Comcast to spend $1B to become full Universal Studios owner: Roundup

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 subscri ption for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Comcast to Buy Blackstone’s Stake in Universal’s Orlando Parks (Exclusive) [The Wrap] — “Comcast is expected to pay between $1 billion to $1.5 billion to become the full owner of Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure”
• Ebersol’s Parting Thoughts [Wall Street Journal: The Daily Fix] — Longtime NBC Sports head Dick Ebersol spills upon his abrupt departure.

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TransitView: SEPTA unveils real-time bus and trolley app, also SMS and smartphone schedules

Now you can know just when your bus is arriving.

SEPTA will unveil Thursday its long-awaited real-time bus and trolley application, along with SMS and smartphone schedules, transit agency officials announced.

Dubbed TransitView and designed to be accessible by most smartphones, the web app relies on GPS-enabled SEPTA buses and trolleys to track precise positioning on a Google Map, as depicted above, SEPTA Director of Emerging and Specialty Technology Michael Zaleski told Technically Philly.

In addition to TransitView, SEPTA will also announce its ‘Schedules to Go,’ which can be accessed by text message or a web-enabled smartphone. Currently these are static schedules and not real-time, though there are internal plans for real-time eventually, Zaleski said.

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DrinkPhilly expands to Jersey Shore, co-sponsors Philly Beer Week

If you were to make a family tree for Drink Philly, its mother would be an Excel spreadsheet. It’s father? Old-fashioned college frugality.

Drink Philly, founded in August 2009, originates from an idea that then-college student Adam Schmidt had when he began compiling a list of Philadelphia happy hours in an Excel spreadsheet. Soon, his friends were asking for the list and the business student seized the opportunity creating Drink Philly.

The site offers a directory of Philadelphia happy hours and specials with a mix of editorial content created by the Drink Philly staff and a handful of freelance editors. The company’s revenue is derived from advertising and custom content creation for bars, mostly videos.

Now, Schmidt doesn’t have to go far to get a cheap brew thanks to the kegerator in the company’s Old City loft office that’s around the corner from the Irish Pol and National Mechanics. And the company, with its recent expansion, is finding lots of reasons to celebrate with a brew.

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Phind It for Me: Voxeo developer Mark Headd launches city service location tool [VIDEO]

Mark Headd shows off an early version of Phind It For Me during the BarCamp NewsInnovation Open Gov Hackathon April 30, 2011.

The developer behind a new text messaging service aimed at reducing 311 call volume was a Division II All American gymnast in 1990. That gives him his balance.

Phind it for Me is a new service based on an open source project [GitHub] that launched public beta in Philadelphia this week from Mark Headd, a ‘developer evangelist’ for the Voxeo Labs development arm of a national VoIP carrier.

Users send a simple text message from any SMS-enabled mobile phone with an address and a hashtag to find the closest location of a specific type of service, like a library, a school or a fire station, with plans for polling places and farmers markets in the coming days and more services in the future.

Phind It is based on Headd’s work during a Code for America DataCamp on the PHLAPI, which makes service locations more actionable.

“More people are getting smart phones, but they still aren’t nearly as available as cell phones with a basic text messaging service, which you can find around the world,” Headd, 42, said during the BarCamp NewsInnovation Open Gov Hackathon he helped organize. “This service could really give new people access to valuable information.”

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Chicago CTO John Tolva Says Open Data Will Go Into ‘Overdrive’

New forward motion from new leadership in Chicago, according to Government Technology:

John Tolva, Chicago’s new chief technology officer, isn’t wasting any time looking to revolutionize the way the city’s agencies do business. He recently announced his intention to turn the Second City into an interactive platform where open data is used to increase the efficiency of government services.

Startup Roundup: Wharton gold rush

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

Forbes covers Wharton startup Chattersource, a platform to help students find reviews locally for student-oriented services, restaurants and retail outlets. Call it the Yelp for freshmen.

In related Wharton news, Warby Parker, the online luxury eyeglasses store, which has since moved to New York after being founded in Philly, gets featured in a Wall Street Journal article about venture capital opportunity in the Northeast. As writer Spencer Ante puts it: “The Internet gold rush is spreading east.” We sure hope so.

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