• Soapy: an even better anti-SOPA browser plugin [boingboing] — From West Philly’s Griffin Boyce
• NextFab Studio is expanding from University City to a second location on Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia, NakedPhilly reports.
• Mayor Nutter Opens New Computer Center [City of Philadelphia] — in Frankford through Philly Rising program
• Former FM ‘pirate’ works to change rules [Inquirer] — an FCC win for Prometheus Radio
• The Final Buzzer [Philly Sports Daily] — the nearly year-and-a-half old daily local sports site is closing its doors
• A City Is A Startup: The Rise Of The Mayor-Entrepreneur [Tech Crunch] –No direct Philly mention

• Digital signage company Scala has partnered with Isabella Products to provide a USB stick with WiFi and 3G technologies to allow content to be displayed on any digital display using the wireless device.
• iMany Inc., the Center City company focused on pricing incentive and contract lifecycle management, has rebranded as Revitas.
• A social-network constitution [Inquirer] — an op-ed. Full Disclosure: this reporter led a panel discussion with the op-ed’s author on its subject
• Hackathon: PAFA Installation [Hive76] — tomorrow 10am-2pm
• Neat Company announced in a press release that it’s introducing cloud and mobile services at CES 2012 to compliment its line of scanning hardware and software. Customers will be able to share documents across a cloud network and also capture receipts using iOS and Android devices.
• Meeting management tool StarCite was acquired by San Diego’s Active Network for $57 million, as reported by a number of outlets, including PhillyInc and the Philadelphia Business Journal.
• An IT training center opened in Malvern this week called TECHbiz Learning, which was opened in Philadelphia and in New York City by IT consultant Micro Strategies Inc.. TECHBiz provides monthly lectures for technical teams and management teams.
• At the Philadelphia Home Show, energy efficiency evaluation company Mark Group held a musical to get its message out. See it below.

Drexel University mp3 experiment led by Improv Everywhere's Charlie Todd, a Drexel alumnus. Photo Will Tanksley

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

Since 2002, Charlie Todd has been making a name for himself by starting flash mobs.

Charlie Todd

They’re meant to be the good kind of flash mobs, which Todd organizes as the creator of Improv Everywhere. The prank collective based in the 67th Ward performs large-scale stunts and publishes videos of said stunts on YouTube, where some of his handiwork has received tens of millions of views.

As part of Drexel University’s Comedy Week, Todd visited University City where he conducted an mp3 experiment where some 250 participants performed pre-recorded instructions from Todd as a flash mob-esque stunt. See video from the Inquirer of the prank below.

Todd was brought to the school by student group Urban Playground and its founder Ari Melman, a junior business student at Drexel. It was Todd’s and the group’s first time in Philadelphia, he added.

After the outdoor  Todd, gave a behind the scenes look at how Improv Everywhere got started, how it operates today, and he held a question and answer session with the audience.

The idea for Improv Everywhere started in a New York bar when Todd was 22. Upon being told by a friend that he resembled the musician Ben Folds, he and the friend pretended he was the actual singer as they met strangers. The prank was a success — Todd never revealed that he wasn’t Folds — and Improv Everywhere was born. He developed the idea while trying to pursue acting opportunities in the city.

“From there, I got the idea of public pranks,” Todd said. “Rather than waiting for an opportunity, I went out and started performing on my own.”

And the scale of the pranks have grown. There was a fake U2 concert on a rooftop near a real rooftop, pantless subway rides and one of Improv Everywhere’s greatest hits was “Frozen Grand Central,” where a large group participants or “agents” as Todd refers to them, froze in place for two minutes in Grand Central Station before walking away randomly and leaving passengers both amazed and confused.

Todd ended the evening with a teaser into his next yet-to-be-released prank, which involves surprising couples in Central Park. Todd credits his success to being able to publish his own content on YouTube and that it is an excellent platform for performance art.

“You don’t need permission to put something online,” he said.

From Tumblr user anacrisi, and referenced on This is Not a Cheesesteak.

