Justin Giza: Drink Philly editor, nerd rapper leaves for NYC to pursue music career

This is Exit Interview, an occasional interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

At the Philly Geek Awards last month, the Geekadelphia crew behind the event included an ‘In Memoriam’ segment.

Pictures of a dozen former members of Philadelphia’s technology community who had moved in the past year, many of them Exit Interview alumni, were shown on the large projector screen, set to ‘It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday’ from Boyz II Men. The bit was funny and well received.

In the audience was Justin Giza, then editor of DrinkPhilly.com, which was founded in 2009 by Adam Schmidt and Technically Philly profiled in June. At next year’s Geek Awards, Giza could be on that ‘In Memoriam’ screen.

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‘Blogger tax:’ bill creating business privilege license exemption for ‘hobbies’ faces City Council vote [VIDEO]

Mike Lyons, who runs the blog West Philly Local, sits on a bench at Locust and 40th streets.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

Mike Lyons and his wife run West Philly Local, a blog that covers news in West Philadelphia.

His site has been up for just three months and gets a modest 800 to 900 unique visitors a day. Although Lyons hopes to monetize the site in the future, it has yet to make any profit.

For bloggers like Lyons, the year-long dispute concerning the city’s so-called ‘blogger tax’ has caused a great deal of confusion.

But new legislation introduced by Councilman Bill Green could keep Lyons and other hobbyists, including bloggers, from being required to apply and pay for a city business privilege license.

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‘Global Water Industry Honor Roll’ features two Philly companies: Links

• Navy, economic development groups sign pact [PhillyBurbs.com] — “The U.S. Navy has formed a partnership with three business development groups to foster collaboration with small businesses, educational institutions and nonprofit groups and increase energy-related developments at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.”
• Q&A with Mark Alan Hughes [Flying Kite] The Penn State Professor leading the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster, also located at the Navy Yard
• Two Philly Firms Named to Global Water Industry Honor Roll [Keystone Edge] — BlackGold Biofuels and NovaThermal Energy were named to the Top 50 Water Companies list
• ‘Blogger tax’ goes before council [Metro] — We’ll have more details next week
• Philadelphia Water Department to adopt water infrastructure capital planning software [Water World]
• Philadelphia’s Greatest And Most Anticipated Food Website Coming Soon [Phoodie] — “Tacodelphia“
• Many could be interested in Cubist [Business Journal]

KeyPulp: Phillyist crew launches national arts and culture blog

KeyPulp, a national-in-focus arts and culture blog from the Phillyist crew, launched this week.

As Technically Philly told you in January, Gothamist put its Philly outpost on ‘extended hiatus’ and many of its contributors were busy at work creating a more broad place for their hobbyist postings on pop culture, music and the like.

One of the group’s leaders, Jill Ivey, says though KeyPulp has fewer geographical content limitations than Phillyist, the local scene will certainly make an appearance.

“We’ll still be covering plenty of events in Philly,” she writes Technically Philly. “It’s just that we’ll be covering stories in New York, D.C., L.A. etc., as well.  We even have a writer from Israel.”

The other editors of KeyPulp are Ross Currie, Andrew Johnston, Allison Krumm, and Joe Ross.

[keypulp.com]

Who is Naked Philly’s Mr. Fox?

Philadelphia’s real estate development blogs have had a rough go over the past four months. In February, StoopPhilly shut its doors just as quick as it opened them. In December, Philly Mag’s blog of the year Brownstoner shut its doors due to business trouble.

However, quickly rising fron the ashes in January was Naked Philly, a development blog focused on making Philadelphia’s often-complicated neighborhoods accessible to both long time residents and first time visitors. Posts mostly focus on new developments and business closings as well as community events. The blog recently made waves when it reported on a City Hall bill that would make roof decks and three-story homes in Point Breeze illegal for one year.

