It’s that time again, Philadelphia.

Technically Philly has officially launched the open calendar of events for Philly Tech Week 2012 at PhillyTechWeek.com.

Events will take place Monday, April 23 through Saturday, April 28, 2012 with a kick-off weekend taking place April 20 through 22. We’re excited to launch the calendar with dozens of collaborative partners already onboard, and we’re eagerly anticipating the events that will come from Philly’s great tech community.

Philly Tech Week 2012 is presented by AT&T, the debut title sponsor, and is organized by Technically Philly. The annual week of events is intended to grow the impact of this innovative region through programming focused on technology, collaboration and improving Philadelphia. This year’s theme: “Making a better Philadelphia through technology.”

“AT&T is proud to be the first title sponsor of Philly Tech Week. We’re always looking ahead and we know our customers are too. They want to be amazed by ‘what’s next.’ It’s our job to support events and organizations that promote innovation and creativity in technology,” said Tiffany Baehman, vice president and general manager, AT&T, greater Philadelphia. “We recognize all that the Philly tech community has to offer and we are excited to see what the week brings.”

Technically Philly turned to Jarvus Innovations to develop PhillyTechWeek.com after the web development firm created the inaugural Philly Tech Week website and mobile application in 2011. The firm works with organizations like Consumer Reports, Philadelphia Eagles, The Roots and TEDxPhilly.

We’re launching with 23 events on the calendar, and several anchor events are confirmed thus far for Philly Tech Week 2012, including:

• A daily lunchtime speaker series at WHYY will take place again this year
• The week will be kicked-off by Startup Weekend, the entrepreneur bootcamp, followed by a block party hosted by globally-known coworking community Independents Hall
• Philly Tech Week’s Signature Event, a gala cocktail party, will gather hundreds of leaders in Philadelphia’s technology community
• The second annual Philly Robotics Expo will be held at Drexel University
• OpenAccessPhilly will provide lightning presentations on public-private partnerships
• Five Philly startups will compete for a prize pack at demo event Switch Philly
• The fourth annual BarCamp News Innovation, an annual, one-day unconference on journalism innovation, and the Open Gov Hackathon will be held at Temple University

To learn how to get involved with Philly Tech Week, read more after the jump.

Additional events will be independently organized throughout the region, and event organizers interested in participating with Philly Tech Week 2012 are encouraged to learn how to submit events for free to the calendar by visiting this website: http://bit.ly/organize_ptw2012

The week is currently supported by AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile, City of Philadelphia, Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Morgan Lewis, Temple University’s Center for Public Interest Journalism, Tropo, Jarvus Innovations, the University City Science Center, PHD Virtual, Corzo Center for the Creative Economy, Springboard Media, Chariot Solutions, Monetate, Razor Servers, SeaChange International and Goliath Technologies. Organizations interested in sponsoring should visit: http://bit.ly/sponsor_ptw2012

During the inaugural Philly Tech Week in April 2011, more than 4,000 people attended at least one of 65 events held throughout the city and surrounding counties. With more than 50 press hits across newspapers, radio, television and blogs, the week became an enormous opportunity for the partners involved in making it happen. For more about the inaugural impact, read our media kit: http://bit.ly/ptw2012_mediakit

If your organization or business would like to get involved with Philly Tech Week 2012 presented by AT&T, you can organize an event or become a sponsor.

START BY VISITING WWW.PHILLYTECHWEEK.COM
ORGANIZE AN EVENT: http://bit.ly/organize_ptw2012
BECOME A SPONSOR: http://bit.ly/sponsor_ptw2012
READ THE MEDIA KIT: http://bit.ly/ptw2012_mediakit

A child plays with one of the robots at the Philly Robotics Expo during Philly Tech Week 2011. Photo: Rachel Playe

Of the four parts of a series on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education that ran this week on Technically Philly, it was perhaps the fourth that grabbed our attention most.

Despite mounting problems in the School District of Philadelphia related to STEM education, many are beyond its immediate control, and citizens are taking action to get involved.

Throughout conversations with dozens of people involved with STEM education in Philadelphia it was said repeatedly: This is the city’s and nation’s problem, not the District’s alone.

That makes it a local technology community problem.

