Links: Google acquisition with Wharton ties, CoTweet trying paid services and More

DEFINITE READS

Gawker’s Valleywag blog profiles Omar Hamoui, who founded AdMob, the mobile advertising company Google recently purchased for $750 million, while at Wharton. H/T Philly Tech News

The Philadelphia Business Journal’s Peter Key gives IndyHall Labs the profile treatment. Can we just talk about this being the photo they were given?

As we first tweeted, WHYY’s It’s Our City blog reports that the Iranian state is expected to charge Elkins Park native Josh Fattal of espionage. As we earlier reported, he may likely be the son of a Chester County electronics industry magazine publisher.

After the jump, news on CoTweet, Sunoco shopping a move from Center City and five other stories, including our best read piece of the week.

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[UPDATED] Comcast Roundup: NBC deal awaits Vivendi approval, Cohen called most powerful Philadelphian and More">[UPDATED] Comcast Roundup: NBC deal awaits Vivendi approval, Cohen called most powerful Philadelphian and More

Updated: 11/12/09 @ 11:19 p.m.: Vivendi no comment on NBC deal

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.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast and General Electric have agreed to value NBC Universal in the neighborhood of $30 billion, one of the final details of their impending deal. As the Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez reports, whether or not French cable company Vivendi—with a 20 percent stake in NBC—will exercise its ability to veto the deal, may be announced today during its third-quarter earnings call. The Inquirer reports that Vivendi executives gave no comment during the call.

But Bloomberg reports that Vivendi has little reason to move on the deal and may hold out to get a better deal.

The LA Times entertainment blog reports that “no major regulatory hurdles” need to be jumped for the Comcast-GE deal to happen.

After the jump, the most powerful man in Philadelphia, rivaling ESPN and more.

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Google to Philadelphia airport, others: Contact us about free Wi-Fi

Google is offering free Wi-Fi at 47 U.S. airports this holiday season, as we tweeted earlier today.

The gift, which runs until Jan. 15 and is in partnership with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others, includes dozens of well-known airports, but there’s a noticeable lapse.

Of the country’s ten busiest airports, only the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas is currently participating. Of the top 20, just four — Boston, Charlotte, Orlando and Vegas — have begun offering the Google deal. See all the participating airports here.

“The airports involved do cover many significant metro areas already,” said Google spokesman Andrew Pederson.

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Schuylkill River Trail looking for votes in Google Street View competition

Google

The Schuylkill River Trail could get Google Street View treatment.

The popular recreational trail has been nominated as a finalist for Google’s Street View Trike competition, according to the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.

The Schuylkill is among 24 finalists that were voted on from a pool of 25,000. If it beats four others in the parks and trails category, Google would photograph the trail for its Street View map service.

The Coalition is asking locals to vote for Schuykill against competition like D.C.’s Capital Crescent Trail and others. A win could raise the Schuylkill’s national profile, the organization says, which could give BCGP political clout to help complete the trail’s development. Avid bike advocates that we are at Technically Philly, we’re going to take our journalist caps off for a moment and urge you to keep it local.

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Salvation Army opens Target Media Center in West Philadelphia

Students watching video on Nov. 9 from the International Space Station inside the Salvation Army's new Target Media Center in West Philadelphia.

Somewhere someone once said that technology makes the world smaller.

Yesterday, inside its West Philadelphia Corps Community Center, the Salvation Army of Greater Philadelphia opened a Target Media Center, a renovated 20- by 30-foot multi-purpose room crafted into a library and youth theater.

One of its most dynamic features is the incorporation of a teleconferencing system designed to connect students with virtual field trips — like faraway zoos, aquariums and, yes, as depicted above, space stations. Students in West Philadelphia, many perhaps with far fewer opportunities than others their age, will be able to teleconference with astronauts.

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TNT: TheDigitalLifestyle.TV wants to be Philly’s TECH TV, create a podcasting IndyHall

Ryan Ritchey (left) and Jamie DeGrazio host a Halloween edition of TDL Live. The next episode airs tonight at 9 p.m.

The normal population may have let May 28, 2004 slip by without notice, but many tech-heads could tell you a tragedy occurred that day in late May.

