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 email subscription for our weekly Comcast roundup or other news updates

• Comcast’s Roberts hosts President Obama on Martha’s Vineyard [Inquirer]
• Comcast ends action against DirecTV [Philadelphia Business Journal] — DirecTV dropped the ads it had been running about Comcast’s NFL Sunday Ticket package, featuring claims that Comcast reps felt were false and misleading. More form paidContent

• Versus will expand its college football programming [USA Today]
• Latinos here to stay, so deal with it, NBC [San Francisco Gate]
• Comcast Rolls Out Metro E, Adds Regional Partners [Channel Partners] — “Less than six months after the controlled rollout of its partner program, Comcast Business Services (Booth #1500 at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo) is adding new regional partners and announcing the availability of its Metro Ethernet services through the indirect channel. ” H/T Philly Tech News
• Take a Look Inside CIM Lab Week [Comcast blog] — Watch below a video interview with Tom Blaxland Jason Press, the CTO of Comcast Interactive Media, about the ‘science fair’ held of creative, collaborative work by Comcast employees

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 subscri ption for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Comcast-Spectacor’s ‘quiet, steady ascent’ [Philadelphia Business Journal] — Profile on the company, or a portion of it before a paywall is enacted.

MIGHT BE WORTH IT

• Comcast, modem maker Zoom settle [Philadelphia Business Journal] — “Philadelphia cable giant Comcast has settled a Federal Communications Commission complaint brought by modem maker Zoom Telephonics regarding Comcast’s requirements for modems on its systems, the Associated Press reports.”
• Comcast Courts the Cloud [Light Reading] — ‘cloud’ based technologies are more efficient than “the legacy set-top environment.”

Below, Brian Roberts interview on ‘Bloomberg West,’ Versus and NBC combining on NHL programming and more.

GIVE A GLANCE

• Comcast seeks edge in Hispanic market with website [Reuters]
• The cable-TV installation will be easy. Want to buy some property under the Brooklyn Bridge? [Washington Post] –Alternate headline: “Old man has trouble installing cable internet, writes column”
• EXCLUSIVE: NBC and Versus Join To Make History for NHL Ad campaign to promote Stanley Cup playoffs to air on both networks [Broadcasting & Cable]
• Comcast Explores Network DVRs [Light Reading Cable]
• Comcast shifting some Denver-area operations to East Coast [Denver Post] — H/T PTN
• Comcast Hires Lehman as NBCUniversal’s New Digital Boss [All Things Digital: MediaMemo]

Below, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on ‘Bloomberg West,’ talking the economy and, yes, saying he likes ’30 Rock’

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.

Hispanic voters and their use of the web will both have an impact on Tuesday's election, says Tek Lado magazine Editor Liz Spikol.

This is a guest post by Liz Spikol, Editor of bilingual Tek Lado magazine, as part of our Guest Contributor Week. Want to have an op-ed or feature you’ve written to appear on TP, now or in the future? Drop us a line.

One way you can tell it’s election time: Latinos are in the news.

President Obama is reaching out, first by highlighting Latino kids at the White House’s first science fair, and then—one day later—revealing a broad plan to encourage educational achievement among Latino children. He’s also suggested, in ways big and small, that voting on Nov. 2nd should be a priority for the Hispanic community.

He’s not wrong to push for those votes, particularly in such a hotly contested battle.

CBS News reports that in some states, the battles may be decided by Latinos —and Latinos tend to vote Democratic. The country’s fastest growing minority has a lot of power, and Obama knows it.
Right now about 19 million Latinos nationally are eligible to vote.

There are implications on both sides of the aisle for Latinos, and to understand where each party stands can be of significant value when pulling a lever behind that flimsy blue curtain.

Understanding that those 19 million voters don’t necessarily vote in lockstep, how Latinos get their information about each party — on the web or through mobile devices — can be just as crucial to that understanding.

Some information is, of course, available in print publications. But most people aren’t getting election news by dirtying their fingers with newspaper ink. They get that news—and opinion—online.

In Philadelphia, you might be inclined to go to seventy.org, the website for the Committee of Seventy, which advocates for fair elections and educating the populace. Maybe you go to phillyelection.com to see where and when you vote. Maybe you want to know who the League of Women Voters of Philadelphia are endorsing. Or you might want to know that MyFoxPhilly.com reported results of a study saying that Latino voters are less likely to go to the polls in the election, and you want to see why, and to prove them wrong.

