TNT: The state of hyperlocal online news in Philadelphia

Updated: 8/31/09 6:17 p.m., source title

Sarah Lockard should take more walks.

Earlier this summer, the Wayne native was on a long stroll when she decided she should contact Internet craft supply marketplace Etsy about working with AroundMainLine.com, the online magazine startup she launched last fall to cover the famed, ritzy swath of Philadelphia suburbs.

It was on another walk — one amid the crowds of last September spring’s blue-blooded Devon Horse Show — that the former B2B magazine sales executive decided the Main Line needed community coverage online.

Sarah Lockard

Both “epiphanies,” as Lockard called them, seem to have worked out just fine. AroundMainLine.com has partnered with Etsy to profile artisan goods from regional crafts-makers and, while she declined to disclose monthly revenue or funding, her online magazine features weekly content, has a Web designer on staff, photographers on call and a sidebar etched with advertising.

Lockard, 34, boasts that hers was the first for-profit online magazine in the Philadelphia region. But she won’t be the last.

The hyperlocal Web outfit — tied by geography, focused on a niche community and online-only — is meant to be a great wave of the future, seen by MSNBC’s recent purchase of crime and news aggregator EveryBlock, partnerships with online news startups and product launches like Outside.In and Patch.com.

Philadelphia has its first wave of adopters, but their sustainability is far less certain.

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Bala Cynwyd firm PC Helps Support gets New York Times praise

It’s been 17 years, but PC Helps Support is still around and getting attention for it.

The Bala Cynwyd-based IT support company has 250 Montgomery County-based consultants in an industry known for outsourcing to places like India, where labor is cheaper, knowledgeable and trainable.

It’s small operation is geared toward focused services, like answering questions that Apple users have about their iPhones, and it appears to be a method that’s working, according to a glowing profile in Friday’s New York Times.

PC Helps, founded in 1992 by Jeffrey Becker, offers expertise on more than 160 desktop applications and mobile devices like Microsoft Office, the BlackBerry and, yes, the iPhone. It works in conjunction with a company’s IT department to augment or even serve as a company’s help desk to offer support, the company’s media kit says.

In March, the company launched a blog and is, of course, all about social media: follow them on Twitter, friend them on Facebook and LinkedIn, or subscribe to their RSS feed.

Bala Cynwyd’s First Flavor on Today Show

Bala Cynwyd marketing company First Flavor President Jay Minkoff was on the Today Show yesterday during this week last year promoting its “Peel ‘n Taste” technology, which they say is, “a way to market the most important sensory aspect of your product.”

It was the beginning of what has become a long line of recent news for the five-year-old Montgomery County company, who, we’re happy to share, formulated its business plan at Philadelphia’s own University of Pennsylvania and has since signed on a host of new clients.

Read how and see video of Minkoff’s Today Show performance after the jump.

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