It was then when TechTV, a cable station dedicated to tech news, was folded into G4 television. The station had a passionate cult following and Wired magazine even dedicated a piece on the “Mad as Hell” fan base.

However, the site’s format of in-studio tech reviews lives on through popular podcasts like This Week in Tech and Diggnation. Now, North Wales-based TheDigitalLifestyle.TV (TDL) is trying to add itself to that list.

Launched in November 2007, the site began as a network of Apple-focused video programming and is now, beginning next year, expanding to general tech news. TDL often covers live Apple events, has posted dozens of iPhone application reviews and has sat down with local techies — like iSepta — and national figures — such as Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple. Ritchey and a few other TDL contributors have worked for Apple in the past, both in retail and at the company’s headquarters in California.

TDL is even looking to begin a community video studio for local podcasters and believes that Philadelphia’s burgeoning tech scene would be a great starting point for the next TechTV.

“It certainly would be based here. I think there is such a good pool of people [in Philadelphia] that we could easily find great hosts and build relationships that would make this much more interesting,” says founder Ryan Ritchey.

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Event Highlights for November 9 – 15, 2009

Good morning Philadelphia, I have excellent news for you: SEPTA has returned to work.

And just in time, as this week contains lots of events worth spending your hard earned tokens for.

First, meet up with The Innovator’s Club in the burbs to chat social media. The group promises the presentation will be mixed with some humor. But honestly, every time I hear a grown man say the word “tweet” I snicker a little.

Then, hop on over the Ben Frankline Bridge for the NJ and Philly Tech November meetup in a Cherry Hill bar possibly owned by Hillary Swank.

And lastly, get some sleep Friday night because Saturday is the all day party/un-conference that is BarCamp Philadelphia.

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: Pete Borowsky of Zatista

Pete Borowsky and his wife were moving in to what he describes as his first “big boy” home when he realized he wanted to spruce up his new walls with something more permanent than a poster.

“We started looking for original art and the options were just not that great for us,” the Half.com (founded in Conshohocken) and eBay veteran says, mentioning that galleries were too expensive and limiting while art fairs were too unreliable.

Seeing a need in the art world for accessible original works, Borowsky launched Zatista in Yardley along with some other local Half.com expats in May. The site could be described as an Etsy for original art where sellers can post their work for free. The company employs three full-time workers and makes its money by taking an 18 percent cut on all transactions. On the contrary, some art galleries take as much as 50 percent from artists.

After emerging from beta in August, Zatista now has 3,000 original pieces of art for purchase and is beginning to see repeat customers. The site’s just released its new “Art Explorer” feature that can learns what art users prefer based on browsing habits.

“We have good feeling that once we get the word out, people will use the site more often than we thought,” he says.

We chatted with Borowsky about putting art galleries out of business, why he stayed in Philly and what was it like to exist in both the art and tech universes.

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Links: Innovation Philadelphia reflects on GCECS, Hugh Douglas speaks science and More

Updated 11/9/09 @ 10:22 a.m.: Added Innovation Philadelphia link

DEFINITE READS

• Venture Beat reports that New Hope-based teen social network myYearbook is pushing its virtual currency hard toward growth in its fresh profitability.
• Innovation Philadelphia gives its own review of their Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit held early last month. See our interview with Innovation’s chief Kelly Lee here. Read their additional blog post here.
• Keystone Edge has a Q&A with University City Science Center President Steven Tang.

After the jump, Lockheed in space again, Hugh Douglas chats about science and six other tech stories, including our best read piece of the week.

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Snipi closes second angel round, brings total raised to $1.4 million

Center City-based startup Snipi, a Web-based shopping and aggregation tool, has closed a second round of angel funding bringing its total raised to just over $1.4 million.

CEO and Founder Andre Golsorkhi would not disclose the amount raised in the second round, but said in a telephone interview that it is funded by original investors and partially from a new set of angels.

Golsorkhi says that Snipi has quintupled registrations in the past six months and has added new features that improve engagement. The service launched as a public beta in May and saw 5,000 registrations in its first month of public availability, as we reported.

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