What is missing is a pipeline to connect that community of bright, active individuals in Philly tech with students. Second, we believe, entrepreneurs could use their experience with innovation to attack the problem with business plans.

It’s with that in mind that we’ve partnered with Teach for America’s Greater Philadelphia: Innovation in Education workshop series. Focused on innovation in education, the invite-only workshops, which will take place in 2012, are intended to inspire the creation of actionable nonprofit and business ventures to impact education.

When TFA launched a similar workshop series in the San Francisco Bay Area, it resulted in the launch of new startups, including Junyo, a tool to help teachers measure student learning, and Skoodio: a student portfolio platform for the social media age. Perhaps most interestingly, of 25 participants in the workshop series, a third were experienced in technology and business with little education background.

When we connected with the organization, it was abundantly clear that the entrepreneurial spirit of Philadelphia’s technology community could help create organizations that could inspire actionable change in education.

The workshops will lead up to a pitch event in May where participants will demonstrate their ideas.

We encourage you to apply for the workshops here. Mention that you saw the opportunity on Technically Philly. Deadline for applications is December 16.

If you’re not interested specifically in the workshops, there’s plenty of ways to get involved with STEM education in Philadelphia. After the jump, we point to some of the organizations that have mentorship, volunteering and sponsorship opportunities.

• 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education – Aspires to be a regional leader in data-based analysis, program planning, innovative curricula and professional development for STEM education. [Coverage]
• America21 Project – Fosters solutions-based approaches to 21st century community economic development. [Coverage]
• Atomic Robotics – Robotics club with mission of convening regional assets. [Coverage]
• Breadboard – Breadboard is developing innovative partnerships with neighboring organizations that will introduce Philadelphia youth to new creative technologies. [Coverage]
• Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center – Works with high schools and colleges around STEM talent development. [Coverage]
• Girl Geek Dinner – Potluck-style networking events for women in tech. [Coverage]
• Girl Develop It — Web design and development classes for women. [Coverage]
• Hacktory – The Hacktory’s goal is to empower people and give them a sense that technology can be a tool for personal expression. [Coverage]
• Math + Science Coalition – The Philadelphia Education Fund’s Math + Science Coalition is looking for volunteers to share their knowledge and love of math and science with students in the School District of Philadelphia. [Coverage]
• NextFab Studio – NextFab Studio is a membership-based, high-tech workshop and prototyping center. They provide resources and training for local high school robotics teams and more. [Coverage]
• Nonprofit Technology Resources – NTR distributes donated, refurbished computers to low-income people (especially children and families) through their community groups, churches, and schools. [Coverage]
• Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers – Puts industry workers in front of students during school career days and at robotics competitions. [Coverage]
• Philly Robotics Expo – At Philly Tech Week 2012, schools from the Philadelphia area will demonstrate how young people can get involved in robotics. [Coverage]
• School District of Philadelphia Robotics – Students are engaged in STEM challenges, competitions, tournaments, symposiums and institutes throughout the year. [Coverage]
• TechGirlz – Helping adolescent girls understand that a future in technology does not necessarily equate to ‘a boring computer job.’ [Coverage]
• Upward Bound Math Science – Penn’s college preparatory program that provides hands-on experience with science and math for high school students.
• Web Start Women — Devoted to bringing more women into the web design and development fields. [Coverage]
• What It Takes – E-mentoring for young black men. [Press Release]

If you have an organization that you want to list here, email the organization title, a web URL and a brief description of the organization to info [at] technicallyphilly.com.

READ THE ENTIRE ‘STATE OF STEM’ SERIES

Part 1 of this series: STEM graduation rates show uphill battle with math and science in School District
Part 2 of this series: Lack of citywide STEM education vision leaves Philly’s skilled workforce in jeopardy
Part 3 of this series: State and District math and science policies leave gaps in competitive STEM curriculum
Part 4 of this series: Citizens work alongside the school system to strengthen District STEM

Yo Philadelphia technology community,

Remember the first ever Philly Tech Week, which featured 65 events across industry and organization throughout the city the last week of April? Well, that happened with just a couple months notice. What would we be able to do with a full year?

Here’s the opportunity.