Cheesesteaks don’t have to be just another cliche we’re saddled with, says Michaelangelo Ilagan.

The SAP web designer and Geekadelphia contributor is embracing the 80-year-old native hoagie variation by chronicling how far, wide and wrongly it has spread. Meet This is Not a Cheesesteak, a Tumblr that Ilagan is curating to collect new takes on the steak sandwich standard that he considers an insult to our roots.

“Unlike Rocky, we’re not revering something fictional. @visitphilly called it ‘Cheesesteak Pride’ when they tweeted a link to my Tumblr,” said Ilagan, 27, who goes by Mikey Il. “Let’s make that a thing. The cheesesteak is 100 percent real and absolutely delicious when done right.”

The St. Joe’s Prep and Art Institute of Philadelphia alumnus took to Tumblr after seeing a Facebook posting from a high school friend and another friend noting the new Arby’s ‘Philly’ sandwich. It wasn’t the first time.

Mikey Il. Photo by Colin Lenton

“I see many former Philly residents or expatriates post  photos from menus or even photos of the offending aberrations themselves,” said Mikey Il, who lives in Queen Village, was born in Olney and grew up in East Oak Lane at 5th Street and 66th Ave. “The result is always the same, there’s shock, awe, disappointment and even insult.”

Mikey Il says he sees this as a hobby, with no real revenue plans, though if the blog were to take off, he wouldn’t fight it. He’s hoping for reader submissions of cheesesteaks gone bad, though he may in time also highlight variations that go a new route the right way.

“The point I’m trying to make in the time being is recognizing the difference between authenticity and lack thereof,” he said. For the record, Mikey Il says his favorite cheesesteak shop is the famed John’s Roast Pork, beating out Dalessandro’s.

Is there enough cheesesteak errors to drive a Tumblr?

“Bars, restaurants, food bloggers, fast food franchises, everybody is seriously abusing their creative licensing on our beloved sandwich,” he said. “I’ve even seen and had a terrible cheesesteak-like sandwich in the Philippines this past summer. It was beyond awful, I’ll be posting that at some point.”

Keep up to date with This is Not a Cheesesteak on Facebook and Twitter. Mikey Il says he plans on updating several times a day, usually Monday through Friday.

Eric Smith of Quirk Books and Geekadelphia fame was traipsing around Rittenhouse in yesterday’s sunshine dressed as Halo’s Master Chief. He made good on a pledge to shake things up a bit in Center City with the costume from one of his favorite video games, as Technically Philly first told you in the fall.

See more photos of Smith causing hijinks in the suit, in addition to the assembly process on his Flickr photostream here, or read Smith’s recap here.

His favorite experience in the suit?: “Little kids running up thinking I’m a robot or a Transformer. It’s freaking adorable. I love seeing them smile. As lame as that sounds.”

He has two upcoming plans for the suit, in addition to any other impulse needs to wear a video game-inspired suit of armor. First, Smith hopes to visit kids at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania and in November, following the Halo remake. Second, he plans to get a video of him going to FYE to buy the game wearing the armor.

Smith previously tried the outfit on a smaller trip along a couple blocks of his house and in the fitting setting of Philadelphia Comic Con.

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.”

Josh Kopelman as the Old Spice guy in the First Round Capital's new Holiday video

Our favorite Christmas tradition here at Technically Philly (after reruns of How the Grinch Stole Christmas) is the First Round Capital Holiday Card.

In 2008, the venture capital firm produced its first “holiday card” video that was a riff on “Where the Hell is Matt?” In 2009, they went all Susan Boyle on us. And in 2010, First Round and its portfolio companies get shirtless. Sorta.

Keep an eye out for Philly (and Philly-born) companies Monetate, Solve Media, Adaptly, MyYearbook and ClickEquations.

