Disclaimer: as you can see in the tweet, my brother was the inspiration for this post.)

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Prize for best Google Gigabit Philly idea announced, $8,000 and growing

It’s not often that one is monetarily rewarded simply for an idea. But the prospect of Google building its ultra-high speed broadband Internet here is raising the stakes.

This morning, Philly Startup Leaders announced that it will award a prize of $5,000—donated from the organization’s own coffer—for the best idea submitted to Gigabit Philly supporting the city’s grassroots effort to convince Google to build ultra-high speed fiber in Philadelphia.

In a matter of hours, six individuals and organizations have pledged to donate to the prize offering, bringing the award to more than $8,000, Startup Leaders founder Blake Jennelle told Technically Philly in a phone interview this morning. Startup Leaders hopes that the prize will continue to increase as Google’s deadline—on Mar. 26—quickly approaches.

“We’ll consider this a victory if it shines a light on the grassroots movement in Philadelphia. We take things into our hands, step up to the plate, move quickly and rally together,” Jennelle says.

Only ideas submitted at GigabitPhilly.com will be included in the contest. Organizers are urging folks to spread the word on Twitter with the hashtag #gigabitphilly.
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Comcast Roundup: Won’t tie rates to inflation, chasing BitTorrent users and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

Update: edited title, updated TV Everywhere link

DEFINITE READS

• The Washington Post reports that the FCC has begun a review of the “rules governing how broadcasters and pay television services negotiate transmission fees,” prompted by disputes surrounding the Comcast-NBC deal. The Post also reports that the FCC commissioner blasted Internet service providers, like Comcast, for raising prices (as the company did) as the agency has moved to provide more affordable Web access.
• The Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez reports that Comcast won’t tie their rates to inflation, a proposed condition to its merger with NBC. Fernandez also reports that Comcast founder Ralph Roberts celebrated his 90th birthday.
• Businessweek reports that Comcast and TimeWarner, among others, helped fight off a once prevalent trend toward free TV.

Below, how Comcast is chasing down some BiTorrent users, NBC executives learning Comcast culture and a dozen more stories.

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Startup Roundup: ‘X’ is the only city in which to start a Web company

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

Coverage of city technology scenes continues to dominate startup and entrepreneurial conversations across the country, leading to an important question: Is “X” City’s scene better than others?

You know well that we cheer on the Philly technology community, for good reason. But given a handful of articles that we’ve come across recently—and featured in this roundup—we can’t help but raise a question that we’ve asked before: Does it matter whether or not we receive national recognition for our startup scene?

American Express’s OPEN forum for small businesses, just, well, completes us. The site asks that very question: For Web entrepreneurs, does location matter?
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Azavea debuts free subscription plan for legislative district, elected official search API

Fresh off a name change, GIS software firm Azavea, formerly Avencia, has launched a free subscription plan for Cicero, its much-touted legislative district and elected official search API.

The plan offers users 1,000 monthly credits toward “any coordinate-based legislative district matching, elected official data lookups and/or map web service requests,” according to a release [PDF].

The company release leans heavily on suggesting the ‘Cicero Free‘ plan is for more limited organizations that want to add legislative data to their Web sites or online applications. The recently released Our Philadelphia platform, which was built by Common Cause Pennsylvania to track money in local politics, used a beta version of the free plan.

Play with it the free API here.

FCC plans to increase Internet speeds in national broadband plan

In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May.

The Federal Communications Commission will push on telecommunication companies to make the Internet 25 times faster through its National Broadband Plan.

One of the major goals of the unprecedented agenda is to provide broadband access to all Americans. The plan also intends to provide 100 million American homes with 100Mbps (megabits per second) broadband service in 10 years. The current average household Internet connection speed is 4Mbps.

“This is very possible,” said Justin Shi, an associate professor and associate chair at Temple University’s College of Science and Technology. This advancement in communication technology will eventually change social and economic systems, Shi says. The seemingly large feat of increasing Internet speeds by 25 times can be accomplished by improving the current packet-switching system used for the Internet.
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Technically Philly offering tech insight for Philadelphia magazine’s Philly Post

Please give a warm welcome to our new readers.

Yesterday, by way of a link, we forged an informal partnership with Philadelphia magazine’s new Philly Post daily news blog. From here, we’ll be offering our insight on Philadelphia technology to a broader audience of tech-interested individuals, first hinted at last week. As is true of so much of our effort, this is yet another opportunity to voice the triumphs and concerns of the community to a broader audience in the city and beyond.

I’ll be writing as Philly Mag’s online tech columnist, offering a fresh and often more in-depth and behind-the-scenes look at the goings-on of Technically Philly’s daily news. For those of you who have been following along regularly, the weekly column at Philly Post will be a different taste of what you already likely read between the lines in our news entries. For those just joining us, we hope you’ll enjoy the breadth of technology content that we’re humbly able to offer here.

Be sure to check out the first column, on the City of Philadelphia’s pitch for Google ultra-high speed Internet, at Philly Post.

Movitas Mobile plans to raise $2.7 million

According to recent SEC filings Movitas, recent acquirer of PhindMeMobile, is in the midst of raising $2.7 million in funding. According to documents, filed yesterday, the company has raised $700,000 thus far.

The Collegeville-based company specializes in mobile marketing for the hospitality industry and other location-based businesses and events.

No venture capital firm appears to be associated with the funding round.

In an email to Technically Philly, Movitas spokesperson Suzanne Harris declined to comment.

VC Roundup: Quaker gets aroused, Safeguard swaps debt

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

DEFINITE READS

As we tweeted yesterday, Fast Company interviewed Josh Kopelman about why people should start a company in Philly. In the interview Kopelman points to local universities and the low cost of living as prime reasons people should set up shop here. The article came after the local community lobbied the magazine to be included in its series.

According to a press release, Quaker BioVentures has teamed up with a student-run VC firm to invest in Semprae Laboratories. The company makes “arousal” oils. Yes, we’re serious.

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Philly invades South by Southwest

Indy Hall founders Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi lead "How Geeks Grabbed Philadelphia by the Balls."

AUSTIN – In the Courtyard Rio Grande Hotel, just across the street from the Austin Convention Center, BarCamp Philly organizers Roz Duffy and Kelani Nichole walked up the escalator with a burlap sack and hustled down the hall.

“It’s our bag of balls,” said Duffy with a smile.

Culminating Philly’s strong presence here (TP has seen our share of Phillies caps and jerseys) was the Saturday session “How Geeks Grabbed Philadelphia by the Balls,” a panel led by Indy Hall co-founders Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi that aimed to help residents from other cities foster a tech community.

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