Forget Snooki, Old City is overrun with techies

Philadelphia Magazine’s September cover story by Richard Rys documents an Old City in transition—and not a pretty one. A neighborhood once thriving with artists, entertainment and prominent restaurateurs turns into a bad episode of Jersey Shore on weekends, the writer contends.

But that’s not the Old City we know. By day, the historic neighborhood has become something of a Web development and technology startup haven. Earlier this year, as city technology leaders prepared Philadelphia’s bid for Google’s ultra high-speed broadband Internet pilot, it was Old City that was chosen as one of the city’s potential technology hubs, for the diverse technologists that live and work there.

Here’s our look at what still sparkles in Old City…

Read the rest at Philly Post.

Help Philly represent at SXSW 2011: a voter’s guide

As any techie knows, the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin is like Woodstock for the tech world and getting your own panel at the event is sure sign that you’ve “made it.”

Philly has been well-represented at the trend-setting event as the city even had its own session in 2010, led by the founders of Independents Hall.

However, SXSW panels don’t just happen overnight, they are subject to a six-month long process where the selection committee sifts though thousands of proposed panels to choose the lucky few that get time at the conference. The first part of that panel section process involves a “panel picker” where the community can vote on the panels they’d most like to see, and some local Philadelphians need your help to make it to the big stage next March.

After the jump, see the panels that have been submitted by locals and throw a vote their way to help Philly continue its strong presence in Austin for SXSW 2011. Oh, and you better hurry. Voting closes on the 27th at 1 p.m.

Read more

Event Highlights: July 19 – July 24, 2010

Summer is in full swing, Philadelphia. In the whirlwind of carnivals, neighborhood barbecues and family vacations, don’t forget about this week’s events calendar. It’s chock-full of events you won’t want to miss and deciding which one to attend is tricky, so let us help.

We have your busy summer schedule in mind, dear reader, and we’ve chosen this week’s top three events to ensure you’re always in the loop. Kick your week off right with a summer bash hosted by Philly Startup Leaders. Then, chat about social networking and get all your health insurance questions answered.

Read more

Independents Hall gets back to work, experiences growing pains

Independents Hall co-founders Geoff DiMasi (left) and Alex Hillman speak at the coworking space's Town Hall.

Independents Hall co-founders Geoff DiMasi and Alex Hillman just came right out and said it.

“We suck at putting these things on often enough,” said Hillman to a crowd of roughly 30 members of the coworking space that were crammed into the building’s northern wing.

Hillman and DiMasi where speaking at Indy Hall’s third town hall, an informal gathering where the coworking space updates its members and interested public on news pertaining to the space while providing an update of the plans of the Indy Hall leadership.

Yesterday evening, Hillman and DiMasi shared some new policies to help Indy Hall deal with its ballooning membership, new security protocols to address recent thefts and a pledge to return Indy Hall to a hub of social and professional events.

“I feel we haven’t done a great job in returning to the cultural aspects that made Indy Hall awesome,” said Hillman.

Read more

SUMO Heavy Industries, Bart Mroz and crew building new e-commerce development firm

If Bart Mroz was pushed to give you a piece of advice, it just might be to limit yourself.

The founder of the recently re-branded SUMO Heavy Industries says a lot of firms doing web work get caught up in trying to do too many things and come up short doing them well.

“We started as a web development company that did all kinds of things like brochure sites and app development for different clients,” Mroz tells Technically Philly. “Then we decided to only do e-commerce work — the best decision that we made.”

In March 2008, Mroz co-founded round3media and by last November, Mroz had learned his greatest skills were focusing strictly on e-commerce site development. After his two partners in round3 wanted to work on different projects, Mroz started anew, launching e-commerce heavy SUMO with new partner Robert Brodie and creative director John Suder.

With a new name and a freshly announced, local client, Mroz is — and forgive us for this — entering the dohyō and fighting to build his company’s name as the top e-commerce development company in the region.

Read more

Phillymag hearts our technology community

The June issue of Philadelphia magazine puts the technology, investment and entrepreneurial communities of Philadelphia on full display.

The Phillymag feature led with an Editor Larry Platt-penned profile on King of Prussia VC military man Mike Burns, of Guggenheim Venture Partners — as of Monday night, the piece didn’t seem to be available online.

