TNT: PhindMe gets social with Everywhereigo

PhindMe Mobile has been preaching mobile for years, ever since it entered into Drexel’s Lebow College of Business competition.

First, the company focused on text-based marketing before unrolling Everywhereigo, the company’s mobile CMS. Now, PhindMe is looking to become the premier vendor for social media-focused mobile Web sites. A buzzword packed space that CMO Jon Cooper says is currently unoccupied.

“[Social] follows the evolution of mobile from being a simple utility,” Cooper says.

To stake its claim as the go-to social media experts in the mobile sphere, the company has just released Social Media Hub, a series of features for its mobile CMS that allow users to easily incorporate social media content in their mobile Web site. And, if all goes well, the company will be one of the next great mobile platforms for businesses.

“Social media is the fundamental thing we want to be good at,” Cooper says.

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Philadelphia Police Department to begin enforcing vehicular cell phone ban Tuesday

Tomorrow is dooms-day for motorists and bicyclists who chose to use cellular phone devices while driving.

The Philadelphia police department will begin enforcing legislation passed in April that requires drivers to utilize hands-free devices when making calls and sending text messages, according to a press release issued by Councilman Bill Green’s office this afternoon.

Violators will be subject to fines between $75 and $300 under the Philadelphia code, not Pennsylvania’s Motor Vehicle Code.

The cell phone legislation, introduced by City Councilmembers Green and Greenlee and Rizzo, was unanimously passed by Council in April, as we reported. The law was signed by Mayor Nutter on April 29.

Event Highlights for November 30—December 6, 2009

Updated 11/30, 10:24 a.m., with date and time edits.

Aaand we’re live.

We’re glad to be back in this big ‘ole city, and apparently you are, too—our calendar is packed solid with some great events.

We’ve even got a geographical spread throughout Philly’s neighborhoods, so if you can’t find something within walking distance, well, you haven’t visited our calendar. If not for the networking, get out for the fresh air—we know what it’s like being holed up in your home or office in front of that computer. Trust us. We know it all too well.

Independents Hall is launching a new monthly series of events to introduce the community to companies based in Philly and abroad, kicking-off with Apstrata, a business doing cloud-based application distribution. Man, that cloud voodoo blows our minds sometimes.

Net Tuesday is doing it like Oprah this month, except with a lot less tears and no free cars. The regular meetup introduces its new Book Unclub, where they’re talking books in a casual setting. We’d call it Oprah 2.0, but a second coming of the talk show diva frankly scares the bejesus out of us.

Agile Philly wants to teach you some new tricks to influencing folks around the office, sans Yoda. Finally, let loose at Philly Creative Jobs‘ Creative Mega Social. And yes, adding “Mega” to your event name does make it that much more impactful.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.

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Links: State budget cuts mean less for startups, Penn president gets national bioethics nod and More

DEFINITE READS

• The Pittsburgh Business Journal reports that the Pennsylvania budget cuts mean less money for startups. H/T Philly Tech News
• The Green Skeptic and the Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong give their takes on Founders Factory from Philly Startup Leaders. See our review here.
• Dude from Philly Eco City wants to try a DIY car share and wants help.
• NJBIZ reports on a Camden startup focusing on cyber threats like flash mobs. H/T PTN

After the jump, CoTweet gets big name clients, Viddler video of Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose and more.

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Comcast Roundup: Competing with ESPN, greatest Comcast photo ever 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.

• Yo, Happy Thanksgiving. Comcast is celebrating, first by bringing the Yule log to OnDemand in HD, and in more ways below.

• Forbes reports that this Thanksgiving, employees of Comcast, General Electric, NBC and Vivendi should all pray that the deal to give Comcast a majority stake in NBC goes through. If the deal fails, Forbes suggests, all those involved will be hurt.
• New York Times Media Decoder blog reports that Upper Darby princess and now NBC star Tina Fey hosted an Ad Council event and liberally joked about the possible Comcast-NBC merger. “It leaves me wondering,” she reportedly said, “will I have to change the name of my show from ’30 Rock’ to ‘Industrial Park Along the Schuylkill River?”

