Technically Not Tech: The Travelocity Traveling Gnome

Courtesy of the gnome's Facebook page

For a city that is used to being voted to the wrong end of top ten lists, Philly is making a comeback. Ugliest? Fattest? Psh.

This is the birthplace of American democracy, and we are finally starting to show it. Earlier this month, Philadelphians rose up en masse and voted Phillies CF Shane Victornio to the final roster spot in the MLB All Star game, beating out players from San Fran, Washington and Los Angeles.

In our latest victory, thanks to the urging of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation, Philly won the right to host Travolcity‘s traveling gnome for a week over Boston and D.C.
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Shop Talk: Philadelphia Weekly redesign with Keith McGinnis of Review Publishing

Update amended: 8:50 p.m. 4/19/09

From time to time in the recent past, one of the most trafficked Web sites in Philadelphia has gotten a major redesign.

Unfortunately, there was never one source that covered the whys and the hows. Now there is: Technically Philly.

So, here’s the first in an irregular series of our Shop Talk department, called The Redesign.

Both of Philadelphia’s big alternative-weeklies have changed their online looks in recent months. It just so happens that the one that came out last may have started first.

At the end December, CityPaper, founded in 1981 by Bruce Schimmel, went from this to this. And then, early last month, Philadelphia Weekly made its own jump from a cluttered display.

“We knew we needed to step up our platform online, not just re-skin the site,” says Keith McGinnis, the IT Web head over at Review Publishing, PW’s Samson Street-based parent company. “Now we have a platform that can help us rise to the occasion.”

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IndyHall anticipates signing lease after membership drive

This article originally appeared in the April 9, 2009 issue of Philadelphia City Paper and is reprinted here with permission. Photo Credit: Neal Santos.

Picture Old City overwhelmed by a procession of independent workers carrying desks, chairs and laptops up Third Street. Add a lively marching band ushering them along and the evening news to document it.

�Can you imagine if Channel 6 had a helicopter in the sky?� Alex Hillman asks Geoff DiMasi, joking with his business partner in a conference room.

�It would be insane. We�d stop traffic,� he says, laughing chirpily.

Hillman and DiMasi run Independents Hall, a shared office space that rents desks to self-employed workers � though they�d cringe to hear it described so antiseptically. To them, the space is an environment for a �coworking� community, and the inevitable collaboration that comes from putting freelancers in close proximity.

In the two years since its inception, the number of freelancers interested in IndyHall (as it is popularly known) has grown dramatically, prompting Hillman and DiMasi to consider relocating from their current digs on Strawberry Street. They hope to make the move in May. If they pull it off, they�ll not only put Philly on the coworking map � they�ll be in the vanguard of the coworking movement.

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Technically Not Tech: Graphic novelist Duane Swierczynski

Crazed graphic novelist and Philadelphia-native Duane Swierczynski isn’t the first comic-author using social media.

Last month, we spoke to the South Philly minds behind the Black Cherry Bombshells. But Swierczynski, 37, who has blogged since October 2004 and tweeted since last summer, recalls when fan chasing was a real game.

“I remember writing a fan letter to Clive Barker back in 1988, and I went through a lot of trouble trying to figure out the address, typing the letter, retyping the letter when I realized that I made a few bone-headed mistakes, and finally, waiting many, many weeks for a response,” Swierczynski said. “I still have the letter framed.”

“Now it’s extremely easy to reach out and say “yo” to your favorite writer. This is great, but perhaps some of the magic has been lost, too.”

That’s because fans of the man behind the newest editions of The Punisher for Marvel Comics can just get online and come find Duane Swierczynski in an instant.

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