T-Mobile regionalizes to Philly with new Vice President GM, Martin Pisciotti

In March, one of the larger news stories in the wireless telecommunications industry was the announcement that AT&T would acquire T-Mobile for $39 billion.

What maybe went unnoticed behind the headlines was T-Mobile’s decision in January to begin regionalizing its business, moving management staff from Bellevue, Washington, where the company is headquartered, to specific regional management teams, much like how other wireless telecommunications companies operate, at least locally, where wireless competition is fierce.

AT&T and Verizon both have regional managers that oversee operations here in the Philadelphia region, as we’ve covered in Q&As of the past, like AT&T GM Dan Lafond and Verizon Wireless GM Mario Turco.

The new Greater-Philadelphia Tri-State Vice President and General Manager Martin Pisciotti will oversee upstate New York, Delaware, Southern New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. What it means for Philadelphia is that T-Mobile operations in the region, which include 850 employees and 700 retail partners, will see better oversight to help the organization run more efficient on a local level.

We spoke to Pisciotti, who swung by our offices last month, about the new position and what else it means for Philly.

Read more

Trulia: Philadelphia property is more affordable to buy than rent [INTERACTIVE MAP]

From Trulia, a neat infographic based on the company’s own metric comparing rent and bought properties. Play with the interactive map here.

The map shows Philadelphia to be the most affordable place to buy a home among the country’s five largest cities, though Phoenix, San Antonio and Dallas were ranked as cheaper to buy among other big cities. [That big red circle shows that New York City is 'very much more affordable to rent,' when compared with buying.]

Bionic hands for U.S. veteran from new South Street office [VIDEO] : Links

Court to tweet and Facebook trial reminders [Metro]

Working Separately, Together [New York Times] – a coworking piece we missed, featuring heavy attribution from Indy Hall’s Alex Hillman

Monetate Raises $15 Million For Realtime Ad Testing And Targeting Platform [Tech Crunch]

Introducing Timepiece: my first app on the Android market [Arpit Online] — Comcast software engineer Arpit Mathur introduces on his personal blog a tool showing international timezones, smartly displaying Philadelphia as the East Coast representative.

Bionic hands arrive in Philadelphia [Metro] — South Street office for Advanced Arm Dynamics, a California-based company. H/T Tek Lado

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:

Your Local Security — Providing affordable home security systems in Philadelphia. Top of the line equipment and monitoring services from ADT keep your home and family safe.

Caffeine Fish — Caffeine Fish develops iOS apps including Trainboard and PhillySubway and offers consulting in the Philadelphia area.

MOGO Media — MOGO Media provides best-of-class training for designers and developers through world-wide conferences and seminars. The organization will host a CSS seminar on August 11 in Philadelphia.

Newsworks — NewsWorks is the online home of WHYY News and its growing network of journalism partners. This public media service covers the Philadelphia region, Delaware and South Jersey, with a focus on regional issues, neighborhoods, health and science, and arts.

Morgan Lewis — Morgan Lewis provides comprehensive transactional, litigation, labor and employment, regulatory, and intellectual property legal services to clients of all sizes—from global Fortune 100 companies to just-conceived startups—across all major industries.

Alteva — Reduce your total cost of telecom ownership and improve employee efficiency and customer satisfaction with Alteva’s cloud-based Voice over IP phone systems and services.

Reed Technology — Reed Technology’s Web Archiving Service is a litigation protection, web compliance and e-discovery solution for all your online assets.

The University City Science Center — The Science Center has officially opened Quorum, a central gathering space to enable the entrepreneurship and innovation communities to meet, share and learn.

Splat Productions — Splat Productions provides smart, brand-centric website design and internet marketing services to privileged clients in the Philadelphia region and beyond.

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.

Weekend Map: “almost everything that’s happening in Philadelphia this weekend on a map”

The Weekend Map, a tool meant to aggregate ‘almost everything that’s happening’ in a city on an interactive map, now has a Philadelphia version.

Launched three months ago by two Brooklyn web designers, the project already has versions in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, says Casey Falvey.

Falvey and co-founder Reki Hattori both moved on from nonprofit web design to focus on the Weekend Map, which has focused on those six cities based on factors including demographics, population density and “perhaps most importantly, the availability of data,” said Falvey.

“Currently we are sourcing the data available from third party APIs, such as Eventbrite, Meetup and Songcast. However we are quickly building out the infrastructure needed to allow users to submit their own events, and have the site be geared primarily towards discovering hyperlocal user submitted community-based events,” Falvey said. “Since we do expect it be some time before there is nearly enough data to fill the map with only user submitted events, we will slowly transition from primarily third party data to a mix [in one to three months] and then finally to just user-generated data [in three to six months].

The pair is funding their work through freelance web development work and limited ad revenue.

Added Falvey: “We still hope the current iteration of the site is novel and valuable to the cities we’re in because it brings together a diverse mix of events from around the web in a really visually appealing and user focused and friendly way.”

Loffles.com: consumer targeting and promotional giveaway site launches [VIDEO]

Loffles.com boasts that it is the best way to enter sweepstakes online. And now the company is live.

