Comcast SportsNet purchases sports blog The700level

Comcast SportsNet has purchased The700level.com for an undisclosed sum, the popular sports blog announced on its site today.

Launching in January 2004, the blog will become a CSN property, though founder Enrico Campitelli Jr., 29, will be brought on as a full-time employee to edit and oversee the product. The site’s other contributors will be used as freelancers.

“We’ve been doing it a long time and I like to think we do it pretty well. But there were maybe two or three other Philly sports blogs in existence when I started. Now there are hundreds,” Campitelli says in his announcement. “This move allows us to not only differentiate, but to also put my undivided attention and effort into making this site a must visit destination for Philly sports fans.

Read more

Mason and Megan Wendell: from indie record execs to husband-wife branding and design Drupal team

Seems like ditching the record label for the branding and design firm was the right way to go.

Mason and Megan Wendell, the husband-wife team behind Mount Airy-based Canary Promotion + Design, met at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

“We started our own record label (Solarmanite Records) to release our own music and some other artists, and more and more bands started coming to us for advice on everything from how to publicize a release to how to get a barcode,” says Megan, 35, who handles the marketing side of the firm.

So they started a business doing just that outside of New York City, where she was working for a dotcom and Mason was handling Web work on Wall Street. By early 2002, the duo moved to Philadelphia and found a niche in the region’s arts and culture community.

Now they have a heavy hand in the look and feel of the Philly arts scene and open source content management system Drupal is their tool of choice.

Read more

Ford Fiesta gets branding help from community members

At the risk of seeming too complicit in helping to promote a car company, two teams with technology community ties are representing Philadelphia in a 17-city Ford Fiesta social media branding binge.

Team Philadelphia features Geekadelphia contributor and QVC multimedia designer Tim Quirino and Web developer Michaelangelo Illagan.

Team Philly features the scenester power couple of Lime Projects creative marketer Laris Kreslins and Kendra Gaeta, the founder of online allowance and chore rewards platform Kidszillions.

Like their counterparts in cities across the country, each team was given the keys to a new Ford Fiesta in exchange for posting wildly about their experiences via every social media platform you ever heard of, to, as the site suggests, “reimagine the way Fiesta gets advertised.”

The campaign features a promotional competition component which will crown one of the participating teams the winner, earning a 2011 Ford Fiesta.

Links: hunting for DreamIT class, Sunoco looking to outsource Center City IT and More

DEFINITE READS

• As we tweeted, our reporter Sean Blanda is en route to Austin, Texas for South by Southwest. Drop us a line in the comments or otherwise to let us know you’re there or if you know someone else from the community is.
• Center Networks reports on the hunt for a new recruiting class at DreamIT in University City. H/T Philly Tech News
• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Sunoco has hired a consulting firm to explore the possibility of outsourcing positions from several departments, including IT and mostly from its Center City headquarters. Will Bunch of the Daily News and his legions of commenters have something to say about this too.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• The Drexel Triangle reports on the redesign of university-sponsored Web food publication Table Matters.

GIVE A GLANCE

• The Philadelphia Business Journal’s John George primes for last night’s Pennsylvania Bio’s annual dinner and award celebration.

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn’t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

StartPhilly: SemperCon’s cloud computing

This post originally ran on Start Philly. It is re-purposed here with permission, as part of a previously announced partnership.

In talking with people in technical fields, day-to-day verbiage can sometimes come across to the layman as robotic jargon. That’s when the interpreter comes into play.

When SemperCon’s CEO described his work as “cloud-based,” it took some dissecting to understand his reference to the Internet.

SemperCon first appeared on StartPhilly at the beginning of the year, with a contribution by President and CEO, Rick O’Brien.

O’Brien started this software development enterprise for young startups or already established companies. SemperCon works closely with its clients to build web-based and mobile Internet applications that leverage its motto of “always connected,” “cloud computing” capabilities…

Read the rest here.

Comcast Roundup: Fourth NBC Senate hearing, NBC promotions 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 Washington Post reports that the Senate Commerce committee has called Comcast and NBC Universal back for a fourth hearing on the merger. The Post also reports that the chairman of the FCC and a Department of Justice antitrust executive will testify at the hearing.

Below, promotional plans with NBC, the stock is good but the deal is bad and more.

Read more

Philadelphia magazine launches blog Philly Post

Updated 3/10/10 @ 12:17 p.m.: Added item from comment field

Philadelphia magazine wants to get back into the daily conversation.

The century-old glossy publication and regional staple has launched a general interest blog, the Philly Post.

“The goal is to be in touch with our audience not just monthly, as we are with the magazine, but daily,” said Editor-in-Chief Larry Platt in a release. The platform is Wordpress-based.

Phillymag Executive Editor Tom McGrath will take the helm of the project. McGrath told Technically Philly that the venture will follow top stories in the region, use both original reporting and aggregation and will include pieces from both staffers and contributors in a Huffington Post-like structure.

Read more

Avencia becomes Azavea, relents on trademark dispute, to launch redesigned site

Robert Cheetham doesn’t want to change his name.

The founder of Avencia doesn’t want to be forced to develop a new brand for his Callowhill-headquartered GIS software firm.

“Avencia will now be known as Azavea – pronounced like ‘azalea’. There is no particularly good reason for this, and this was not a change that we sought,” Cheetham says. “We liked our name just fine.”

But the change has come just the same, the result of giving into the financial pressures of a three-years-old trademark dispute.

Read more

Links: Cultivating IT professionals from poor neighborhoods, Drexel gamers and Sency

CIO has a story on the development of IT professionals from impoverished neighborhoods.

Geekadelphia reports on a survey that put Drexel’s video game developing program as the third best in the country.

The Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano has a followup with real time Twitter search engine master Evan Britton and his Sency.

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn’t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

Comcast Roundup: Xfinity is the new iPod, more channels on the way 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

Another week, another round of questions from Congress about the NBCU/Comcast merger. In this week’s episode, both companies deflected accusations that the merger would result in significant job losses. Also: Brian Roberts gets stuck in a well.

Thanks to its new “World of More” effort to digitize all channels, the company will will be able to offer 30 more channels to basic subscribers.

The Inky’s Joey D chatted with CFO Michael J. Angelakis. Among the highlights: Comcast believes Xfinity is to Comcast as iPod is to Apple or Windows is to Microsoft.

Below: Comcast gets a new DVR mobile app … and a new public service announcement.

Read more