After the jump, Chicago Tribune video on becoming a Comcast customer service agent and the photo we hope will someday be on the currency of the global nation state that Comcast creates after it outlasts Google and Facebook in a universal war of empires. We assume this will happen in 2012.

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Shop Talk: Drexel MET-Lab pushing limits of audio and computer interaction

Drexel MET-Lab post-doctoral student Andrew McPherson preps his electronically-augmented piano.

On an early Friday afternoon, a dozen music technology students at Drexel University’s MET-Lab wrap up lunch before plunging back into work, scattered around computer stations in a cramped fourth floor laboratory.

Youngmoo Kim, a youthful and clean-cut professor, rushes up the elevator of the Bassone Building, on 31st and Market, to meet his students before launching into a presentation about the lab’s objectives, an exciting look at the future of music and entertainment technology, hence the name MET. The five-year-old lab is trying to create new technologies around music production, music recommendation and organization and music interfacing, four cores of its mission. Its most obvious, though, is to teach computers to use sound.

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CBS stations launch 24-hour news ticker on Center City newsstands

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter was on hand Nov. 24, 2009 to introduce a partnership between the region's seven CBS stations and the city's newsstand association to run a ticker. Photo by Amy Stoller for Technically Philly.

Newsstand Association of Philadelphia, meet the region’s seven CBS stations.

Mayor Nutter was on hand Tuesday morning to announce a partnership that will feed news, weather and sports updates from CBS-owned radio and TV outlets onto 24-hour news tickers and flat-screen, high definition televisions outside Center City newsstands, according to a press release.

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SeeClickFix visits Philadelphia to educate on civic issue tracking tool

SeeClickFix representative Mark Abraham talks to Society Hill residents about the civic issue tracking tool. | Credit: EvolveStrategies.net

Philadelphia residents are logging into Connecticut-based technology to report non-emergency neighborhood issues.

Last week, a representative of New Haven-based SeeClickFix travelled to Philadelphia to discuss the civic issue tracking tool with the Society Hill Civic Association, one of the newest adopters of the Web-based technology. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly was introduced to SeeClickFix founder Ben Berkowitz at a journalism conference in New York]

With SeeClick, users can create watch areas, report concerns – like potholes, barking dogs, idling vehicles and other annoyances – and hopefully create buzz around problems in neighborhoods, so it’s easier to lobby to get these problems fixed. The takeaway? SeeClickFix is a platform for anyone in a neighborhood to track problems, not just government officials.

Nuisances can be submitted to the site using a variety of mediums, including a browser, Twitter, phone, email and iPhone application. Residents can receive updates on problems occurring in neighborhoods by way of RSS, email, and more.

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SEPTA to launch Google Transit bus routes this week, more redesign details

After redesigning its Web site last week, SEPTA got back to Technically Philly with a laundry list of plans and details to answer our questions about the transit authority’s retooled Web strategy.

The company is well aware of the bugs that were the subject of complaints, says spokesmen Andrew Busch. Rather than stall the site internally, the company felt it could push out the new version as long as no features were missing.

On the call, SEPTA let us know some of its upcoming plans. With so many juicy details to share, allow us to present them in convenient bullet point format:

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TNT: Randy Schmidt on losing weight with Lose It or Lose It

The failure of some business plans are more productive than others.

If an online service that Web developer Randy Schmidt launched last week has enough success in helping people lose weight, Lose It or Lose It might be remembered as among the most productive failures to come out of the IndyHall co-working scene.

“It’s basically just a friend that keeps track of you and your weight loss for 10 weeks,” says Schmidt, of iSepta fame. “You sign up and put up dollars per pound and set a goal of pounds to lose per week. If you meet your goals, it costs you nothing.”

That’s the kind of pressure that Schmidt says he needs himself.

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