TNT: The state of hyperlocal online news in Philadelphia

Updated: 8/31/09 6:17 p.m., source title

Sarah Lockard should take more walks.

Earlier this summer, the Wayne native was on a long stroll when she decided she should contact Internet craft supply marketplace Etsy about working with AroundMainLine.com, the online magazine startup she launched last fall to cover the famed, ritzy swath of Philadelphia suburbs.

It was on another walk — one amid the crowds of last September spring’s blue-blooded Devon Horse Show — that the former B2B magazine sales executive decided the Main Line needed community coverage online.

Sarah Lockard

Both “epiphanies,” as Lockard called them, seem to have worked out just fine. AroundMainLine.com has partnered with Etsy to profile artisan goods from regional crafts-makers and, while she declined to disclose monthly revenue or funding, her online magazine features weekly content, has a Web designer on staff, photographers on call and a sidebar etched with advertising.

Lockard, 34, boasts that hers was the first for-profit online magazine in the Philadelphia region. But she won’t be the last.

The hyperlocal Web outfit — tied by geography, focused on a niche community and online-only — is meant to be a great wave of the future, seen by MSNBC’s recent purchase of crime and news aggregator EveryBlock, partnerships with online news startups and product launches like Outside.In and Patch.com.

Philadelphia has its first wave of adopters, but their sustainability is far less certain.

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Event highlights for the week of August 31 – September 6, 2009

Good God, it’s September already.

Which means it is time to stop blaming your recent lazy streak on the freggin’ hot August weather to prepare for a week chock-full of events. Actually, scratch that. You should prepare for a Tuesday chock-full of events.

Due to some strange alignment of the heavens, all of the events on our calendar happen to be taking place on Tuesday.

The only logical thing to do, of course, is to frantically try to attend all the events like that Flintstones episode where Fred has to be at Pebbles’ birthday party and the lodge on the same night.

First you’ll have to head on over to Buffalo Billiards to attend Net Tuesday, then hop over to Old City for Indy Hall’s birthday party. After you are done drinking with the Two Guys on Beer, you should cap it all off with the Linux meetup.
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Friday Q&A: Darlene Cavalier, the Science Cheerleader, on the700Level

It never seems fair when brains and beauty are so adeptly synchronized.

Yet, there is Darlene Cavalier, a former 76ers cheerleader, leading a science literacy movement, right from her Society Hill rowhome, while managing a beautiful family stuffed with four young kids.

Today, as a partnership with the700level.com, the best damn sports blog in all of Philadelphia, our Friday Q&A is running on their site.

Click over now to read what Cavalier has planned for her Science Cheerleader site and who won her poker game with Michael Jordan.

Below, some goodies from our interview with Cavalier that didn’t squeeze into the700level piece, including what synthetic biology has to do with NFL franchises.

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Technically Philly and Geekadelphia Section 8 release party crowds Tattooed Mom

"Is that a trident," asks Bianca Cevoli, the Geekadelphia contributor who snagged this photo of a portion of Wednesday night's crowd at Tattooed Mom for our Section 8 release party.

Above a relatively sleepy Wednesday night bar crowd on the first floor of Tattooed Mom was the noise of our first co-hosted event with culture blog Geekadelphia, held earlier this week.

The eclectic hipster grunge South Street institution played host to the Philadelphia release party for Section 8, the soon-to-debut Timegate first person science-fiction shooter for XBox and PCs. A decidedly more 20-something crowd of 60 scenesters and geeks came for the party, sharing the bar’s tagged and multicolored upstairs with two dozen others who trickled in and out throughout the night.

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Friday Tech Links: Fourth most innovative, BigBelly trash video 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.

DEFINITE READS

• Innovation Philadelphia reports that our fair city was ranked the fourth most innovative U.S. city in a recent large survey by 2think2know. Philly lagged behind Boston, which was ranked No. 1 globally, San Francisco, New York and Washington D.C. We were 32nd globally.
• Good magazine hits Center City to talk the innovation surrounding the recently installed BigBelly trash cans that are showing up on our busy city streets. There’s a hotly edited video that includes Oscar the Grouch.

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Comcast Roundup: How Verizon is losing, Scott McNulty interviews the Wiggles and More

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

Yahoo Finance reports on the attention paid to an increasingly apparent strategy of monetization from Comcast’s Interactive Media arm. There are circles who peg the company’s Web growth on that young crew.