Philly Tech Week 2012, an open calendar of events celebrating technology and innovation across the region, will be happening April 23-28, 2012, the last week of April 2012.

Your calls to action:

• Dream up the coolest events, biggest announcements and boldest ways to show off that Philadelphia has one of the world’s most vibrant technology and innovation communities. Tell us how to bring Philly Tech Week to a new level.
• Think about how your business, organization, group or, yes, you can help support this week and the humble technology news site that puts it together. (A revised sponsorship one-pager will find the light of day later this summer).
• Be prepared for more growth because — we know this is going to shock you — the technology community here is growing and can have as big an impact as you can make yourself.

Keep doing wonderful things to make Philadelphia better and follow @PhillyTechWeek and @TechnicallyPHL for additional updates.

No, Technically Philly is not moving to New York to pursue an online news site in a new niche community, even if it meant the chance of running into Rupert Murdoch, pitching that media acquisition, and living the high life at News Corp.

Today was April Fool’s Day, after all, and we’re proud to be here in Philly’s tech community. Where else would we be able to make such crude jokes, rip-off the Onion, and take a day off from our editorial calendar?

To sum up our trickery [Updated: now all below], no, First Round isn’t investing in the food market, we’re more emotionally attached to Port Richmond than you could believe, Mike Werth beat the entire Mario Brothers series years ago, keep those urban farms at Ignite coming, the power of GIS will continue to amaze and excite us, yes, we’re still a little bitter about the Gigabit thing, and actually, the Comcast parade kinda sounds like a good idea.

We surprised a few, possibly offended some others, and spent too much time on this for our own good. But it was all in good fun.

We’ll see you Monday, when we’re back to our normal production cycle.

Because we deleted our joke posts for protection of whatever semblance of editorial discretion we have, below find them in their entirety.

Just to make clear, the below posts are not real. They aren’t even based on reality. They are silly. In most accounts, they are stupid. It was meant in fun and, by most accounts, the day was well received. We love everyone.

Technically Philly to relocate, rebrand as Technically New York

By Christopher Wink

Technically Philly, the scrappy, cheerleading local technology news site devoted to Philadelphia for more than two years, will be relocating north and rebranding as Technically New York, its three co-founders announced Friday.

“We found this really great loft in Brooklyn,” said co-founder Sean Blanda, who bought a new ironic T-shirt for the move. “This is the big leagues of local online technology niche news site blogs.”

Fellow co-founders Brian James Kirk, Christopher Wink and Blanda are moving today, they confirmed. April 1 will be the last day of Philadelphia content, before turning over Monday, April 4 to focus on, what Kirk calls “the important stuff: social media apps, mobile tools and gadgets made by other 20-somethings who left towns and cities for a shared experience of worshiping false idols in New York.”

The primary reasons for the move are because there wasn’t enough VC money, there wasn’t enough IT talent, the bars close at 2 a.m., the streets are dirty, taxes are too high, it rains too often here, the unions cost too much, the government sucks, there’s too much crime, there’s too much poverty, Market East is an embarrassment, there’s no serious competition, the jobs don’t pay enough, says Blanda, and ‘there are no national media outlets to eventually buy us out so we can finally get that yacht.’

“Plus, do you know the trains run 24 hours in New York?” added Kirk, who has a fine red beard and once went to a really cool bar in Manhattan with a friend who lived in Hoboken. “I mean, sure, I could take a bus in Philly at 3 a.m, but, really, like, who takes the bus?”

The three do say that they might in the future come back to settle down in Philadelphia, said Wink, who now refers to New York ‘as the City’ and knows ‘a great little coffee shop in Greenpoint you have to try.’

“I could maybe have a nice house in Gladwyn and an office somewhere in Plymouth Meeting,” he said. “And then at dinner parties I could bring up every three or four minutes that year I spent in New York.

But technology and the internet are doing two important things, Wink pointed out: making location less important and making it certain that if you aren’t in New York, you don’t matter.

“When you have the choice between the challenge of building a community and reliving a sixty year cliche,” Blanda says, “I’m going cliche every time.”

Port Richmond still has no Fortune 500 company

By Christopher Wink

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released a detailed survey of the 2010 Fortune 500 list Friday, concluding that, again, no companies represent the Port Richmond neighborhood.

