Comcast Roundup: RightNetwork to be based in Philly, net neutrality affects Comcat stock 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 Associated Press reports that actor Kelsey Grammer is “an investor and public face” of proposed politically-conservative-leaning RightNetwork, which aso has investment from Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider and drew buzz in April for incorrectly being associated with Comcast partnering.

Philly Tech News reports that Red Tettemer is handling the network’s PR and that it will be based in Philadelphia. That has since been confirmed.

Multichannel News reports that Comcast has launched a customer service text-messaging service dubbed “Comcast4U.”

Below, what net neutrality means for Comcast stock, a charitable mood and more.

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Startup Roundup: Donation facilitation a trend; Kenexa acquires Salary.com for $80m

Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup parses 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 newsletter or RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

MUST READS

Donation facilitation is officially a trend. We’re seeing it here in Philadelphia with Blake Janelle’s MyDunkTank, featured in a piece about the trend at The Startupist. And later this month, GiftWorks is set to release new editions of its fundraising software, so expect to see some more news about that here soon.

Wayne HR tech firm Kenexa picked up Salary.com in an $80 million deal last week for the latter’s on-demand compensation management solutions.

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Today on our Jobs Board: myYearbook needs all kinds of developers

Technically Philly’s Jobs Board is becoming a go-to resource for employers and job-seekers hoping to connect. In the past week we’ve added a nearly a job a day, making it the perfect time to snatch that new gig at some of the area’s hottest companies.

New on the board this week:

• A yet-to-be-named early-stage startup is looking for a developer. If this ends up being the next Google, you’ll owe us. Just sayin’.
• MyYearbook is looking for five (yes, FIVE) positions including Flash, Mobile and PHP developers. Basically, if you’re good with a computer, they’d like to talk to you. In case you don’t remember, myYearbook is a high school social networking company backed by First Round Capital and is recently profitable.
• CapTech Ventures needs a UI Architect.

If you’re a company looking to affordably connect with our audience of 16,000 technologists in the region, be sure to post your job openings here. Over 1,000 people checked out our Jobs Board in the past month, and each job is tweeted out to our 2,000 Twitter followers at least twice.

Philly’s top 10 cloud computing apps according to Evolve IP

One of the worst-kept secrets in the business world is the slow migration to the “cloud.”

That is, applications hosted on the web rather than on a desktop. For example, Gmail is email in the could, Salesforce is sales software hosted in the cloud. Unlike most other new trends in business, this one is actually being led by the big guys.

“What makes the cloud different than most disruptive technologies is that there isn’t widespread adoption among small businesses,” says Bill Jefferis, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development at Evolve IPEvolve IP. The Wayne-based company – who we profiled last year – earns its living by hosting applications and telephony for businesses.

However, now small business are beginning to catch up and spend the time and effort to migrate data to the cloud.

“Most people are thinking about it,” he says, “but not everyone’s doing it.”

Because the company has two local data centers and a mostly local customer base, Evolve IP is in a unique position to let us know what are the trends in Philly’s cloud computer preferences.

So, as interest in cloud applications continues to rise, we asked the smart guys at Evolve IP: What are the top 10 cloud applications hosted on its servers?

The answers (in no particular order) after the jump.

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Announcing Switch, our biggest event yet. Featuring P’unk Ave, Packlate, Orpheus and others

At Technically Philly, we often have a problem.

As part of our job, we see lots of great products and companies that deserve more attention. When we tell our readers and others about some of the companies we cover, we often hear “I didn’t know that was happening here.”

Well, with the help of our friend Jameson Detweiler, Technically Philly is proud to announce Switch, a new event that will take place on Oct. 6th at the Levitt Auditorium at the Gershman Hall at the University of the Arts… at Broad and Pine streets in Center City.

Switch will feature five local companies demoing their latest and greatest in front of a large crowd to help get the word out about the wonderful things happening in our backyard.

We aim for Switch to become our community’s pep rally, a chance to be proud of the great things happening here while inviting our friends from other cities to brag a bit.

We hope to spend an hour at the Levitt Auditorium, a fully restored theater unlike any other venue in the city. There, we will watch five companies show off their demos in a theater-like setting. After roughly an hour, we’ll all walk two blocks to Tavern on Broad to grab a few beers. The event will be recorded and the video of demos will be available shortly after the event.

If you like to attend, tickets are $9 and can be purchased at Ticketleap or at Switchphilly.com. Also, thanks to our sponsors, First Round Capital, Genacast Ventures, The Corzo Center, MCD Law Partners and the University City Science Center.

