Shop Talk: The Planning Collective wants to make Philly beautiful

Updated: clarified city’s role

In the city’s never-ending battle between bicyclists, pedestrians and automobiles, The Planning Collective wants to offer a reason for truce.

As Philebrity posted yesterday, The Planning Collective isn’t some official city organization, but a group of seven Penn grads that think the city could make better use of its space, especially vacant lots.

The for-profit company’s latest effort is to make the 12th and Morris intersection with Passyunk avenue into a pedestrian plaza. And they plan on doing it with funding from Pepsi through its Refresh project (vote here).

The Refresh Project is the soft drink company’s campaign to have customers vote on projects that help “refresh their community.” For a proposal to be awarded the cash, it in the top ten of its category at the end of the month. The Planning Collective is gunning to be eligible for the $50,000 grant for May.

“We are committed to changing the way things happen in Philadelphia,” says Clint Randall, one of the company’s co-founders. “We wanted to plan projects that were a little out of the box.”

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Technically Not Tech: Midtown Lunch invades Philadelphia

Update: Added blogger interview.

Let the record show that Technically Philly has two immediate reactions to MidtownLunch.com, the blog that aims to showcase cool places to eat during your lunch break for under 10 bucks:

1. Wonderful idea, a man can only go to Wawa so many times for lunch.
2. “Midtown?” C’mon now.

The site, originating from The 67th Ward, first expanded to downtown Manhatten and on January 13th expanded to Philly. The site is popular among Manhatten-ites, even landing coverage in The New York Times . According to Compete.com data, Midtown Lunch’s traffic (which is presumably is mostly due to its NYC content) is more than most of its new Philly competition, even the ones with an established presence in The 67th Ward.

The site author, Jamie (she prefers not to give her last name) is from Flushing and has taken the trip down the turnpike to go to law school (though she won’t disclose which one).

“I just really dislike going to generic [lunch] places,” she said in a phone interview with Technically Philly.

Jamie did her undergrad in the state and said she was always visiting friends in the city while at college. She maintained her own food blog and was profiled by Midtown Lunch before becoming the site’s Philly writer. She said hopes to make Midtown Lunch an outlet where people can find a “more fun lunch for people that work in the city for under ten dollars.”

But will the site’s Philadelphia section catch on here, where food blogs are as abundant as Phillies hats?

We explore using the same +/- rating system that the site uses in reviewing restaurants:

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Avencia’s Walkshed hits NYC BigApps Contest, asks for public vote

It’s a long walk from Callowhill to the 67th ward.

But Avencia, the geographic analysis and software development firm, is bringing Walkshed, its web application that uses advanced technology to calculate and map walkability, to New York City.

Avencia’s Aaron Ogle first developed the application for Philadelphia, as we previously reported, but now, using open government data from New York, the company has developed a version for the five boroughs and submitted it into the much publicized BigApps Contest, a municipally-sponsored initiative asking for software applicants that use the city’s NYC Data Mine.

Winners can receive $20,000 in cash prizes and a strategic lunch meeting with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

BigApps winners will be determined by a panel of judges, in addition to a public vote that runs until Jan. 7. Vote for Avencia’s Walkshed NYC, which may be the only Philadelphia applicant, here. A free registration is required. Currently Walkshed is in the running for first place.

Below, video from the October event in Manhattan that kicked off the competition.

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Technically Not Tech: McJawn magazine’s quest to take over the world

The scholars at Urban Dictionary define “jawn” as “a word used by Philly cats to describe anything and everything.”

It’s almost as Philadelphian as the cheesesteak. Example: “Hey, hand me that jawn.” Or, “Later this month I’m going to the Geekadelphia and Technically Philly jawn.”

Which makes the word more than fitting for the namesake of the up-start Philadelphia arts and culture magazine McJawn.

Founded by Wen Vo and Yis Goodwin in the Summer of 2008, McJawn’s content ranges from the art on local bathroom stalls to what its like to spend time in a Philadelphia jail, and its blog has become a barometer of the Philly arts and music subculture.

Oh, and did we mention they are hatching plans to take over the 67th ward?
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Verizon takes steps to adding new local channel

Hold on to your clunky digital cable boxes Philadelphia, because a good old-fashioned capitalist throwdown is brewing between local cable giant Comcast and its feisty competitor Verizon.

You may remember that Verizon received approval from City Council earlier this year to build a $1 billion FiOS network in the city. According to the company’s franchise agreement with the city, it will fully cover the city in FiOS within seven years with initial service offerings beginning by the end of 2009.

If recent moves by Verizon in the 67th ward are a sign of things to come, Verizon may be challenging the cable giant’s Comcast Network news channel as well.
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