“We bought several copies of last year’s edition and had our entire staff page through,” said Charles Plosser, the president of the Philly fed. “We just couldn’t believe there were no companies on Richmond Street or Allegheny Avenue.”

The much hyped annual list from Fortune magazine, which ranks the country’s largest companies by their gross revenue after adjustments, has left the largely residential Polish riverward neighborhood out cold each year since the first, in 1955.

Five Philadelphia companies made the list: Comcast, Sunoco, Cigna, Aramark and Crown Holdings, none of which are headquartered within the boundaries of the Frankford Creek, Lehigh Avenue, I-95 and Frankford Avenue. For decades community groups have lobbied for greater business development in Port Richmond. Some, like Peggy Weinman, the president of the Old Richmond Civic Association, even question the legitimacy of the list itself.

“This magazine continues to ignore the accomplishments of the Aramingo Diner and Czerw’s Kielbasy,” said Weinman. “We’ll be ready for next year.”

First Round Capital invests in cheesesteak, Rocky references

By Sean Blanda

First Round Capital has announced a Series A investment in cheesesteak and Rocky references.

“The references have been steadily increasing since Rocky’s release in 1976,” said Principal Phin Barnes, taking a break to throw a snowball at a Santa Claus impersonator.

Analysts claim that cheesesteak and Rocky references, long a crutch for sports broadcasters and lazy magazine pieces about Philadelphia, have increased faster than other Philadelphia cliches, including complaining about SEPTA, Benjamin Franklin and expressing to friends about how Fishtown is “really coming along.”

Barnes says the firm is also considering looking in Baltimore to invest in “The Wire” references involving that city.

Ignite Philly changes to stodgy 20-minute, 5-slide format

By Brian James Kirk

Ignite Philly, the popular event series aimed at highlighting innovation and creativity in the region, will eschew its traditional rapid-fire presentation format in favor of a more “mellow, nostalgic” 20-minute, 5-slide format, with the hope of attracting an older audience at Ignite Philly VIII.

“We wanted to give the audience fifteen extra minutes to figure out which new urban farm/arts collective in West Philly the presenter is talking about,” co-organizer David Clayton said.

The group has even rebranded the series with roman numerals to illustrate its commitment to senior citizens, organizers said.

“After selling out every single Ignite, frankly, we’ve got the youth market covered,” he said.

“And If I hear one more person bring up Prezi,” he said, before trailing off into a tirade about “the classic look and feel of a PowerPoint template as Robert Gaskins first envisioned it.”

Organizers are considering a clip art requirement.

Google to pit cities in epic cage match for Gigabit access

By Sean Blanda

Just days after announcing the winner of its first pilot city for Gigabit access, the search giant announced today that the second city to receive its super fast Internet access will have to be the last man standing in an epic cage match.

“Did you see the pathetic things that some cities did?” said Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google. “Topeka changed its name for christsakes.”

Google said that it can pretty much get cities to do “whatever the hell it wants” and was excited to revitalize gladiator sports.

Speaking on behalf of Gigabit Philly, city councilman Bill Green wasted no time getting inside the head of Philadelphia’s first opponent in Google’s tournament of death. The councilman quickly held a press conference in the City Hall locker room.

“Whatcha gonna do Toledo, when the Green-ster runs wild on you?” shouted Green who promptly leg dropped a passerby.

To prepare for the cage match, Mayor Nutter announced that police will be handing out bats wrapped in barbed wire at select civic meetings.

Shares of Google jumped $4 on the news.

Regional video game business leader Mike Werth “still stuck on Level 5-3 of Super Mario Brothers”

By Christopher Wink

In what is proving a major obstacle to the future of the once promised Philadelphia Video Game Growth Initiative, Technically Philly has learned that Mike Werth, who led the lobby for city and state tax relief for game development businesses, has not been able to pass a pivotal stage on the classic Nintendo game Super Mario Brothers.

“My ability to avoid Bullet Bill, while grabbing floating coins and hopping from one tree to the next has nothing to do with attracting, supporting and retaining high-paying, stable and creative jobs in Philadelphia,” Werth said at a press conference, flanked by a team of lawyers. “This is a witch hunt.”