Wharton’s Kembrel.com launches first private retail sales store on Facebook

Last week, as students at Temple University began their first week of classes, across town, Cherif Habib and Stephan Jacobs were putting finishing touches on the official launch of a six-month project before they, too, hit the books.

Sure, the two second-year Wharton MBA students might have planned the launch before they became brain-deep in business studies, but it’s more likely perfect timing for Kembrel.com, their online retail store aimed at the college student apparel market.

Kembrel sells clothing, shoes and accessories for men and women. It’s recently moved into the gadget market, too, offering add-ons for iPhones. Since a soft-launch in April, Kembrel has racked up 20,000 registered users through word of mouth marketing efforts. It’s also began promoting a “pop-up” shops at local universities where the team sets up a small merchandise shop and explains the site to students.

Founded in April, the company had early success during Wharton’s Business Plan Competition, and Kembrel received the $3,000 People’s Choice Award, as we reported in May.

Their success hasn’t been by chance— the pair both had a background as software engineers and with entrepreneurial backgrounds.

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VC Roundup: First Round ponies up, XACP gets dissected

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

In case you missed it, our Friday Q and A last week was with Dan McKinney of NextStage Capital. We discussed the age old question: does Philadelphia need more VC money?

First Round Capital is involved in an uncharacteristically large Series A round for the West Conshohocken-based firm. BankSimple has raised $2.9 million from several firms – including First Round – for a personal finance service. Given First Round’s success with Mint.com, it’s no wonder it thinks that BankSimple is worth the cash. First Round has also joined the rest of the world and gone Groupon crazy with its other funding deal this week.

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Event Highlights: September 6th – 12th, 2010

Did you hear that, Philadelphia?

That’s the sound of your summer slowly circling the drain, but don’t dispair. Here at TP, fall means our calendar begins to be packed with can’t-miss meetips and conferences all over the region. So who needs the beautiful falling leafs of the Northeast, we have Ruby meetups. Amiright?

This week: hang with PhillyCHI over beers, meetup with Cocoa Heads and then play some local video games this weekend.

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Friday Q&A: IBM’s Ed Quinn, Philadelphia Senior Location Executive

In June, IBM was host to 150 academic, business and government leaders in the region for its Smarter Cities event, a discussion of how technology will play a role in Philadelphia’s future.

As IBM spokesperson Michael Rowinski wrote of the event for us, an important focus of the event — and Philly’s technology investment — is in encouragement of youth technology education and the development of skilled workers from communities throughout the city.

And for all that it’s looking into the city’s future, IBM has had a large presence here, providing significant resources to key community programs, for decades.

Local leaders at the corporation have been involved with the Center for Literacy, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, the city prison system, School District of Philadelphia, Minority Enterprise Develpment and more. Most significantly, IBM has donated $3.5 million in equipment, software and education to the School District of Philadelphia since 1995.

It’s goal? To help create the next-generation workforce at the well-known corporation.

After the event, we spoke to Ed Quinn, IBM’s Philadelphia Senior Location Executive, in charge of community outreach in the region. Our Q&A with Quinn, after the jump.

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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:

Brolik Productions Customers visit your website and immediately judge your company. Will they stay or will they go? Brolik delivers innovative design, original content and a tasteful product that equals long-term loyalty for your brand and sour grapes for the competition.

Caffeine Fish – Caffeine Fish develops the Trainboard iPhone app and offers iPhone development consulting in the Philadelphia area.

NextFab Studio — NextFab is a membership-based, high-tech workshop and prototyping center. Our facility provides comfortable, clean, and safe workspaces with hand tools, 3D printers, computer controlled machine tools, software, and electronics workbenches. Expert instructors and a community of collaborators are on hand to help you problem-solve and achieve your vision. NextFab Studio has everything necessary for you to invent, repair, create, and innovate!

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.

Volpe and Koenig, P.C. — Since 1987, intellectual property boutique law firm Volpe and Koenig has provided guidance on matters relating to patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, e-commerce, technology joint ventures, non-disclosure agreements, technology acquisitions, licensing and litigation. Whatever your intellectual property law issue… Volpe and Koenig bring law to your ideas.

Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce – The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce is dedicated to promoting growth and economic development, advocating for sound public policy, and serving its members with outstanding programs and benefits. GPCC is the premier advocate of the region’s business community, representing members in 11 counties across three states with one voice.

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.