City to release free 311 iPhone application

The City of Philadelphia will release a free iPhone app for its 311 non-emergency call hotline as soon as next month, reports the Inquirer.

City Technology Chief Allan Frank is painting a bold picture for the application, which he tells the Inqy will let users “log requests for city services and track them from their phones.”

“Anything you can do with 311 when you call, you’ll be able to do on your iPhone, and then some. OK, you can take a picture of, say, the illegal dump with the iPhone, and you can geo-locate it for us with the iPhone. All that fancy stuff,” Frank said.

Frank says future edition will become more sophisticated, trumping other cities that have already released similar apps.

Event Highlights for April 5th – 11th, 2010

Update: Edited Hive76 event.

I hope you left next weekend open, Philadelphia, because our event calendar should give you plenty to do this Saturday.

First, you can head to the hometown of our very Brian James Kirk for BarCamp Harrisburg 2. It’s Technically not Philadelphia, but the attendee list tell us that several people are making the trip.

Though if you don’t feel like spending a lot of time on the turnpike, stay local and help Hive76 make a video game in three hours. But if your weekend is already stacked, head to Center City to discuss the city’s burgeoning social entrepreneurship community.

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Friday Q&A: Austin Lavin, formerly of myfirstpaycheck.com

Myfirstpaycheck.com founders Austin and Celeste Lavin.

Austin Lavin is excited.

During his phone conversation with Technically Philly we can nearly hear the 25-year-old smile through the phone. His excitement is well-founded.

Austin, along with his 19-year-old sister Celeste, just sold their first company: myfirstpaycheck.com.

The siblings founded the Ardmore-based Web site in 2007 when then-15-year-old Celeste Lavin began looking for her first job. The family noticed that, in an age where teenagers spend increasing amounts of time online, there were no career resources for teens.

The duo built a job board that also featured career resources for young people, a niche popular enough to attract the attention Phoenix-based Simple Employment Solutions.

We sat down with the Penn grad to ask him what it felt like to sell, his advice for others and when he will be buying his yacht.

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Google Fiber chased by 1,100 municipalities, Gigabit Philly site to relaunch

This map displays where the responses were concentrated. Each small dot represents a government response, and each large dot represents locations where more than 1,000 residents submitted a nomination. Google plans to share a complete list of government responses soon. Image courtesy of Google

Updated 4/3/10 @ 8:59 p.m.: Planned, possible locations in Philadelphia

The application deadline for Google’s ultra-high speed broadband fiber experiment closed a week ago, but Philadelphia’s horse isn’t done riding yet.

Some 1,100 municipalities and thousands of individuals applied, according to the Washington Post, including a collaboration between Philadelphia city officials and community leaders, dubbed Gigabit Philly. Google says it will announce its “target community or communities” by the end of the year, so the Philadelphia group boosting the city’s application is still cheerleading.

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Links: Jeff Deeney on flash mobs, Arlen wants stricter privacy laws and more

• As we tweeted, Phawker contributor Jeff Deeney gives flash mobs his social-worker -experience treatment.
• The Inquirer reports that Sen. Arlen Specter is calling for stronger privacy laws after a Senate subcommittee hearing on technology and privacy, a result of the alleged use of a laptop camera to spy on a Lower Merion youth.
• Wait, what? Geekadelphia shows that it’s been included on a mural put on by one of the Philadelphia teams in that Ford Fiesta social media blitz contest.
• On his personal blog, Duck Duck Go founder Gabe Weinberg crunches some numbers on his successful use of reddit self-serve advertising.
• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports on the Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise conference that is “like the Woodstock of software development.” [Full Disclosure: The conference is a paid advertiser.]

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

With new owner, Scribnia to move to Canada, New York

After a long trial separation, it looks like Scribnia and Philadelphia are breaking up.

To refresh your memory, the author rating service was founded by Dartmouth grads Russell D’Souza and Jack Groetzinger during last year’s DreamIt Ventures class. Before their time at DreamIt was up, the duo sold the company and went on to found Seatgeek, which presented at TechCrunch 50.

Scribnia was trying to become the Yelp of internet writers giving each author a page where readers could rate the writers on several criteria based on the writer’s niche. Technically Philly profiled the company last year.

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Comcast Roundup: CBS affiliates rallying against NBC deal, Hulu gets ‘complex’ 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.

DEFINITE READS

• The Wrap reports that CBS affiliates are raising concerns about the Comcast-NBC deal and its potentially to “competitively disadvantage CBS affiliates.”
• Comcast’s bid to take a majority stake in NBC Universal is part of an upward trend of bolder corporate deals moving away from the financial crisis, as the New York Times reports.

Below, why the Hulu situation is getting trickier still, why now you can watch the bikers race the Manayunk Wall from home and more.

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