Super Mario Brothers is the classic 1985 game featuring a friendly duo of plumbing brothers who go through a series of magical worlds in the hopes of saving a princess, says Temple University American history professor David Michael Jacobs.

“This game is a bedrock of the video game world,” says Michael Jacobs, who has research expertise in 20th century pop culture. “I cannot imagine a video game leader who hasn’t danced with glee at the sight of finally besting Bowser in the 8-4 castle.”

Werth’s struggles came to light after the release of federal transcripts from an FBI bug of Werth’s home, obtained by Technically Philly this week through the state’s Right to Know Act. The transcripts dated from 2005 to 2007 and showed a man obsessed, playing and failing to complete World 5 Level 3 a total of 3,795 times in February 2006 alone.

“How can I look my daughter in the eyes if I can’t even get to the Water Level of 7-2?” Werth says in one transcript from that time, his voice cracking and crying becoming audible. Many reports have cited FBI confirmation that Werth was either unaware or unwilling to use various cheat codes, widely popularized over the internet. Through an attorney Werth declined to comment on the matter.

“This will be remembered as the day that the video game development movement died in Philadelphia,” wrote Eric Smith, a frequent critic on his Geekadelphia blog.

Werth, who cited struggles with the B button, has said he has moved on from Super Mario Brothers, “to more advanced, way better games, man.”

“I will not let the safety of Princess Toadstool stand in the way of growing Philadelphia as a hub for video game development,” he said.

Azavea to release GIS tool to map all Philadelphians who know what GIS is

By Christopher Wink

A screenshot of the Azavea Cicero GPS, which tracks all the seven people in Philadelphia who know what GIS is. The system can support up to 12.

A new online tool from a local geospatial application development company will track the more than half dozen Philadelphians who know what “GIS” means.

Unveiled Tuesday, the real-time GPS mapping application from Azavea will track a representative from Bentley Systems, a Drexel University data analyst and the five other people who “know what the hell it is that we do,” says Azavea founder Robert Cheetham.

“This tool will show the explosive nature of geospatial awareness in a real viral way,” said Cheetham. “When you pull up that map, and you see seven flags in the Google Maps interface, you suddenly understand the real power.”

An acronym meaning ‘geographic information system,’ the concept of GIS and its tracking of physical locations in a digital way is sometimes less than graspable to some. The tool, dubbed Cicero GPS, can change that, says Azavea developer Erin Gaggle, who led the project with her ‘10-percent time.’

“When you think of GIS, you tend to think ‘whoever just said that must be a pompous ass and probably doesn’t even know what that really means anyway,” Gaggle said. “But with Cicero GPS you can find the exact location of almost eight people who really do know what that means and can explain it in a way that would make sense to the average person.”

The project is a freemium model, in which access to the daily updated map of locations is free, but real-time placement is password-protected for paying subscribers.

“Sometimes, I stay up late and see where everyone is on the map and wonder what they’re doing. Are they sleeping? Are they coding?” says Gaggle. “Now that is GIS at its best.”

Comcast hosts NBC acquisition parade down Broad Street

By Sean Blanda

Celebrating its acquisition of NBC Universal, local cable powerhouse Comcast held a victory parade down Broad Street Saturday night.

Over 36 people gathered along Broad Street to celebrate the long-awaited championship victory. The cable giant, headquartered in Philadelphia, defeated NBC and the FCC in six games.

“World f***’n champions!” shouted Comcast CEO Brian Roberts atop a Dodge Ram at Locust Street. “Al Franken can suck it.”

Vendors were on sight, selling portraits of David L. Cohn sinking to his knees in jubilation after signing the agreement.

“I’ve been waiting 20 years for this,” said lifelong Comcast fan Jeff Ross of Radnor. “I was afraid I wouldn’t see a Comcast parade down Broad Street in my lifetime.”

It was in the first days of publishing Technically Philly two years ago that we came to understand that the city’s broadband infrastructure played a crucial role in our technology community.

Wireless Philadelphia, an effort to provide free, wireless access to city dwellers, had ended a failure. Verizon had only recently been allowed to expand its internet connectivity services to residents here, and Comcast had staked a much bigger claim over the city by altering its skyline with its tallest building.

