Curbed.com: new Philly outpost of real estate blog network from NYC to be led by Liz Spikol

The competitive real estate and built environment news community of Philadelphia has a new player.

Curbed.com, the New York City based blog network, which also has regional versions in nine other markets, today launches Philly.Curbed.com. The local site will be edited by Liz Spikol, the former Philadelphia Weekly columnist and editor of the now defunct Hispanic tech magazine Tek Lado.

“Curbed marries an obsession with real estate and neighborhoods with wit and entertainment,” said Spikol. “It’s fun.”

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Going Postal: Penn GIS student Evan Kalish creates community around U.S. Postal Service, an early innovator

Evan Kalish

For much of its 220 year history, the U.S. Postal Service was something of a technology company: speeding communication and commerce through innovation, says postal geek Evan Kalish.

Today, in batch machines that can process 40,000 pieces of mail per hour, some 95 percent of handwritten addresses are properly dispatched by OCR technology, the 25 year old student in Penn’s master of urban spatial analytics program.

“[The machines work] from the ZIP code first, then to the address and select the proper street from the limited number of options available, tagging them with the bar codes that you can see on the bottom of first-class letters you receive. Human operators resolve the rest of the addresses remotely,” said Kalish, who lives in University City. “With Delivery Point Sequencing, another machine properly sort the mail for dozens of carriers in proper delivery order, based on their routes, with just two passes of the mail through the system.”

From today to the first ‘fully automated post office‘ back to the pneumatic mail tubes of the past, Kalish, a native of Queens, N.Y., has discovered new corners of the world’s original modern national postal system while writing his popular Going Postal blog, which has been profiled by Time magazine, the Washington Post, BBC and NPR.

All the stories use young Kalish as something of a juxtaposition for growing news of inevitable cutbacks at the U.S. Postal Service. While no doubt an important issue to Kalish, he says the best he can do is grow interest in what remains an impressive organization.

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Nutterbook: blog from Conrad Benner tracks the hilarious, absurd comments on Mayor Nutter’s Facebook page

If nothing else, a hastily launched blog can speak to a moment in time.

This weekend, local street artist devotee Conrad Benner launched Nutterbook, which highlights the more memorable comments on Mayor Michael Nutter’s Facebook page. Simple enough that it might be confused with the inane, instead, Nutterbook is a fun way to follow a communication tool still in its infancy, said Benner, 26, who also runs StreetsDept.com, dubbed the ‘Huffington Post of Philly street art‘ and made famous for following a subway ‘yarn-bombing.’

Visit Nutterbook here.

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DrinkPhilly.com launches new features, including dedicated events listings

After announcing a three-city expansion in September, Old City-based TheDrinkNation.com and its related mobile app have launched a slew of new features, including a pitch for event submissions, in an effort to grow a robust events listings calendar.

See a blog post from the nightlife news site here and the press release here.

NBC 10 to partner with WHYY in one of four new Comcast pledged local news initiatives

Four NBC affiliates will partner with nonprofit news organizations in those markets, as the New York Times reports, in another initiative Comcast brass pledged to the FCC in the cable operator’s takeover of the storied entertainment brand.

Locally, NBC 10 will partner with WHYY, the region’s Old City based public media outfit.

In January, the planned project to bolster local news was first heralded as a noteworthy tradeoff for the consoidation of two large content and delivery companies. The model was due to follow an existing partnership in San Diego between voiceofsandiego.org and KNSD, which, as Poynter reported, “cooperate to produce regular fact-checking segments, explainers on public policy and other features.”

The details of the partnership between WHYY and NBC 10 have not been made fully clear.

In July, NBC 10 put out a request for proposals to partner with nonprofit news organizations in the region.

Inquirer business columnist Joseph N. DiStefano on Philly tech [Friday Q&A]

With the pressure of updating a daily news blog in addition to his regular column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist Joseph N. DiStefano says that the biggest change over the last few years in the newspaper offices at 400 N. Broad is acceleration.

“It’s a lot easier to get a hold of key documents and get answers to a lot of basic questions online,” says DiStefano, who pens the Inky’s PhillyDeals column.