Inquirer business columnist Joe DiStefano shares a report on just how Comcast is beating Verizon: their primary business, silly bear. The wireless industry is hotly contested, driving prices down, while cable remains monopoly based, keeping prices high and leaving companies like Comcast and TimeWarner Cable smiling.

After the jump check a low Internet speed ranking, FCC warning shots and an interview with the Wiggles, for real.

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Philly’s Happy Cog office becomes “Happy Cog East”

Earlier this week, world-renowned Web design firm Happy Cog snapped up California-based Airbag Industries to form a self-described “super-agency.”

The deal has doubled the size of Happy Cog, which has one of its two offices in Center City.

For those who aren’t Web design geeks, Happy Cog is headed up by the godfather of the Web standards movement, Jeffery Zeldman. The firm is the creator of the Web designer’s bible “A List Apart” and hosts the premier Web design conference series “An Event Apart.” Happy Cog has studios in the 67th Ward, Center City and now, San Fransisco.

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Event highlights for the week of August 24 – August 30, 2009

We’re sick of this friggin’ humidity. Can we get an Aaa-men on that?

But it’s fine, really, because there’s plenty of indoor events with satisfying air conditioning on this week’s calendar – which brings joy to this farmer’s tanned writer – and plenty of ice cold brewski to go with it.

Often featured, always entertaining Duane Swierczynski will be signing autographs for his new comic at McGillan’s Tuesday, because Swierczynski made the Center City pub part of the story line. We’re crossing our fingers that if we keep posting about him, he’ll write us into his next comic. Pretty please?

Social Media Club gives back this week as it hosts a session on using tweets and fan pages for good. They’ve got some great speakers lined up who will share insight on using Web 2.0 for philanthropy, including representatives from Blame Drew’s Cancer, American Red Cross and Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Attending will be like the millennial version of helping an old lady across the street.

Wednesday, don’t miss Technically Philly and Geekadelphia‘s first joint event, as we, along with TimeGate Studios, host a launch party for Section 8, a new Xbox/PC first person shooter at Tattooed Mom. Don’t miss it, if not for the free swag and cupcakes from Open Source Cupcakes, then for the tales I’m going to tell about missing just about every high school social event to play Quake2 with a 56k modem. I still say LPBs can eat it.

Later in the week, PhillyCHI is all about staying healthy and the Philly Chapter of International Game Developers Association hosts its August meeting. Details after the jump.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.
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Friday Q&A: Thomas Morr of Select Greater Philadelphia

In our coverage of the city’s Digital Philadelphia vision, city CTO Allan Frank’s conversation about a ten-year plan for the city’s technology future, we had the chance to speak to some influential members of Philadelphia’s technology community.

We urge you to check out our in-depth multimedia package on the subject here.

Of the many interesting conversations was a chat with President and CEO of Select Greater Philadelphia Tom Morr. Morr was brought to Philadelphia to lead Select, which is intended to bring business to the region, after successfully steering the Greater Washington Initiative, a similar organization based in D.C.

We chose to reach out to Morr because as a vital member of attracting business to the region, we hoped he’d have some insight on rumblings that the city is considering creating technology innovation zones where tech businesses would be catered to.

In addition, Select completes some solid research on the business community in Philadelphia, including reports on the IT sphere and most recently, the possibility that the economy is beginning to turn around for the region, as reported by PhillyInc’s Mike Armstrong.

We discussed with Morr his thoughts on Digital Philadelphia, the possibility of those tech innovation zones, the future of Philadelphia’s tech community and more, after the jump.

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Friday Tech Links: myYearbook cruises, other DreamIt Demo Day coverage 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 Inquirer’s Philly Inc. reports that your friends at BFTP recently invested $1.2 million in seven firms. One of those firms is West Conshohocken pharmaceutical company Immune Control, as Mike Armstrong reports, is working on controlling immune-cell activity.
• Armstrong also reports that Avid Radiopharmaceuticals has bucked an industry trend and moved to bigger digs inside city limits. They’re working on a product that can help research Alzheimer’s disease and scored one of the region’s most lucrative VC deals this year.
• PaidContent reports that New Hope social network myYearbook is still killing it. Read our interview with founder Catherine Cook.

After the jump, a strange video press release from the Inquirer’s owner, an interview with a DreamIt startup and five other articles you ought to read, including our best read piece of the week and how the competition handled the same story.

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