Friday Tech Links: Peirce College head is offline, some columnist writes about Facebook again and More

Updated 5/15/09, 9:14 a.m.: Corrected copy errors.

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

• The Inquirer reports on the retirement of Arthur Lendo, noted for taking tiny Rittenhouse-based Pierce Peirce College from regional “Oh, I didn’t even realize that was real college” to “if I heard of them it was because of their online education program.” Don’t give him too much credit, though. A Google search of “Pierce College” yields a California school first. ..Bah.

We get some Navy IT, the Flyers soar and three other tech stories you should read  including our most trafficked post of the week.

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If you spot Google’s CEO on the Blue Line Monday, what would you ask him?

Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt will deliver Penn's commencement address Monday.

Penn students have their fingers crossed that the clouds won’t break Monday morning.

“The temp sounds perfect, but please no rain!” said one tweet.

At least, that’s one impression left by a student on an official Twitter account dedicated to the University of Pennsylvania’s 253rd Commencement ceremony where Google CEO Eric Schmidt is scheduled to speak.

Technically Philly would love to peak at Schmidt’s prepared speech, as Google has been the center of allegations that it has a monopoly on Internet search and advertising. We’re especially interested since the Obama administration took a harder stance on monopolies when it peeled back a Bush-era antitrust policy, the Inquirer reported on Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday that Google may be unstoppable.

Still, it’s hard to argue that the company isn’t innovative. Just yesterday it unveiled a host of new search features. Not to mention that a few hours of Google down time sent the Twitter-verse screaming in protest.

As news-gatherers, and not news commentators, that’s where the conversation ends for Technically Philly. Instead, we pose a question to you, our readers.

If you happen to run into Schmidt – albeit with great surprise – on the Blue Line on Monday, what would you ask him?

Will GMail ever be out of beta? Have you ever rode the official Google zip line into the office? Or maybe you would ask a more hard-hitting question about those monopoly allegations. Maybe something completely off the charts.

What would you ask? We’d love to hear about it in our comments.

TicketLeap launches Anywhere, saves competitive biking

TicketLeap saved bicycle racing in Philadelphia.

Or at least the Center City-based event-planning ticketing service provider was one of many partners that helped make sure the 25th annual Philadelphia Cycling Championship was possible, even after a city budget hole left the international race short $500,000.

The company doubled their ticketing of VIP seating with merchandising and donation soliciting to help bring cash to the June 7th race, famed for its chase of the “Manayunk Wall”

While they were saving racing, TicketLeap was also introducing Anywhere, which just might be the first product allowing users to create a virtual box office out of an Internet-enabled computer.

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Comcast Roundup: E-mail monetization accusations, and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup,

The ability to bookmark your Comcast.net e-mail account page has changed, gripes a reader, who tipped us to the problem, and it’s all for advertising.

(Send us your Philly tech and innovation tips, insight or story ideas!)

That reader says no longer can you bookmark your e-mail account page and browse directly there. Now bookmarks, old or new, send you to the Comcast.net homepage, forcing extra clicks to their “monetized articles & ads,” the reader says.

Sounds like conspiracy theory, a Comcast spokesman told Technically Philly.

Older bookmarks may need to be updated once more because of the final completion of a new Comcast.net e-mail iteration that began rollout last year, says Charlie Douglas, the director of communications for Comcast’s corporate online products.

“I don’t think it’s any different than Yahoo or almost any other e-mail service,” Douglas says. It should be noted that some, like Gmail, can have direct bookmarks.

Douglas was unaware of any push for increased click-rates on the Comcast.net homepage by e-mail users, which likely would be negligible for canceling those using bookmarks anyway.

A Philly.com executive jumps ship, Comcast ain’t the worst company in the country and four other Comcast stories you should read, after the jump.

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Video walk-through of the new IndyHall coworking facility

A crew of Independents Hall workers constructing the new coworking facility before it opened. Photo courtesy of Alex Hillman.

Don’t mind the mess at IndyHall.

On Friday, May 1, co-founders Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi moved the dedicated coworking community into a spacious new office on Third and Church in Old City.

There are still a few more screws to tighten, that’s for sure. But while it might not be ready for white-glove treatment, you gotta give ‘em props for pulling off a complicated move in little more than a month.

