Startup Roundup: myYearbook Chatter feed surpasses 1 million posts per day, Duck Duck Go whups Cuil

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

myYearbook has announced that its real-time location-based Chatter stream feature—launched last November—receives 1 million posts per day. According to a press release, two new features, which allow users to ask questions and rate each other, ala HotOrNot.com, have accelerated the stream’s growth rate. myYearbook’s traffic continues to grow at an impressive rate, with over 55 million monthly visits and 4.3 million unique visitors.

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Why Philly has only one Low Power FM community radio station

Shirley Randelman, host of Community Action Magazine.

In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May.

“Welcome to WPEB 88.1FM, the first station on your dial,” radio host Shirley Randelman says into her microphone. “You’re listening to Community Action Magazine, bringing you all the updates on what’s going on in the community and keeping it very real and personal.”

Randelman, whose show airs on Mondays from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on West Philadelphia Educational Broadcasters (WPEB), says her’s is one of many programs broadcast on the local station. “We talk about things that are happening in the community especially where it deals with business, advocacy and education. We cover a whole potpourri of information,” she says.

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A case for the Historical Society’s Philly Web portal

In an informal partnership with Philadelphia magazine‘s new Philly Post daily news blog, Technically Philly will be offering our insight on Philadelphia technology to a broader audience of tech-interested individuals every Tuesday. As is true of so much of our effort, this is yet another opportunity to voice the triumphs and concerns of the community to a broader audience in the city and beyond.

Since she was a young woman studying at Rutgers University, 67-year-old Donna Meidt has traced her family ancestry by collecting stories from relatives, studying history books, and visiting the small mountain village of Gasperina in Italy, where her great-grandparents began raising their family more than a century ago.

The focus of her life’s work has been on her grandfather, Antonio Nicola Pisano, who lived in Philadelphia’s Queen Village neighborhood at the turn of the 20th century. Meidt remembers vividly the stories that Pisano shared with her about the life and family he left behind. “They were artists and they were poets,” he often said.

Pisano immigrated to America in 1911 at the age of 16, moving into a boarding house at Fifth and Catherine streets. The young man studied as a shoemaker’s apprentice at a factory in Center City. But his passion, too, was the arts.

Read more at Philly Mag’s Philly Post.

VC Roundup: Angel Venture Fair and Drexel’s new incubator

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

DEFINITE READS

The Inky reports on the 12th-annual Angel Venture Fair, held at the Union League last week. The event is described as “speed dating for entrepreneurs” where 125 companies pitched 150 angel investors.

Drexel University will be creating an incubator in Bristol, according to the PBJ. The incubator will inhabit a building formally owned by Rohm and Haas Co. If you remember, Drexel also has an incubator in Camden in addition to the Baiada Center on campus.

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Venmo mobile payments drives exchange for charities, retail

A few weeks after a disastrous 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 150,000 people, Peter Groverman was organizing.

By the end of his planning, Groverman—a Villanova law student and CEO of local advertising startup Tapinko—had brought together 126 people from around the world and 40,000 pounds of cargo, including $1 million in medical supplies, which all traveled on an airplane chartered to fly to Haiti last month.

It was another drill for Groverman, who first began organizing relief efforts when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005 and he gathered 40 students to head to New Orleans. But Groverman says another Philadelphia entity was helping drive his recent mission: Rittenhouse-based mobile payment startup Venmo.

Using the text message-based payment system, Groverman was able to raise $50,000 immediately—when that immediacy was vital. “Venmo [was] the whole backbone of our fundraising effort,” he says. “I cant imagine any nonprofit not using text message-based donation systems. There’s no need for a check, no need to go to a bank to deposit. I didn’t have time for checks to come.”

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Event Highlights for April 12-18, 2010

For those of you that follow along with our events highlights, you know we like to pick the top three goings-on to share.

But this week, there’s so many great, free technology happenings that we can’t pick just three. Wednesday alone has—count ‘em—seven events that all seem promising. That’s half of the 15 organized events this week. On a single day. Better take off Thursday while you can and see our breakdown after the jump.