DEFINITE READS

• Invite Media had youth, energy and technology Google wanted [Philly Inc: Inquirer]
• Pennsylvania a top solar power producer [Earth Techling]
• tweeted:
  , which is strange because co-founder Eric Smith doesn’t look a day over 40.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• SciCheer on NPR’s Tell Me More, today [Science Cheerleader] — Founder of science literacy blog Science Cheerleader, Darlene Cavalier, is on the NPR national interview show.
• Wharton MBA conference theme: mobile revolution [Philadelphia Business Journal]

GIVE A GLANCE

• The Chamber Calls For More Clarity and Discussion around BPT Proposal [Chamber]
• MapQuest Founder on the Past, Present and Future of Location Tech [Mashable] — As Philly Tech News says: “Interesting interview with Barry Glick, who started MapQuest as a cartograhpic service of RR Donnelley in Lancaster.”
• Living in 8-Bits: Paperboy [Geekadelphia] — South Jersey production company Mixed Nuts.s online web series, one of which you can see below.

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

Nothing gets us jacked up to welcome the new year more than keeping a watchful eye on corporate giants.

DEFINITE READS

• Minnesota Public Radio devotes air time to Comcast, NBC and their future for TV. H/T Philly Tech News
• The Canadian Press reports that the Comcast-NBC merger will indeed create a big power in sports, but it will take time.

Below, a Comcast executive joins Warren Buffet’s team, delightful video of Shaq and Comcast’s founder and five more.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

• Multichannel News reports on professional heights of the life of Brian Roberts and how they brought him where he is today.
• The Inquirer reports that Comcast is targeting Spanish speakers and immigrants by adding 140 new ethnic TV channels.
• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports on the pay of five Comcast executives, the details of which were made clear in an SEC filing.

GIVE A GLANCE

• The L.A. Times reports that Comcast COO Stephen Burke has joined the board of Waren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway.
• NewTeeVee reports on criticism of Comcast’s TV Everywhere rollout. H/T PTN
• Please, make sure to watch this awkwardly delightful video of Shaq and Comcast founder Ralph Roberts.

When there is just too much Comcast news to follow, the Comcast Roundup will be there every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST

The iPhone application news has to be getting a little tiresome, no?

Google says the mobile application collection is a fleeting concept. The iPhone store is completely flooded with more than 36,000 and few are making money or much worth the time.

Still, they keep coming. We reported that Comcast has its own new iPhone and iPod touch mobile app. Educational software company Blackboard and freakin’ Harry Potter have apps. Newspapers on occasion have them, but big ones like the Wall Street Journal and USA Today are trying to figure out how to charge.

Philly has many apps made by Philadelphians, like one about old Abe Lincoln and a righteous one for Philly concerts, but they are hardly comprehensive.

So why doesn’t Philadelphia, rife with culture and on the cusp (and perhaps in need of a bit) of a technology renaissance, have more of their own?

That profit problem, of course. Because, really, with rare exception no real money is being made, so it isn’t likely that a crush of Philadelphia-specific iPhone apps are going to be made anytime soon. But it sure is fun to indulge.

So, after the jump, find the 10 Philadelphia iPhone (or Windows mobile) apps that should exist, but don’t and probably never will.

Our 10 best:

1. SEPTA Everywhere — OK, they got in cahoots with Google, which was, uhm, five years behind, but they opened their data up to third party developers. So, let’s think big. Nearest bus, trolley, regional rail and train routes, stops, directions, schedules and plan your route features. With all mass transit ensnared with GPS, the realtime location of the next bus is easy to find. How about being able to swipe your iPhone in place of cumbersome tokens or flimsy passes? One of these bus stops would be just around the corner. Who should make this happen? SEPTA, of course. Can we get one of the nine SEPTA blogs to work on this, too?
2. Parking Wars parking spot finder – We’ve heard this before, even in our comments, but it makes it no less a good idea. Digitize the city’s parking meters with weight sensitive monitors. Make money by being able to dispatch the Parking Authority to unpaid meters and announce open spots using GPS to users. Cuts down on traffic and keeps the authority moving. Add a traffic news and prediction element, by using collected data about traffic, create an algorithm to predict when and where traffic might happen. Give users the likelihood of traffic at certain places in the city and give directions around those problem areas when folks are looking for parking. Who should make this happen? A partnership between A&E, the channel that produces the controversial reality TV show Parking Wars, and the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which is the show’s focus. Consider it the show’s promotion and could include the show’s hours and upcoming episode schedule.
3. The Fumo Files — It’s a government transparency application that lets you scroll through miles and miles of open-source databases, documents and information. You can create your own graphs, tables, PDFs and more. It lets you save, highlight, promote via social media and cruise hundreds of years of this information that Allan Frank digitized himself, unencumbered by a suddenly larger staff. Who should make this happen? The Committee of Seventy or whoever steps up and replaces Hallwatch. Or, hey, a partnership between the city government and the Inquirer once every Philadelphian dutifully signs up for a subscription. OK, or host an awesome competition like the 67th ward did.
   
4. iSteak — We take the best 50 or so cheesteak and roast pork joints in the city and geomap them. So, when you’re on the 66 crusing Frankford Avenue and you get that hankering, you can immediately find the nearest best place to grab the city’s most famous grub. Photos, prices, hours, aggregated ratings from other sites are all there. Who should make this happen? Dudes at Unbreaded or Caroline Wyman‘s promotions team.
   
5. Insult My Team — Let’s be real. A little part of you never wants, expects or looks forward to winning anything. The 700 level crew from the Vet wouldn’t have been anything if the Eagles ever won a freakin’ Super Bowl. And, Hell, things are starting to seem a little too cheery after the Phillies victory, even Charlie Manuel agrees. So next time Chase Utley grounds out, and you can’t help but want to hug him anyway, type in player and game, and the app — which aggregates in real time Philly pro sports teams’ standings and in-game statistics — gives you an insightful and witty insult for your own team, beacuse that’s what we do best. “Utley, in the sixth inning with runners in scoring position, you go left more often than Arlen Specter in federal funding votes.” Who should make this happen? Our boys from the 700 level blog with some funding from 610 WIP.
   
6. Philly to English Translator and Dictionary — This goes two ways. Philly accents and slang are decoded and more traditional verbiage can be brought into the local tongue. Finally, “Yo, can youse toss me that lager jawn, nahmean?” will be as easy to say for you as it is for Vinnie in Pennsport. Hey, and we’ll give a bonus if it can translate Philly to English to other useful foreign languages, like Russian for Bell’s Corner, Italian and Spanish for Ninth Street, Mandarin for Chinatown, French for the Sansom strip, various African languages for West Philly pockets and others. Who should make this happen? The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.
   
7. Oral History — This isn’t yet a city overrun by artists and writers and filmmakers. While we have plenty, we remain a city whose stories and secrets are largely untold and unshared. They remain on the streets and in the minds of the people who live here or visit here. Dig this: starting with requested submissions from hundreds of Philadelphians of all stripes, 30-second stories or memories of a given location are geotagged throughout the city. On a map you can see where they are and GPS can lead you there, but you can’t hear the audio until you’re actually at that spot. Registered users can submit their own, all of which will be ranked — the better the ranking the larger and easier to find the geotag. Who should make this happen? The Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation.
   