Since announcing their decision to move from Strawberry Street, members have increased significantly, the community launched and sold out its first class as part of an education initiative planned for the old location, and everyone involved surely has some stories to tell.

We stopped by IndyHall on Friday to see how the move is going and toured the new spot-on video after the jump.

A special thanks to Drew Lazor of Philadelphia City Paper in assisting with this video. Be sure to check out Drew’s coverage of the IndyHall walk-thru at the Clog.

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Shop Talk: Anthony Ruiz of Samurai Virtual Tours

Samurai's Owners: The husband and wife team of Carole (left) and Anthony Ruiz at the March Refresh Philly event.

You may have seen Anthony Ruiz in the corner of events like Refresh Philly diligently setting up his tripod.

While Ruiz may first appear to be another semi-serious amateur photographer taking pictures for his Flickr feed, he is the owner of Samurai Virtual Tours, a South Jersey-based company that stitches together photographs, audio and video to create vivid virtual experiences for businesses and events.

“We’re loving meeting the technology lovers in Philly,” said Ruiz who originally started the business in upstate New York, but moved to the Garden State to be closer to family. He says that South Jersey offers a proximity to several big cities as well as bunch of untapped non-tech related business in New Jersey.

Creating interactive tours takes a lot more work that using the panoramic mode on your point and shoot. After the jump, Ruiz gives us a peak into how he turns a dozen pictures into the closest thing the Internet has to virtual reality, and all without that awkward headset.
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Regional women-in-business report, annual award show success, room for growth

Women-led emerging growth companies in the Philadelphia region raise on average more than $10 million per company — called “significant outside capital” — according to a report released last week by WIN, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA and the Wharton Small Business Development Center.

The May 7th reception, where the report was discussed at BFTP’s offices in the Innovation Center of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, came along with other news for Pennsylvania women in business.

Gov. Ed Rendell saluted the honorees of the state’s 14th annual “Best 50 Women in Business” list, at a Harrisburg reception held Monday.

“Pennsylvania applauds the vital contributions that women entrepreneurs and leaders make to their communities and to the economic development of our state,” Fast Eddie said.

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Boost Mobile opens first Philadelphia retail store

In photo, from left to right: Jack Huston, CEO of VIP Wireless; Aaron Horne, Philadelphia Inspector of Northwest Detectives; Mike Patterson, Philadelphia Eagles; Michael McCloskey, Philadelphia Chief of Police and Edward Williams, COO of VIP Wireless

Boost Mobile opened its first exclusive retail store in Philadelphia on Friday, with all the pageantry of city police middle management and Eagles defensive tackle Mike “PhatPat” Patterson.

The opening came a day after a deadline Boost imposed on itself to correct lingering problems with a delay in its text messaging delivery.

The delays were blamed on the company’s more than three quarters of a million new prepaid customers in the quarter, which beat analyst expectations, according to Sprint’s first quarter financial results.

Boost has led an advertising blitz on the city.

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City launches Web site to track stimulus spending

The City of Philadelphia has launched a Web site dedicated to keeping track of Philly’s stake in the federal economic stimulus package, according to an update posted to the city’s Twitter account.

Much like the state’s stimulus accountability Web site announced in March, the city will identify projects and initiatives that it is potentially eligible for, keep citizens informed with news and publicly post how money is being spent.

“We are committed to making all recovery information available on this Web site so that you can follow exactly how we are using every dollar of this unprecedented investment,” Mayor Michael Nutter said in an embedded YouTube video.

Watch Mayor Nutter’s announcement and learn about some of the 29 federal funding opportunities being planned by the city – including CIO Allan Frank’s $100 million Digital Philadelphia broadband initiative after the jump.

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RJMetrics mining business database information

At least two Ivy League kids graduated in 2006, took fat-salaried jobs at the same New York City equity firm and returned to Philadelphia to reach fame and fortune by mining data for the nation’s small businesses.

The story continues still.

Today is the public opening of RJMetrics, a business intelligence dashboard and brainchild of a pair of 25-year-olds with regional ties: Robert J. Moore and Jake Stein. They want to help small and medium-sized businesses that collect data about their customers better use that information to chart user behavior.

And like any good idea, it came to them while they should have been doing something else.

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