IndyHall/Mashable event at Cavanaugh’s brings crowd

The early crowd, including, at center, Viddler's Rob Sandie, Mashable Editor Adam Ostrow (in tan jacket) and Mashable East Coast Events Director Brett Petersel. Bottom right see RedLasso CEO Al McGowan and President Kevin O'Kane among others. Photo by Sean Blanda.

In a mixed crowd of several hundred at Cavanaugh’s River Deck on Delaware Avenue last night, Mashable came to play with curious, if reserved, portions of Philadelphia’s tech community, including significant presences from our co-working scene and notable Web 2.0 players.

The event, held in conjunction with Independents Hall, the venerable Old City co-working brand, and Mashable, the social media blog founded in New York City, morphed with River Deck regulars and a crush of bar crawlers after 10 p.m. in the cool night.

The Mashable event is part of a big weekend. Tonight Ignite 3 throws down at Johnny Brenda’s in Fishtown.

Rain threatened and delayed use of the bar’s popular outdoor, deck seating, with a beautiful view of the Ben Franklin Bridge, but not longer than an hour after the 8 p.m. start, the skies cleared.

Read about who made appearances and see other photos after the jump.

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Friday Q&A: Amy Hoy of Slash7 and Twistori

If you have never seen Twistori in action, go look. Seriously, I’ll wait.

The popular Web site and screensaver scans Twitter for uses of a handful key phrases such as “I hate,” “I love” and “I wish” and displays the Tweets anonymously and in real time, offering a revealing look into the life of people you may never meet. The site arranges the Tweets into a beautiful cascade of bright colors on a dark background that could suck you in for hours.

Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs, the couple behind the mesmerizing service, have just just released a desktop version where users pick their own keywords to be displayed. The application was one of the first ads on Twitter, was featured on Apple.com and has been covered by ReadWriteWeb among many other outlets.

Hoy may reside in Austria, but you can’t tell the story of Twistori without mentioning Philadelphia.

The desktop application was released through IndyHall Labs with the help of the hosts of� Two Guys on Beer, Dave Martorana and Johnny Bilotta. Hoy has been to the city several times, and was even there the day IndyHall opened.

We chatted with the Maryland-native as she closed the business day in Vienna about the recent release of Twistori’s Desktop app and her thoughts about her recent appearance on the popular tech podcast This Week in Tech.
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DreamIT-backed OurShelf to launch public beta today

DreamIT Ventures-backed OurShelf will launch a public beta today of its web-based personal goods cataloging service after several months of prototype testing, according to an announcement on the company’s Twitter account.

OurShelf’s free service allows users to borrow and lend items such as DVDs and books and keep track of what’s been lent to friends. Users can catalog and organize, share, discover and group collections of products they own or are interested in.

“I lend my books out all the time. Sometimes I borrow DVDs from friends, but [there isn't] a system to keep track of who has what and where it all ends up,” Co-founder and CEO Paul deGrandis said in an e-mail.

“With OurShelf, you can borrow and lend, or have a shared shelf in a group and keep track of where your items go.”

The company is polishing its user interface before launching the service this afternoon, deGrandis said. There will also be a launch party for OurShelf in the Poplar neighborhood’s The Institute Saturday night at 9 p.m. Can you say free beer and Nintendo Wii consoles at every table?

OurShelf currently is made up of employees working from home throughout Philadelphia, but the company has plans to re-locate to the University City Science Center.

North Philly YouTube stars unhappy with PW exposure

Makael Mclendon (left) and Kevin Simmons are The Skorpion Show

There’s a funny thing about this whole “new media” thing that journalists can’t stop talking about. Now, story subjects can answer back.

Such is the case with Joel Mathis’s profile of North Philly-based The Skorpion Show for the publication’s “Queer Issue.” The day after the article ran, Skorpian’s Keven Simmons shared his distaste with 9,000 of the show’s subscribers.

“Now I know how those reality stars feel … this will never happen again,” he said.

The Skorpion Show is a DIY talk show where Kevin Simmons and Makael Mclendon, better known as Skorpion and Makael, chat about everything from celebrities to relationship issues to music reviews. Each video typically features the hosts sitting side-by-side chatting into their Logitech webcam.

Each episode averages around 4,000 views, which when stretched over 185 videos, adds up. Two of the duo’s videos have broken the one-million viewer mark.

After the story was published, The Skorpion Show uploaded two videos pertaining to the PW story. Follow after the jump to hear their beef.
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Friday Tech Roundup: Cell phone driving ban, Police brutality spread on social media and More

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 Philadelphia Business Journal reports that the city’s cell phone ban is for real now. After passing City Council last week, it seemed doomed from statewide angst for a municipality creating a varying driving standard. It seems some state funding is still in danger because of the move.

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