How social media took Asher Roth from Philly suburbs to hip hop stardom

It’s going to be that anthem you hear over and over again this summer, and the artist behind it happens to have grown up in Bucks County, a half hour Regional Rail ride into Center City.

Like a growing collection of young artists, Asher Roth, the artist behind “I Love College,” found his path to a major label album by way of MySpace. But it seems likely he’ll see more than Internet fame.

I helped profile Asher Roth on the cover of today’s Philadelphia Weekly, but during our interview last month, we also spoke about the role social media have had on launching his career.

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Lockheed Martin launches rocket, trains foreigners

Two regional subsidiaries of Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, Maryland’s friendly neighborhood military logistics multinational corporation, got good news this week.

Yes, it’s another round of scary regional military tech innovation.

Their Newton-based space systems arm was part of the design and construction of a new global-positioning satellite that was rocket-launched into space on Tuesday, according to a company press release.

That came a day after the company’s maritime systems and sensors firm won a $10.7 million contract from the U.S. Navy, according to another presser.

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Technically Not Tech: Iamguiltyof.com

Let’s just place the warning up front: iamguiltyof.com is not safe for work. Seriously, if you’re in a cubicle, go browse our events calendar. The site, created by Bensalem-based Web developer Brian Driscoll can be raunchy, disgusting, enlightening and tragic all in one. And it could also get you canned.

The concept is simple: users can confess their sins to the world. The entries appear in a single column on the site’s homepage. There is no sign up process, and the entries are 100 percent anonymous. Confessions range from the mundane (“I am guilty of…watching ninja Warrior!“) to the downright chilling (“I am guilty of…pushing you down the stairs when you were prego.”).

“It occurred to me that when it comes to things like Twitter and Facebook, it’s hard to say what you want to say because everyone can identify you,” says Driscoll. “For the most part they tend to be benign … they lack a certain level of honesty.”

The site is very much like PostSecret or Fmylife except boiled down to a paragraph; something that could begin as a voyeuristic lunch time distraction and end up as an easy way to lose an hour of your day. The Temple graduate Driscoll started the site as a side project to sharpen some of his Web development skills and to finally give him a site of his own. Driscoll has seen his small side project slowly picking up steam and collect over 600 confessions in a matter of weeks while gaining coverage in mainstream media outlets.
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Technically Not Tech: Swapagift.com

Somebody doesn’t know what to buy you for your birthday, so you get a gift card that you either don’t want, won’t use or will surely lose.

There’s a solution, of course.

From its launch in October 2003 to February, SwapaGift.com had been “the leading online marketplace dedicated solely to buying, selling, and trading gift cards,” said Mike Kelly, who was the early Web adopter who launched the site with his wife Mary Jane out of their Langhorne home.

Last month, a deal was announced in which Swapagift.com was bought by Wolfe.com, the Pittsburgh-based online marketing company and parent of GiftCards.com, which included a drop of their trading option.

That makes the Eagles departure from the NFL playoffs and subsequent Steelers Super Bowl victory the second indignity Pittsburgh has bestowed on our fair metropolis this year.

While their operation has largely moved to Pittsburgh’s GiftCards.com processing facility, the marketing, promotion and business development remain with the Kellys in Langhorne.

Mike Kelly, 45, declined to disclose financial details of the acquisition, but he said business is good and that his company’s ties to Philadelphia won’t falter.

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Biden in Philly to talk green jobs, hospitals buy wind

Vice President Joe Biden is in Philadelphia today, launching an initiative focused on creating green jobs in middle class communities.

He rides through University City in the same week that several prominent Philadelphia hospitals announced they would buy wind-power as part of sustainability efforts.

The hospitals involved in the group purchase are Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, Frankford Hospitals, Thomas Jefferson University, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Inc., Main Line Health System, and Magee Rehabilitation, according to an Einstein press release.

Biden will be part of the first hearing of the middle-class task force, meeting in the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania. Presentations at the invitation-only event will focus on the potential of green jobs to motivate economic recovery and discuss ways to train workers for those jobs.

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Bucks County robotics company gets DOD grant for minesweeper

Congressman Patrick J. Murphy (left) listens to Joshua Koplin (center) and Samuel Reeves, co-founders of Humanistic Robotics Inc., as they explain a minesweeper for which they have received a $2 million Department of Defense grant. (Photo by Michael S. Wirtz for the Inquirer)

There are millions of landmines in the ground around the world and someone in Bucks County is going to do something about it.

Bristol-based start-up Humanistic Robotics recently received $2 million in Department of Defense grants to make their minesweeper prototype a commercially viable product, according to the Inquirer. One of the leaders is a 20-something entrepreneur and has something to say about it. See what after the jump.

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Comcast rolling out faster Internet speeds, but not in Philly

Comcast, our friendly neighborhood telecommunications giant, has announced it is rolling out faster Internet speeds, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal.

As you might expect, the Center City-based company is starting its transition from broadband to what it calls wideband in the heart of Philadelphia — South Jersey.

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