There is no shortage of national political news sources online too, but for people who are merely interested in what their vote means, all of these sites can be edifying.

The problem is that when future voters don’t graduate either high school or college, they get alienated from critical thinking and from access to new technology.

Yes, Latinos do utilize technology in prolific ways. But not everyone in this city—and certainly not everyone in Latino communities—are wired. After the vain attempts by Wireless Philadelphia to link lower-income homes to the Internet, we are now faced with a city that’s wired to serve people who would probably be wired already.

There have been other initiatives, like the Gigabit Philly proposal, which fell short for now, and Obama has put pressure on the FCC to increase broadband accessibility nationally, but the agency has been grappling with net neutrality policy which is on hold until after Tuesday’s election. Comcast made splashy news by announcing it had created 2,000 wireless hotspots in Philadelphia, but, to date, they are only for their paying customers.

So for now, though without that access will continue to fall behind.

A report from the NASFAA Journal of Financial Aid reports that computer access is strongly determined by income. Ninety-six percent of households making above $75,000 own a home computer. When that income number drops to below $15,000, only 45 percent own a home computer.

We must make sure that Internet access in Philadelphia fosters equality and an educated citizenry among all ethnic groups. There is so much that is hopeful, including the fact that Latinos are making innovative use of cell phone technology, social media and blogging in higher numbers than the general population.

Laptop ownership has soared among Latinos, as has use of the Internet among English-speaking Latinos, as Pew has found. But according to Pew’s Research Center Internet and American Life Project, “foreign-born and Spanish-dominant Latinos dramatically trail not only whites but also native / English-speaking Latinos” on broadband adoption and home computer ownership.

Another newly released Pew study says, “Just one-third (32%) of all Latino registered voters say they have given this year’s election ‘quite a lot’ of thought. In contrast, half (50%) of all registered voters say the same. And when it comes to their intent to vote, half (51%) of Latino registered voters say they are absolutely certain they will vote in this year’s midterm election, while seven-in-ten (70%) of all registered voters say the same.”

Liz Spikol

Why this disparity between Latino voters and others? Could it have something to do with the digital divide?

I’m no statistician so I won’t venture a guess. But one thing we can ask Obama to do: Make sure all our neighborhoods have access to the Internet. Being a conscientious citizen is hard, sometimes boring work. But it determines the future.

Liz Spikol, former executive editor of Philadelphia Weekly, is now editor of Tek Lado magazine, a bilingual publication about technology and pop culture. See our recent Q&A with Liz here.

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.

DEFINITE READS

• “Search Takes a Social Turn” [New York Times] — The trend piece addressing the online return to focusing on what existing contacts feel for reviews and opinions, citing Comcast-owned startup TunerFish, which lets users share what they’re watching with friends.
• “Comcast’s NBC-U Dreams May Be Online Video’s Nightmare” [Gigaom] — According to the opinion piece, “right now, there’s a very good chance that most people in America will soon have just one choice for truly high-speed Internet access suitable for watching video — their local cable monopoly.”

Below, Ecolisting.com announced, Comcast shares plunge and more.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• “DirecTV, Comcast: Winners & Loser” [The Street] — Comcast shares “plunged” following reports that rival Time Warner Cable could enter agreement with Cox Communications to enter more geographic locations, competing with regional Comcast networks.
• “Ecolisting.com: An Eco-Friendly Way To Find Phone Numbers” by Comcast Voices — The corporate blog announces a Comcast-backed people-listings search aggregator.
• “Trenton Thunder looking to sell stadium naming rights” by the Philadelphia Business Journal — Hired Comcast-Spectacor division Front Row Marketing to help with the process

GIVE A GLANCE

• “Comcast offers free preview of RedZone” [HD Report] — This Sunday, Sept. 19 at 1 p.m. EST for digital Comcast subscribers
• “Comcast introduces new packages aimed at Latino audience” [Merced Sun Star]
• Comcast, PNC donate locally [Baltimore Business Journal] — Comcast commits $1 million to the Anne Arundel Medical Center Foundation
• “Beverly to hold public hearing on Comcast cable TV license” [Beverly Citizen, Mass.]
• “Hard to accept Comcast proposal in recession” [Journal of Oak Park and River Forest, Illinois]
• “Comcast leaves Morton in the dust” [Morton Times, Ill.] — Comcast-leaves-Morton-in-the-dust Residents peeved that a payment center closed.

