Comcast Roundup: earnings down thanks to NBC

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

In its earnings report, Comcast says it saw a dip in second quarter revenues of 8.6 percent thanks to the rising costs of the Comcast NBC-U merger. The cable giant also said that it expected to gain more subscribers in June and July.

Outgrowing its gigantic skyscraper, Comcast has rented 43,000 square feet at the Bell Atlantic Tower. The company has the space until at least 2012 and is said to be looking for more space.

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Apparently, early stage investors aren’t endangered

This post originally ran on Philly VC Deal Lawyer a blog about Philly startups by Christopher McDemus. It is re-purposed here with permission, as part of a partnership.

You may recall my earlier post from a few weeks ago entitled “Are True Early Stage Investors An Endangered Species?“  After laying down some background, I took the position that super-angel funds and incubators/accelerators (e.g., Y Combinator, TechStars, DreamIt), had the best chance of solving the early stage funding gap and that capital efficiencies and bootstrapping might help temporarily fill in some of the other holes.  Since I wrote that post, there’s been a lot of online traffic surrounding this issue.

Much of it was ignited by conversations emanating out of Y Combinator’s AngelConf on July 29th.  All of the new super-angel funds popping up in the past few weeks just add to the fervor.  Just today, the WSJ put out a piece noting that Aydin Senkut (former Googler) is closing a $40M super-angel fund, which follows Ron Conway’s $20M super-angel fund, Chris Sacca’s (former Googler) $8.5M super-angel fund, Dave McClure’s (former PayPal’r) $30M super-angel fund and Mike Maples’ new $73.5M super-angel fund.

Here are some of the articles that popped up since my last piece:

Read the rest here.

Startup Roundup: DreamIt grads get covered; new Startup Leaders-ship

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

Inquirer’s Mike Armstrong covers the 2010 DreamIt team. DreamIt Ventures is like the Dream Team, but no give-and-go from 90s point guard-great John Stockon. See our coverage of the graduating class here. TechCrunch also covered our Philly peeps.

Philly Startup Leaders has chosen a new crop of leadership to steer the entrepreneurs group. Jameson Detweiler will lead as President, along with Gloria Bell, Cody Ray, Josiah Kiehl and Matt Owens. We’ll have more on this story soon.

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Black Data Processing Associates seeking help for student mentoring

Hayward West likes to say that he’ll work with anyone from the classroom to the boardroom.

“I wanna expose as many kids in our areas as we can to career opportunities in tech,” says West, president of the Philly chapter of the Black Data Processing Associates. The BDPA, founded in 1975 in Philadelphia, is a national organization with over 4000 members that aims to increase the diversity in technology careers through a mix of community service and career coaching.

“We’re one of the best kept secrets,” says West, “and I’m tying not to be a secret anymore.”

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12 iPhone apps by Philadelphians, for Philadelphians

Great news for all the iPhone-addicts out there: Philly’s ever-increasing number of techies has been up to more than just taking up all the seats at your favorite Wi-Fi café. They’ve been busy developing truly Philly-centric apps, from the genius (SETPA travel, local concert information and traffic reports) to the just-for-fun (zombie braining and saving kittens).

Some of these Philly finds may take a little digging through the app store, and with tens of thousands of apps to choose from, who has time for all that? Well, we do! Get those downloading fingers ready for these 12 awesome iPhone apps by Philadelphians, for Philadelphians.

Read the rest at Philly Post.

Disclosure: Trainboard, an app on the list is one of Technically Philly’s sponsors.

Did Philly Mag exaggerate its VC story?

Remember when Philly Mag wrote a cover story about the city’s technology community, spotlighting Guggenheim Venture Partners?

According to PE Hub, the story was so riddled with exaggerations and inaccuracies that Philly Mag has taken the story down (read it on Google cache). Editor and PE Hub founder Dan Primack – and some of the story’s comments – take several issues with the story about the venture capital firm that is run with a military attitude:

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VC Roundup: NuPathe IPO, no more DreamIt Ventures

Welcome to the VC Roundup, 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

Later today, look out for the emerging details about Philly Mag’s story on Guggenheim Ventures.

Technically Philly wasn’t the only publication to write about DreamIt Demo Day, a handful of other publications also weighed in. In a guest post by DreamIt partner Mike Levinson, TechCrunch takes a very black and white approach offering short paragraphs about every company. PhillyInc looks at DreamIt in perspective of the larger economic climate and the Philadelphia Business Journal focuses more on Startl’s relationship with DreamIt. Of course, you can always look at our three-post Demo Day preview series, our awards post for Demo Day and our collection of videos and pictures from the big day. The DreamIt companies are packing up a leaving the Science Center this week.

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Digital media artists get featured on PECO Building

Photo courtesy of Klip Collective

For the next few months, artists will have a chance to display their digital work on the iconic PECO Building’s crown lights.

The opportunity comes from Art in the Air, a joint project between University City Science Center‘s Breadboard technology arts program and PECO. Each month through December, three selected digital art pieces will be displayed on First Friday atop the building, which is situated on Market Street along the Schuylkill River and which is a striking part of the city’s skyline.

PECO installed its iconic LED signage to replace an older technology in late 2008 and officially lit the billboard on the Fourth of July, last year. The board is made up of 118 40-foot long LED columns, according to Eastern Sign Tech, LLC, the Atlantic City-based company that installed the setup.

In August, Northern Liberties-based digital media firm Klip Collective won honors, along with Tyler grad Jamie Dillon and Kean University’s Brian Oakes.

“When they changed it, I missed the old PECO building. The ads all looked the same, like a PC presentation from 1991,” Klip Principal and Creative Director Ricardo Rivera says. “So I’m stoked that they’re putting some actual art up there, because it’s a great iconic canvas for digital media.”

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New Philly mapping app gives dazzling directions to local businesses

This piece is reported in partnership with PlanPhilly, a news site that covers planning, design and development in the region.

This afternoon, I made last minute plans to meet a colleague to discuss some pressing business. We both had a packed schedule. I’d be biking from University City. He’d be on foot from 5th and South.

Sure, we could go to a staple favorite in Old City, one that’s convenient for him and I both. But what about trying something new? I usually rely on word of mouth, but I had no new ideas. And as for search engine results—where’s the serependipity?

I decided to try CommonSpace — a web application which soft-launched Friday morning — a joint project between Callowhill-based geographic information system firm Azavea, nonprofit tech consultant NPower, the Sustainable Business Network and a handful of other partners, and funded by the William Penn Foundation. [Full Disclosure: PlanPhilly is funded by the William Penn Foundation through PennPraxis and the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.]

The glossy new mapping tool — which helps Philadelphians find under-the-radar businesses and events —is impressive.

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Event Highlights: August 16 – 22, 2010

We’re almost though August, Philadelphia, so be sure to get in those last minute runs to the shore. Just save your trips for Tuesday or Thursday as those are the lone empty days on our events calendar.

This week is full of bar room meetups as both the Build Guild and Philly.rb plan on chatting over brews. Though If you’d like to stretch a bit, head on over to University City to watch a documentary about the women involved in the ENIAC, the world’s first computer developed at Penn.

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