So it was with much bewilderment that when we browsed through the Planning Commission’s comprehensive Philadelphia2035 plan, the first undertaken in more than 60 years, there was little mention of the copper, cable and fiber-optic lines that run deep beneath the city, helping connect it with a global economy. Though the plan is incomplete, summaries of the plan have under-represented what we believe is vital to the city’s economic growth: broadband connectivity. Without more detailed plans to implement next-generation connectivity, the city risks missing an important opportunity.

A few weeks ago, the Commission released the first draft of the plan [PDF], seeking comments from city residents.

That’s where you come in.

Today, we’re asking for some input that we can provide immediately to the Planning Commission on your vision of this city’s needs to support and expand broadband access. What needs are unmet for your individual or business purposes? What problems have you witnessed regarding broadband infrastructure that you’d like to see changed? What are other cities doing that are a benchmark for success? Respond in the comments below, or send an email directly to info@technicallyphilly.com before Monday, March 28, and we’ll make sure your comments are heard. Now’s your chance to help shape the future of Philadelphia’s broadband access.

And after the jump, more details on the Broadband2035 project, the editorial series that we’re officially announcing today, which will take a deep look at this city’s broadband infrastructure.

In March, the Division of Technology announced plans to compete for Google’s ultra-high speed Gigabit fiber pilot program, electing separately University City — where the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University are located — and a stretch of neighborhoods from Old City to Fishtown which relies on commercial infrastructure. Though it is assumed that both areas would attract more businesses with higher-speed access, some neighborhoods in the city struggle to provide little affordable broadband access.

What lessons can be learned from these areas that can help inform the city’s comprehensive Philadelphia2035 plan? Does broadband investment in University City and along the city’s waterfront translate to increased economic activity? How does the investment unique to each of these two areas compare with a neighborhood with little investment? Finally, how can the city best support the creation of next-generation high-speed connectivity to spur growth?

In partnership with online news provider PlanPhilly, which covers planning, design and development in Philadelphia, in November Technically Philly was awarded $5,000 from J-Lab, a journalism innovation think tank based in Washington, D.C., to produce Broadband2035, a series of reports that will help examine the impact of broadband infrastructure in the region.

Through June, freelancer Chris Reber will write a series of seven reports covering such topics as Philadelphia’s broadband failures, Comcast and Verizon’s involvement with connecting the city, dark fiber that runs beneath our city’s municipal buildings, the role of broadband in encouraging business relocation in neighborhoods here, and overall, a report we hope will help impact the Planning Commission’s comprehensive plan.

Look for the first of those reports in a few weeks.

Philly Tech Week is starting to focus in on impact. Today we have four big announcements for the April 25-30 week of events.

HEADQUARTERS: WHYY, the region’s public media organization based in Old City, will be the official headquarters for Philly Tech Week, offering up its beautiful, modern Dorrance H. Hamilton Public Media Commons.

Working with TEDx, Barcamp Philly and Refresh Philly event planner and community builder Roz Duffy, WHYY will play host to a brown bag lunchtime speaker series that week, in addition to our Friday night signature event, which will serve as the week’s highlight. More details to come there.

CIVIC HACKING: In other exciting news, as part of the third annual national BarCamp NewsInnovation, held Saturday, April 30 at Temple University, we’ll also be hosting the Open Gov Hackathon organized by Tropo. Coders, designers and developers will be creating civic-minded tools, largely using newly shared government data. We want the hacker crew and journalists to work together to create projects that will be utilized and have the best chance to make impact. It’s a good fit with our Transparencity coverage. Find out more on the BCNI blog here, and expect more to be finalized soon.

GETTING THE WORD OUT: We’re also proud to announce that we’re working with Grid magazine publisher Red Flag Media to land the first Philly Tech Week print supplement on the streets that week, which will feature the week’s calendar, but also fresh content on our community and sponsor shout outs. That’s in addition to that hot Philly Tech Week website from the Jarv.us development team in Northern Liberties and the forthcoming Philly Tech Week app from Alkali Media.

NEW PARTNERS: New sponsors include the City of Philadelphia Commerce Department, Chariot Solutions, Reed Technology, the University City Science Center and Tropo, and new event organizers include Wharton, First Round Capital, the Philadelphia Science Festival from the Franklin Institute, Indy Hall, the African American Chamber of Commerce and more. Many, many more conversations are still alive.