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

When new print magazines are announced, reporters usually write about the irony of the startup amid a decades-long decline in publishing dailies and weeklies and monthlies.

The future of print is certainly a scattered one, but one that will probably involve novelty and specialty, in addition to the current clearing of the brush the past decade has shown.

Somewhere in there, Tek Lado, a quarterly, bi-lingual geek culture magazine with its setting in the Philadelphia region, either makes sense or it doesn’t.

Regardless, 20,000 32-page inaugural issues will land in honor boxes, cafes, bars, restaurants and waiting rooms throughout the region on Sept. 22, with plans to move to every other month in 2011. Funded by advertising and supported strictly by freelance contributions, the magazine will be free and pick-up only.

[Full disclosure: Technically Philly is a promotional partner for the magazine's launch. The two publications exchanged advertising space. This Q&A is an independent editorial choice.]

Southwest Philadelphia-based Bartash Printing is bankrolling the project, a company that handles printing projects for others but didn’t have one of its own, until Tek Lado, which was first conceived in March. The publisher is Bartash’s own Mel Gomez.

To make their first foray into magazine publishing a successful one, Gomez brought on last month one of the more familiar names in Philadelphia media, tapping former Philadelphia Weekly senior editor and columnist Liz Spikol to lead the project’s editorial product.

Based out of Bartash’s building at 5400 Grays Ave., near Bartram’s Garden, until moving to independent offices if things go well, Spikol, 42, is now charged with growing the reputation and editorial product of a magazine with at least three niches: geeks and gadgets, Philadelphia and, while stories will appear both in English and Spanish, a natural Hispanic target.

The first time I did that, I got a little emotional. Paper!

And you might not be reading the dozens of hyperlocal community papers or niche publications that are out there, but they’re thriving. Or maybe you not have a subscription to Fire News — for firemen — or Equery — for the horsey set — but these are alive and well. The dailies face an uphill battle as do some weeklies, but I’m optimistic.

Maybe I have to be because I want to do what I love, but I’m also a pragmatist. I wouldn’t buy Newsweek for a dollar or even 25 cents. If I knew of an innovation to save the world, believe me, you’d know it.

Your father had a long presence at Philadelphia magazine? Is this your first foray into print mags — rather than print or alt-weeklies — and is there any sentimentality to that?

My dad was art director there, then executive editor and then the editor. He was there forever. I loved visiting him there as a kid.

The environment was so rich with funny, passionate people. He also wrote a nonfiction writing column for 17 years for Writer’s Digest — and still contributes there, and he wrote a couple books.

So it’s in the blood. But I didn’t follow in his footsteps with any conventional trajectory. So this is my first print-mag experience.

Below, watch Liz Spikol tell a story on ‘Spilling Your Guts’ at First Person Arts this spring.

Will a technology mag use  tech or the web any differently or any more than any other print mag?

The one thing we’re absolutely doing as a bilingual magazine is making extensive use of QR Codes.

If you see an article in the pub in English and you want to read it in Spanish — which you’ll know because we have synopses in the opposite language — you can use the QR Code to go to that page on our website. [Editor's note: The magazine intends to put full-text version of its magazine stories online.]

I think that’s an innovative adaptation of technology to suit our readership. It’s the kind of thing we want to be doing more of in the future. We have to in order to maintain credibility. But we’re not there yet with everything. We’re just building the website now. Startups can be a little rocky, and we all know there will be bumps along the way.

Tell us a bit about the type of stories and flavor we can expect. This will be targeted to people in the Philly region, but the content will be more national consumer, gadget, geek and tech orientated. Is that correct?

Yes, that’s correct.

We do have a “Comunidades” section — in the first issue it’s about a computer program in a low-income neighborhood in Philly.

And in our “Gente” — “People” — section, we profile two Philadelphians who are using technology or just geekiness in interesting ways. So those categories will often have a local feel.

Beyond that, though, we’re very open to national issues. We do have discrete sections: social media, gaming, gadgets, that kind of thing. And we have events listings. We’re just beginning to develop a voice and point of view.

We want readers to tell us what they want and what they don’t.