The site — the name deriving from the combination of ‘lottery’ and ‘raffles’ — offers users access to an updated catalog of prizes from familiar brands. Users watch a promotional video, answer questions — to show they watched — and gain entry to a drawing for, say, a Best Buy gift card, a Netflix membership or an Xbox 360. Each entry also earns users ‘loffles,’ which can be redeemed for other prizes or used for additional contest entry tickets.

Technically Philly first told you about Loffles, which has regional roots, in October, when the company quietly sought $500,000 in funding, and received $162,000. First listing the company in Gladwyn, where co-founder Brandon Yoshimura grew up, the startup has more formally set up its headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island, near where Yoshimura, 22, and his fellow co-founders met at Brown University.

The team has six other members, including the following: co-founder Steve Boland, 22, from Lafayette Hill, a graduate of Germantown Academy and Penn State; Chief Technical Officer Daniel Johnson, 29; Chief Marketing Officer James Kwon, 27; Director of Sales Vincent Tumbleson, 20, a junior at Brown; team developer Jake Buob, 20, a student at Johnson and Wales University and social media director Ashley Farquharson, 21, a student at UMass Amherst.

Loffles, which is actually incorporated in that tax haven of Wilmington, Del., is represented by Center City law firm Morgan Lewis and local PR agency Zer0 to 5ive and another co-founder is from Lafayette Hill and attended Penn State University. Though primarily in Providence, Loffles does have a small administrative office at 16th and Wood street where the team will “set up periodically,” said Yoshimura, an alumnus of the Haverford School.

Comcast ‘rebuffed’ Oprah Winfrey; Al Sharpton shooting for MSNBC gig: 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 email subscription for our weekly Comcast roundup or other news updates

• Comcast-NBCU Under Fire for Dragging Its Feet on Diversity [The Wrap] — Oprah Winfrey was ‘rebufffed’ by Comcast executives, sources say. H/T Philly Tech News
• Bigger Comcast beats 2Q earnings estimates, but barely [Philadelphia Business Journal]
• Versus Rebranded NBC Sports Network [AdWeek] — Comcast’s 2006-era Versus station to join NBC Sports in 2012
• Sharpton’s Push for Comcast Raises Issues About Possible MSNBC Job [New York Times] — After supporting Comcast’s bid for NBC, the possible offer of a TV host gig complicates Sharpton’s role
• NBC’s Robert Greenblatt: ‘It’s My Schedule for Better or Worse’ [Hollywood Reporter] — Comcast’s chosen man to lead NBC digs in six months into tenure
• Judge Threatens to Hold up Comcast-NBCUniversal Merger Approval [Hollywood Reporter] — Perhaps some minor modifications to the deal
• Sen. Al Franken joins call to reject AT&T/T-Mobile merger [Washington Post] — Franken was a vocal opponent of the Comcast-NBC deal
• Does Cable Have a Wireless Plan B? [LightReading] — Backup plans if investment from companies like Comcast and Sprint in Clearwire don’t profit as expected
• Comcast Launching Pac-12 Networks in Summer 2012 [Comcast blog]
• Comcast’s Bill Stemper leads journey into the enterprise market [Fierce Cable]
• Flyers founder Snider to U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame [Philadelphia Business Journal] — Comcast-Spectacor Chairman Ed Snider

Fix Philly Districts: city redistricting awareness campaign from WHYY, Daily News, Azavea [AUDIO]

City Council is required to submit next month updated legislative boundaries based on the new U.S. Census and Chris Satullo says they are “are bound and determined to screw it up.”

The WHYY News and Civic Dialogue Director has partnered with GIS shop Azavea, the Daily News and others on Fix Philly Districts, an awareness campaign featuring a mock redistricting plan competition and civic engagement forums.

This Monday evening, at WHYY, eager Philadelphians can learn more about the otherwise rather hidden process of mapping new legislative boundaries for city council. Find out more about the first event here.

Later this month, Azavea will host webinars on their sleek DistrictBuilder software, which will drive the contest, during which you, John Q. Public, will envision what the city’s legislative boundaries should look like and compete for $1,000, official presentation of your district plan and, you know, civic pride. The DistrictBuilder software has been used nationwide for federal redistricting campaigns, an interest of Azavea founder Robert Cheetham.

Below, hear Satullo talk about the campaign’s importance.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Startup Roundup: 123LinkIt celebrates one year and 10,000 downloads

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 a weekly email newsletter by clicking here and selecting the Startup Roundup button or follow Startup Roundup’s RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

MUST READS

123LinkIt celebrates one year since becoming a legal entity, noting that it is also celebrating 10,000 downloads from the WordPress plug-in directory. It’s giving new users a perk, too: all new users that sign-up by Friday will receive 100% commissions on affiliate marketing.

Read more

Sponsored Contest: Winner announced for MOGO Media’s CSS seminar

We’re proud to announce that Ed Healy, of Wilmington, Delaware, was randomly selected as the winner of our contest to win free admission to MOGO Media’s CSS seminar on August 11.

We’re also excited to share that Technically Philly readers can receive a $49 discount by signing up for the seminar using the discount code “TECHPHILLY” without quotation marks.

The seminar will use a proven teaching method to teach the ins and outs of CSS, provide a working knowledge of CSS by days end, and instill the confidence to turn that design into a web site for the world to see.

Folks can register for the seminar here.