The piece was interspersed with pieces on three groups we’ve been so proud of helping bring to the forefront — “the funders, like GoodCompany Ventures and DreamIT Ventures; “the scenesters” like Indy Hall, Philly Startup Leaders, Roz Duffy and others and “the startups” like Azavea and 123LinkIt.

During the past year, we’ve seen a growing number of legacy media stories covering our areas of interest. It’s the collision of a number of factors, not the least of which is the growing awareness around the richness of our communities.

(The edition also included a profile of a more professional segment of the rich DIY movement afoot, though, like the Burns profile, the link doesn’t yet seem to be live.)

We might even humbly suggest Technically Philly’s 16-month existence — with many a story left untold — is further evidence of that.

[Full Disclosure: We write weekly about the technology and innovation communities for the Philly Post daily blog from Phillymag.]

Innovation Philadelphia to go back to the drawing board

Founding CEO Richard Bendis will take over Innovation Philadelphia temporarily

Update: clarified Bendis’ title.

Innovation Philadelphia, the economic development group with the mission to “attract and retain young professionals” is starting from scratch.

On April 16th, IP announced that CEO Kelly Lee, organizer of the GCECS conference last October, was stepping down. Three full-time staffers were also let go as the Board of Directors – all unpaid volunteers – will take the next 90 days to assess the future direction of the organization.

“It is not about saving an organization,” board chariman Richard Bendis told Technically Philly in an interview. “It’s about how can value be added to region. If IP can do that in some capacity, great.”

The reason for the reshuffling? Innovation Philadelphia’s funding, which depends largely on grants, has dried up.

Read more

Friday Q&A: Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital

Josh Kopelman is angry.

When Technically Philly pops into his office, the normally cheery venture capitalist is busy trying to figure out why First Round Capital’s email service is down.

“They say six minutes of downtime,” he says. “but they’re way over that.”

After a brief phone conversation (he would later blog about the downtime) he immediately returns to his normal upbeat demeanor and for good reason: Kopelman is one of four founding partners of one of the most active early-stage investment companies in the country. The firm has become as much of a brand as the companies it invests in, boasting the most-visited VC site on the web.

Located in a small, nondescript office building in West Conshohocken, the firm has expanded to San Francisco and will open its New York City offices next week, giving it a headquarters in two of the largest technology communities. The firm is setting a new standard in investment by making a high number of smaller, early stage investments while nurturing companies from the ground up.

First Round, however, is just the latest chapter in the Wharton grad’s career. Kopelman, a New York native, started Internet information company Infonautics while still in college and almost didn’t stay in Philadelphia.

“Once you have 17 people in the company with mortgages and me without, that pressured me to stay,” he says, “Then I grew attached to the area, built networks and planted some roots here and started Half.com.”

Since then, Philly has treated him well: Kopelman and his partners sold Half.com to eBay for $350 million in 2000, giving Philadelphia one its biggest tech “wins” in the Web 1.0 times. After starting and selling Turntide to Symantec in less than a year, Kopelman switched from entrepreneur to investor, making Philadelphia home to one of the most influential Internet investment firms in the world.

We sat down with Kopelman to talk about his take on Philadelphia, what kinds of companies he looks for and why Philly (and every other city) has no comparison.

Read more

Philly invades South by Southwest

Indy Hall founders Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi lead "How Geeks Grabbed Philadelphia by the Balls."

AUSTIN – In the Courtyard Rio Grande Hotel, just across the street from the Austin Convention Center, BarCamp Philly organizers Roz Duffy and Kelani Nichole walked up the escalator with a burlap sack and hustled down the hall.

“It’s our bag of balls,” said Duffy with a smile.

Culminating Philly’s strong presence here (TP has seen our share of Phillies caps and jerseys) was the Saturday session “How Geeks Grabbed Philadelphia by the Balls,” a panel led by Indy Hall co-founders Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi that aimed to help residents from other cities foster a tech community.

Read more

Community launches support portal for Google gigabit fiber

Philadelphia’s tech community is looking for your support to bring Google to our backyard.

After announcing last week its intent to apply to be a test bed for Google’s ultra-high speed fiber, city officials have collaborated with community developers to launch an external initiative to drum up buzz for its proposal.

Working at Independents Hall over the weekend, the groups helped launch a portal - at gigabitphilly.com - that solicits feedback from local users to help fulfill Google’s Request For Information. The page drives home Philadelphia’s notability as a “city of firsts,” much like it would be for Google’s broadband pilot program.

Read more