You were a senior editor at Philly Weekly but certainly took a more front-stage approach with your popular ‘Trouble with Spikol‘ column (which gained notoriety for dealing so bluntly with your own struggle with a mental disorder). Will we see you taking a similar active editorial role with Tek Lado?

For the first issue, I wrote a column for our Spanglish section, and I plan to contribute to that section frequently. I’ll also be blogging every day on our website. But I’m happy to find myself a little more in the background with this project. I think locals are probably tired of hearing about my shpilkis.

Below, watch Spikol tell one of her more famous stories of dealing with mental illness.

Every Friday, Technically Philly brings you an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia s technology community. See others here.

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.

DEFINITE READS

• Ars Technica reports that Sen. Al Franken, perhaps the most vocal critic of the NBC deal, again voiced his frustration with the proposed deal.
• Broadcasting & Cable reports that Comcast outlined its program access philosophy to regulators of its NBC deal. H/T Philly Tech News
• The Wall Street Journal reports on the last minute bombarding of the FCC by Comcast opponents regarding the NBC deal. [Paywall]

Below, is Hulu headed toward an IPO, a Philly product rollout and more.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• The Wall Street Journal says Comcast ownership of NBC won’t deter TV show ’30 Rock’ from poking fun at its parent company.
• The New York Times reports that Hulu could be ready for an IPO, news for a service that NBC owns nearly a third of.
• The Washington Post has a feature on ‘the FCC and the bandwidth wars.’
• The Comcast blog pledges its intention to offer Blackberry and other smart phone options for its mobile DVR controlling applications, which currently exist on iPhones and other Apple devices.
• Lightreading reports that Comcast is using hometown Philadelphia as one of the first markets for its switched digital video, an option to limit its broadband use.

GIVE A GLANCE

• The LA Times reports that former Walt Disney Co. CEO Michael Eisner and Comcast programming chief Jeff Shell are in the running to lead the Tribune Co. after bankruptcy.
• Trading Markets reports that Comcast was highlighted by Latina Style Magazine as one of the country’s 50 companies offering the most employment opportunities for Hispanics for the fourth consecutive year.
• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Comcast has taken a lease on 43,000 square feet at the Bell Atlantic Tower on Arch Street near 17th Street.
• The Comcast blog has a video interview with Boston Globe technology columnist Hiawatha Bray.
• The Jersey Journal reports that some Comcast subscribers there will need new cable boxes for a digital upgrade.

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

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.

DEFINITE READS

• Updated  7/9/10 @ 9:04 a.m.: The Los Angeles Times reports that Comcast has promised $20 million in investment capital for minority-owned businesses as a condition of its deal for NBC.
• Los Angeles Times Company Town blog reports that Comcast has reached an agreement with CBS, ABC and Fox stations over its proposed acquisition of NBC, hoping to eas regulatory approval.
• A Forbes blog speculates on why Netflix should be an $82 stock, comparing it with Comcast.
• Visiting Princeton University Law Professor Susan Crawford writes on her blog about a Comcast-NBC deal public filing from NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, who reported the organization fears further consolidation would allow Comcast unfair control for local sports.
• The Huffington Post has a piece on net neutrality and how Comcast inspired one activist for the cause.

Below, net neutrality lobbyists, Comcast works with the Banana Republic on ‘Mad Men’ wear and more.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Reuters reports that small deals are the trend for media players at the decades-old media elite Sun Valley summit, a trend in contrast to the continued buzz around regulatory approval of the Comcast-NBC acquisition. The Los Angeles Times also reports on the summit in Idaho.
• As reported in our VC Roundup, Comcast Interactive Capital was part of a $17 million investment in Plymouth Meeting healthcare services provider Accolade.
• The Washington Post reports on an analysis suggesting about as many lobbyists are being hired to defend net neutrality as those lobbying against the FCC measure.

GIVE A GLANCE

• The New York Times Media Decoder blog reports that Comcast is co-sponsoring Banana Republic ‘Mad Men’ shopping events.
• Light Reading reports that expansion of Comcast’s AnyRoom DVR service is launching in 20 markets, the nearest to Philadelphia being western Massachusetts. H/T Philly Tech News
• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports Comcast has pledged an increase in Hispanic programming, employees, business relationships and other initiatives if the NBC deal is approved.
• Recordnet reports that Comcast prices are rising in northern California. The Seattle Times and the Spokesman Review reports the same for Washington state.

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