Now this is more like it, Philadelphia. For the first time in nearly a month, our event calendar is packed with loads of events to make you get back in the swing of things while forgetting that awful game yesterday.
This week: two options for a tech-tastic weekend and your local entrepreneurs drink beer.
Fred Allegrezza is hoping that the seventh time is the charm.
The longtime Philadelphia entrepreneur and Drexel graduate, fresh off AnySource Media’s sale to DIVX for $15 million, is trying his hand at something new. Again.
As Chairman of AnySource, Allegrezza capped off a run of six companies which were acquired, most in the cable industry. Now he’s the CEO and co-investor in Venture 3 systems based in Chalfont. The company’s first product, the Telikin was released on Black Friday.
“My interest in Telikin is more of a departure from the usual. This is my first straight to consumer play. Before, it was mostly B2B,” says Allegrezza.
Venture 3 is currently at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas showing off Telikin, a $700 bare-bones touchscreen computer for the over-40 crowd. We asked him how the Philly entreprenurial lanscape has changed, what it feels like to sell a company and how his mom was the inspiration for the Telikin.
Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:
Empowerkit MLM Software – Empowerkit roots are in Philadelphia where it started as a company. It creates websites for Franchisees through powerful software solutions.
Optimized Cable Company – OCC is a distributor of high end electronic cable products, at a much lower price than most physical storefronts. Pick up some HDMI cables for your upcoming football parties 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.
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.
OpenDesks – OpenDesks.com lets you monetize unused workspaces – a cubicle, a conference room, an office or a seat in the lunchroom – as long as there’s somewhere to sit and work, you can post it. Join OpenDesks.com‘s Founders Circle today for a low-cost lifetime membership.
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.
Caffeine Fish – Caffeine Fish develops the Trainboard iPhone app and offers iPhone development consulting in the Philadelphia area.
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.
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.
With any luck, comic artist Brian “Box Brown” will get a little closer to paying off his student loans with the delivery of the latest web and print installments of his Everything Dies comic series.
When Brown, 30, moved to West Philly near Clark Park in August 2008 for his then girlfriend (now fiance), he planned to work on comics for a few weeks before getting a day job in communications. Funny thing about late 2008, looking back, it turns out the economy was headed for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Unable to find full-time work, Brown dug back into freelancing. He now works on comics “every single day including weekends” and also continues taking on illustration and design work on the side.
“So I kind of fell backwards into this as a career,” Brown tells Technically Philly. “But, in many ways, I’m thankful because I might not have had the courage to do it otherwise.”
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
RJMetrics has moved its offices from Camden to 13th and Walnut, according to a post at PhillyTechNews. The company checked in on Foursquare, complete with a photo, and it looks pretty swanky. Challenge them to some ping pong.
Philly virus software provider Ascentive used deceptive marketing tactics to sell its product, violating Washington’s Computer Spyware Act, TechFlash reports. [h/t PTN]
Read more
May 11, 2011, 8:02 a.m., removed detail: Josh Koppelman of First Round Capital was not a judge.
Later this month, long before the crunch of finals, dozens of local student software engineers will be pulling some all-nighters.
Not for a grade, of course. For cash.
The third PennApps competition, a bi-annual 48-hour hackathon, will blaze by at the Weiss Tech House during a weekend that will seem to disappear for those students crunching code.
This winter’s competition, focused on mobile application development, will pit teams of up to four against one another for the chance to win more than $5,000 in prizes. There’s even the chance to win Android and Windows Phone 7 hardware.
It’s a great opportunity for sponsoring companies as well as students.
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We hear a lot of chatter about Philadelphia’s brain drain, particularly from our technology community. We’ve read the reports and heard the studies, but we wanted to hear from the people who have actually left. Why’d they go, would they stay, will they come back? So here now, we introduce Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. Let’s see if there are any surprises.If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.
First up is Greg Wilder of Orpheus Media Research, the music technology company and Switch presenter. As always, the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
When did you actually leave Philly? And where did you go?
December 15th, to Brooklyn’s DUMBO area.
Why did you leave for Brooklyn?
We knew for a while that Orpheus Media Research needed to move in the beginning of 2011.
The reason we needed to move OMR is, because we are working in media and music, there were no clients or momentum in Philadelphia. We were Megabusing it all the time. That gets old very fast. We weren’t gonna move to Los Angeles so we decided New York is the place to be then.
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In the excellent BBC documentary “The Joy of Stats,” there is an early passage on the city of San Francisco releasing almost 200 data sets, including extensive crime data.
That section begins about 6:15 into the hour-long film.
The film features Michal Mugurski and Eric Rodenbeck of Stamen Design, which is responsible for the city’s popular CrimeSpotting online tool, and Chris Vein, San Francisco’s Chief Information Officer.
Watch the entire film below:
A description of the documentary:
Documentary which takes viewers on a rollercoaster ride through the wonderful world of statistics to explore the remarkable power thay have to change our understanding of the world, presented by superstar boffin Professor Hans Rosling, whose eye-opening, mind-expanding and funny online lectures have made him an international internet legend.
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.
Citybizlist has a comprehensive recap of venture activity by a handful of firms in the Philadelphia region in 2010. Among the most active? First Round Capital and Edison Ventures.
Philly.com’s Mike Armstrong writes about the 2011′s positive outlook. In case you’ve been keeping track, since 2008 VC’s have thought that the new year would be better than the last. Given the sorry state of 2008 and parts of 2009, can you blame them? Armstong also notes that life science investment appears to have steadied, a potential worry for Philadelphia.
Edison Ventures is among the firms listed in a $12 million investment in Fishbowl, the Virginia-based restuaurant email marketing company.
Philly Tech News reports that Edison Ventures portfolio company GAIN Capital has gone public and the early results aren’t good. The company was trading at $9 a share, below its anticipated $13 to $15 per share.
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