“There is no site in Philly that serves as a tool for people to understand what the neighborhoods are, I mean, the taxi cab maps of Philadelphia stop at South Street,” says “Mr. Fox” the site’s anonymous editor.
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Tek Lado magazine closes, relaunches as Hispanic tech, pop culture blog

After only two editions, Tek Lado magazine, the every-other-month Hispanic tech, pop culture magazine that first landed in September, is no more. But, after a month of silence, the project isn’t done.

While Bartash, the Southwest Philly-based publishing house that put the mag on the streets, dropped the title, Editor Liz Spikol, with whom we spoke last fall about the new gig, and former publisher Mel Gomez have struck out on their own, aiming to build Tek Lado as an online-only brand, grabbing the naming rights and the tek-lado.com domain.

The Tek Lado blog will still feature English and Spanish writing on geek culture, gaming, gadgets, social media and the like, the same as the magazine, but won’t have to remain tied to this region exclusively.

In a press release, the pair, who are working out of West Philly office space, focused on that value of being able to reach more globally. Rather than needing to be a Philly Hispanic tech niche print publication, the product can attract all Hispanic readers interested in geek culture online.

Spikol said the pair are seeking funding and moving on revenue plans. In its new iteration, Tek Lado is currently a sole proprietorship of Gomez, who founded the title while at Bartash.

Ben Gilbert: NYC has “More events, more interview[s], more networking”

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

In the great big rise of geek culture from subculture to full blown community, video gaming has been a primary player.

In spring 2009, Joystiq was continuing its reign as preeminent gaming blog and content jewel of Aol. It also managed to have quite a Philly pull, from its Wharton-educated founder to a Fishtown-based editor and a pair of major contributors living in the region.

This past summer, one of those contributors, Ben Gilbert, who was also part of the Geekadelphia crew, made the jump and moved to Brooklyn.

Originally from Connecticut, Gilbert, 26, came to Philly for Temple University. Now the writer, who says he ‘developed a bit of hopelessness for Philly,’ talks about leaving, coming back and the Dock Street Brewery.

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Gothamist to put Phillyist blog on ‘extended hiatus’ as of Jan. 31

With a post on Friday, nearly six-year-old franchised culture blog Phillyist announced its parent company Gothamist is ending its operations this month. Or, as (volunteer) Editor Jillian Ashley Blair Ivey puts it, an ‘extended hiatus’ will take over the site come Monday, Jan. 31 at 5 p.m.

Below Ivey talks about the back story.

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Tom Thunstrom of PhillyWeather.net: Forecasting weather in Philly is tougher than in Minneapolis

Tom Thunstrom’s interest in meteorology ‘blew up’ in to a fascination as a kid growing up in Minnesota.

He was interested in the snow and the cold, but there was something about watching a tornado pull debris into the sky that changed his perspective.

Today, Thunstrom, in his mid-30s and living Royersford in Montgomery County (after moving here for his wife), has kept that fascination alive. This summer, Thunstrom, who is the Philadelphia senior program manager of Operation HOPE, an economic tools and services providers for the underserved, celebrated five years publishing PhillyWeather.net, a blog featuring surprisingly detailed, lucid and informative writing on the region’s climate and weather. Now he’s in the thick of his busy season — a snowy winter.

“In the end, I want us to be good at what we do and keep the masses informed without hysterical levels of hype,” he says, noting hopes to dive deeper into the sharing of information and data in new ways in the future.

If it’s going to snow and you want to really understand why it will and how you can follow the science of it all, PhillyWeather.net is where you want to go. A guy with a bow tie in front of a green screen Thunstrom is certainly not.

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Brownstoner Philly, the development blog, has closed for business

Brownstoner Philly, the popular, celebrated, nine-month-old development blog spinoff of a Brooklyn counterpart, has announced it won’t see the light of 2011.

“I thought the editorial was going great, but I was bleeding money with no sign of break-even on the horizon,” said Jonathan Butler, who founded Brooklyn-focused Brownstoner in 2004 and has kept it relevant and profitable. We spoke to Butler about the blog’s launch here.

Butler said today was the final day of Philly-specific content from Brownstoner. The last post, aside from a goodbye message, was coverage of the Green Lane Townhomes in the northwest.

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