Thursday, Verizon Wireless hosts a free, all-day wireless industry conference that looks put together. Sunday, we at Technically Philly will be in Cherry Hill to talk tech. Come on out if you’d like to heckle us, represent Philly’s vibrant tech community or talk shop with us after the event. And now, for the marathon…

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: Drexel incubator in Bristol, working on nuclear threats and More

DEFINITE READS

• Mike Armstrong of the Inquirer reports that “the Eastern Technology Council will combine with an affiliate of the Greater Philadelphia  Chamber of Commerce, called the Mid-Atlantic Capital Alliance.” Armstrong goes on to say: “I say it’s overdue, because the Philadelphia region seems to have as many entrepreneurial, technology, and other business groups as school districts.”
• The Philadelphia Business Journal’s Peter Key reports that Drexel University is starting an incubator program in Bristol for sustainable businesses for the military.
• The Drexel Triangle reports that a professor from that university is developing a new tool that will ‘see’ chemical and nuclear threats, and, just to be clear, the headline of this story is “Drexel prof. creates device.”

Below, a Drexel professor works on nuclear threats, a bait-and-tackle shop smart phone app and more.

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Inquirer, Daily News publisher pledges to charge for iPad application

One year ago, Inquirer and Daily News Publisher Brian Tierney pledged to add a paid-content model to Philly.com by the end of 2009, as we were first to report.

Of course, that never happened and Philadelphia Media Holdings plunged into bankruptcy proceedings. But with another spring, comes another pledge.

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Thanks to our weekly sponsors

Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:

Chariot Solutions – Long-time Technically Philly advertiser Chariot Solutions is host of the annual Emerging Technology for the Enterprise conference. This month, the developer and training partner is promoting the popular conference, which took place on April 8-9.

Gregory FCA – Public relations firm Gregory FCA will host on April 15 “The Art of News and Storytelling in the Age of Social and Digital Media,” an affordable panel about the changing landscape of news and social media with well-known attendees from the Associated Press, Forbes, New York Times, Columbia School of Journalism and more. Register here.

Mogo Media – Web and Graphic design event planner Mogo Media will host an Adobe InDesign training seminar May 5th. Use discount code “TECHNICAL” to receive 10 percent off the admission fee. We worked with Mogo on its successful Adobe Flash seminar in March. Register today.

Springboard Media – Springboard Media is a certified Apple Specialist and retailer based in Center City and now, in Exton. They’ve got a ton of accessories and a great trade-in program that can score you up to $1,500 when you’re ready to upgrade.

Alex Hillman – IndyHall‘s Alex Hillman has signed on as Technically Philly’s first “Philanthropist” sponsor. Be sure to check out his blog.

Nonprofit Technology Resources – Fairmount-based NTR refurbishes used computers and peripherals for families and individuals in Philadelphia who may not otherwise be able to afford to buy a computer. We urge you to donate to this great local cause.

Towerstream – Our newest advertiser is the leading fixed WiMAX service provider in the U.S. and is setting up shop in Philadelphia. Contact Towerstream to find out how, in less than a week, you can have first-class Wimax service for your business.

Interested in joining these organizations and individuals in supporting Technically Philly? Check out our ad packages and contact our Ad Sales Manager. Can’t find something that fits? We’ll customize a package for you.

Friday Q&A: Judah Levine of the Philadelphia Union

Union fans cheer at the MLS SupeDraft, which was held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Those trying to bring Google Fiber to Philadelphia ought to learn a lesson from the Sons of Ben, the supporters club of the Philadelphia Union.

Before the soccer team was even announced, the “Sons of Ben” invented chants and songs and happily sung them at Washington’s and New York’s MLS games. Their passion helped to convince Major League Soccer to award the city a new franchise, beating St. Louis, among other cities.

After a rough start in week one, the team is preparing to play its first ever home game tomorrow at Lincoln Financial Field before eventually moving in to its new stadium, PPL Park, in Chester.

Since the team’s name and logos were announced in May 2009, the organization has made a priority to nurture its already vibrant fan base, taking an active role in using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. Between the two platforms, the team has over 30,000 followers, more than enough to fill its new stadium in Chester.

We exchanged emails with Judah Levine, the man behind the team’s social media outreach to ask what tools he uses, who he admires in the social media space and why we should go to tomorrow’s home game.

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