Philly iPhone games
• Chase Utley’s WFC Dog Catcher — How many stray dogs can Chase bring to safety before Mr. Met gobbles them up? Look for a sponsorship deal from P.A.W.S.
• Frogger on the Boulevard — If you thought crossing the street with that little frog was hard in the iconic arcade game, try maneuvering that sucker around the 1993 Buick LeSabre barreling down Roosevelt Boulevard toward Red Lion Road at 5:15 p.m. in this sure-fire classic mobile game.
• Scrapple for You — An interactive Choose Your Own Adventure-style game in which you make choice how to convince hungry tourists to eat the (really) most Philadelphian food there is. Example: “Mr. Delaware suburbs says no. Do you (A) lower your prices, (B) mock his masculinity in front of his wife and children or (C) Make an equal parts lame, vague and threatening allusion to your “friends in South Philly.”
8. My Philly ‘Hood — I’m tired of arguing with my girlfriend and bartenders and my postman. This app has the final say on the street by street neighborhood lines on an interactive map with important landmarks included within the region of the city. No, South Philly ain’t good enough anymore. With Wiki-style editing, it stays accurate and includes aggregated news, events and updates by tags from big media, new media and locals. It includes suggested news, places to go, eat and drink and more. And, yes, you can toggle between how those neighborhood lines have changed through every five or 10 years; so, you’ll see just when Northern Liberties was birthed from generic North Philadelphia and what parish you’d be living in if the Archdiocese had any freakin’ sway anymore.
9. Our Corners — We’re the most historically significant city in this country (suck it, Chester), and that history extends far beyond Old City. This app would let users peruse historical photos, building histories and historical Inquirer headlines from any location within city limits. Who should make this happen? A partnership between the city’s Historical Commission, PhillyHistory.org and the National Park Service.
   
10. The ‘They Ain’t Closed Yet’ Library application — This app lets you search for and reserve books at any Free Library branch. A calendar of events and hours for all the branches are available, in addition to branch and library history, information and contact information. You can also pay late fees, get directions, chat with libraries and download free ebooks. Perhaps a partnership with the School District, the city’s universities and research institutions could add their private collections to the list for scholars or their own members. Who should make this happen? The Free Library (just use the cash for the expansion of the still stalled central branch).

I mean, dudes, we could do this forever. Zipcar has an app, so why doesn’t Philly Car Share let you find, purchase and open cars using your iPhone? I’d pay for an ‘I didn’t say that’ application in which entirely falsified quotations are attributed to the city’s elite (Philly Turkey, are you on that?) Every time I’m in Fairmount Park or Pennypack or FDR, I want the elusive bug app that can tell me the details of any insect I snag a photo of.

But we figured this was a good start. OK, who is going to get any of these done? What ones did we miss? What is the best of our ideas? And, can we be clear that if you make any of these and earn some scratch, we totally deserve a cut? We’ll keep reporting the news if you do.

…We won’t hold our breath.

-30-

Skyline photo credit: Emy111, stock photo c/o Apple, Illustration by Brian James Kirk

This is a semi-regular department we may or may not call Top Ten Tuesdays. There’s no judging in brainstorming. See others here.

Jake Stein at left and Robert Moore at right of business dashboard firm RJ Metrics performing in their "Business Intelligence" rap video.

And now for something totally different.

You may be tired of the ironic rap video — we know we are — but sometimes an old idea can pass. Does this?

Jake Stein and Robert Moore, the two Ivy League-educated entrepreneurs behind the business intelligence dashboard RJ Metrics that opened up shop earlier this month, have broken from their cipher and put business on wax.

Stein, who lives in Center City, sings the hook and plays straight man to Moore in their single “Straight Outta Camden,” noting their recent move to the Rutgers University-Camden tech incubator.

Peep the video and score an exclusive download after the jump.

The track features lyrics about VCs and balance sheets on a beat from Adamack of New Jersey-based Open Minds Entertainment. Listen below, or download the track here.

Look out for all the killer lines, including: “You got a social app? Well, it’s a disgrace, look. ‘Cause even Facebook can’t even make money on Facebook.”

See their complete lyrics — with links, of course — on their company blog, The Metric System.

Digg it here, and get someone from our community some love — if they really want it.

Of the future, Stein, who seemed at least a little hesitant on whether this was a good idea, says, “Yes, unfortunately there may be something in the works, and, depending on the response from this, the group could come back for a reunion tour.”

RJ Metrics plans to help small and medium-sized businesses that collect data about their customers better use that information to chart user behavior.

So, is it funny or not? Is it two young, successful entrepreneurs having fun or an attack on professionalism? It’s bold, to be sure, think the risk will work out?

More importantly, what’s your favorite line?