Check out our Sponsorship one pager and Event organizer guide to become a part.

Expect lots more events, partners and details soon. Clear your calendar for April 25-30 and get involved!

As we tweeted:

It was followed the next day by our first piece of news, an item on free cell service for low income Pennsylvanians and since then every weekday since, we’ve offered a little bit of coverage and clarity on a still growing technology community of creatives, entrepreneurs, technologists and geek heads. This is our 1,232nd post here.

Last year for our birthday, we celebrated with a Philly Startup Leaders Fishbowl to move on our building a business.  Plenty has happened internally since, and we’re tried to keep you apprised so our community of readers was part of our growth as a startup vying for sustainability like many of you.

Of our three founders, two of us are now full-time, and last month featured about 17,000 unique visitors to the site, clicking through to nearly three pages per visit, despite our 1,800 RSS and 500 email subscribers receiving a full feed. We have also long curated a conversation with our more than 3,000 Twitter followers.

In addition to covering this community and its trends, with your support we are proud to say we’ve done the following in the past two years:

• We launched Technically Media, a parent publishing consultancy company.
• We’ve started a grant-funded research project on the open data movement in Philadelphia.
• We have started organizing the first ever Philly Tech Week, to be held April 25-30.
• We kicked off a tech startup demo event called Switch Philly to help show off our scene.
• We’ve grown a national journalism conference called BarCamp NewsInnovation.
• We pitched a News Inkubator concept that is informing major investment in Philadelphia journalism.

Now we hope to move from startup toward established business and bring all of these concepts together. Thank you for supporting us. We look forward to many more years growing together.

Just a quick update for those of you who have long requested we keep you apprised on the startup business side of things.

Earlier this month, we more formally introduced Technically Media Inc., the media services company that publishes this rag you’re reading right now. Just so we’re clear, don’t be impressed. That isn’t some multinational corporation. It’s still a startup from three schlubs in Philly, but now we just are a little more legally sound.

In addition to squandering late night hours tracking venture deals, startups and the technology community in Philadelphia, we like building audiences online.

So, in the catering business to this retail shop, we will be helping nonprofits, businesses and other media organizations grow an audience online through meaningful content, in addition to keeping TP alive.

Any potential conflicts of interest, as always, will be disclosed, as noted in our ethics policy.

If you want more, founders Sean Blanda, Brian James Kirk and Christopher Wink have all written about the move.

Allow us to do something that is long overdue: share our rules and policies that are core to Technically Philly:

• Above all else, we value transparency. If we make any significant changes to a story, we’ll tell you. If there is a potential conflict of interest, we will disclose it.
• News should be a conversation. If a reader emails, comments, tweets or writes a blog post criticizing, seeking clarification or commenting on our coverage, we will do our best to respond.
• We correct factually incorrect information. If we get something wrong in a post, we will correct it as soon as humanly possible.
• We do our best to avoid editorial and advertising conflicts at all costs. If a TP staff member oversees the sale of an advertisement, he or she will be relieved of all future coverage of that company or person, within reasonable possibility. We will never withhold coverage or comment due to an advertising relationship. Again, any potential conflicts of interest will be disclosed.
• If it’s on the record, it’s on the record. We will not remove content and quotes of a conversation that happened during an on-the-record conversation. That said, like any other journalist, we regularly speak with sources ‘off the record for background,’ as that perspective can help us report our beats more exactly. A source on the record, though, is always the most transparent and something for which we strive.
• Sources do not read stories before they are posted. Please do not ask to see the story before we post, we will not honor any such requests. We may ask for clarification of a quotation or figure, reference or number. We often follow up to do our job more precisely.
• We give credit. We will always link to the sources of a tip or story and expect others to do the same when writing about a topic first reported by TP.
• Sponsored content and advertorial is clearly marked. From time to time we publish pieces written by advertisers. This is no different than an advertorial in a magazine, a traditional revenue stream in publishing. We clearly label all content with full writing credit and advertising disclosure.

We hope that sheds some light on how Technically Philly operates and we welcome your thoughts and criticisms and now back to your regularly scheduled technology news.