“But reporting is reporting. News is information that someone else wants to suppress.”

DiStefano has the gruff exterior one might expect of a veteran newspaper columnist who writes hard news about regional business.

“I used to tell CEOs that if you’re indicted, I will cheerfully write that story on page one. Not to celebrate indictment, but because we have the space there,” he says. “It’s an adversarial role.”

Since 2007, DiStefano’s distinct attitude has been on display in that column, which covers a broad range of business topics, including development and real estate, finance and Philadelphia’s technology community.

DiStefano, who grew up on the Main Line, has been in the reporting business since 1988, when he was looking for a steady line of work after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and U.S. history.

He’s gone on to report finance at Bloomberg and in 2005, published Comcasted, about Comcast’s cable strategy, all while he and his wife were raising six kids.

After the jump, we ask to borrow DiStefano’s crib notes for business and technology reporting in Philadelphia.

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Greg Osberg: one year since takeover, Philadelphia newspapers are stronger, technology initiatives succeeding

Thirteen months since being named publisher and CEO of the Philadelphia Media Network, Greg Osberg addressed the local Online News Association chapter Wednesday, updating the industry on the company’s direction.

The first half of that year was focused on stabilizing the core print products — the Inquirer and the Daily News — and the second half featured a flurry of technology-infused initiatives meant to begin reshaping the legacy news operation. Those latter initiatives largely fit under the Project Liberty umbrella, which include the much hyped Android tablet project and the incubation program.

The event, which was part of the local ONA’s monthly meetups and was held at the Inquirer building, featured a short speech and Q&A session with Osberg. [Full disclosure: This reporter is involved in the local ONA group.]

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Poptent: videographer social network with Conshohocken office expands, is hiring [VIDEO]

For those who gauge startup success by ‘traction,’ Mark Schoneveld says Poptent might be the region’s biggest web 2.0 success story.

Poptent, which hosts contests for brands for its community of video creators to make viral marketing videos, has continued to grow since launching in 2007, welcoming new users and bigger companies. It is hiring in Conshohocken, including engineers and social media savvy community leaders, and, adds Poptent Director of Community Schoneveld, the company has reached a positive cash flow, is now up to 40,000 registered users and is about to cross $3 million in creator payouts.

“What we started doing was totally experimental. Brands were getting used to crowd sourcing and giving up control,” said Schoneveld. “We’ve been at the forefront of crowdsourcing for years and now we’re taking it new places.”

The company takes a fee from big brands — like Southwest Airlines, Netflix, Anheuser Busch, Quiznos and others — and negotiates a rate for commercial video production, putting the bid out to its open community or specific members.

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G-Town Radio community web broadcaster grows to 22 shows and a full-time hire

Last week, G-Town Radio, the upstart Germantown-based Internet radio station run by music and radio enthusiast Jim Bear announced that it’s picking up steam.

According to a news update announcing a $5,000 funding drive, in 2011, the organization was granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status (hence, the drive), it launched its documentary project Sounds of Germantown and its looking to hire a full-time worker in 2012.

The organization also expanded programming and partnerships:

Every single candidate for City Council’s 8th district came in for interviews and we partnered with WHYY’s Newsworks to present and broadcast a debate between all seven democratic candidates. Our live programming also increased to twenty-two shows each week covering a broad array of topics from under exposed music to personal finance to social justice.

We’ve published a number of stories about the organization, but two profiles stand out: one published in May 2009, and a follow-on profile published a year later.

To donate, follow the instructions here.

Occupy Philly photoblog captures more than ’99 Faces, 99 Signs,’ from Michael Bixler

The local outpost of the Occupy movement, the wide-ranging, peaceful uprising turned tent city, has made fine use of the social web for connecting groups around the world. Most viscerally though, the weeks-long demonstration is captured by a sea of people and their signs — messages inscribed for a soundless moment.

Michael Bixler is seeking to bring those local moments back to the web, by way of his straight forward Tumblr 99 Faces, 99 Signs.

The Point Breeze freelance writer, photographer and videographer was motivated to capture Occupy Philly after he and his girlfriend visited the Wall Street demonstrations on their seventh day.

Now it’s gone much further than he had planned.

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