PHILO makes TV more social, Penn grads drawn to other cities

The three founders of an application aiming to interject social media into TV watching got an education in Philadelphia but their addresses — and the buzz surrounding their startup — are in the familiar bi-coastal entertainment hubs.

As the web has buzzed for some time now, PHILO is a web and iPhone application that has its users ‘tune in’ to the TV programs they are watching in the same way Foursquare users ‘check in’ to physical locations, then pushing a conversation discussing shows in a “newsfeed-like conversation” as Mashable put it.

Like others before them, the three founders put time in at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in the 1990s but don’t call the region home. CEO David Levy, who also heads the Wharton Angel Network, and CTO Carter Page are in New York City, and Greg Goldman calls Los Angeles home.

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Comcast Roundup: Brian Roberts checking Manhattan real estate, Time Warner comparisons and more

DEFINITE READS

• NewTeeVee dives into research analysis comparing Comcast to Time Warner Cable, another giant that became a media behemoth in a less-than-perfect merger.
• MarketWatch details the paywall-protected reporting from the Wall Street Journal that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is shopping a $7-$12 million Manhattan condominium. …It’s either a place to rest after dropping in on his prospective NBC subsidiary or a way to contrast the Center City condo he should get instead.
• Ars Technica goes deeper into U.S. Senator Herb Kohl D-Wisc. and his call for Comcast to pull out of Hulu ownership via NBC within a year of the merger in order to earn government approval. H/T Philly Tech News

Below, an LA NBC regulatory meeting, supporting Philadelphia boosterism and more.

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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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Venture Beat East Coast technology tour skips Philadelphia

Remember that flurry of excitement earlier this year after Philly Startup Leaders co-founder Blake Jennelle helped stir up a conversation on why Philadelphia had to be among the five most emerging entrepreneurial markets in the country.

It might be important to note that while the region itself is working hard to develop a consensus on its direction, the destination of the Philadelphia startup is hardly accepted more universally.

As if we needed another reminder, VentureBeat wrote on a East Coast tour of technology communities: Washington D.C. to Boston, with a New York City in the middle, but not a stop in Philadelphia to be found — even if trains and the highways all take them our way. Now, Baltimore may take issue with all of this too, but even partners in locally-founded investment companies are talking about the67thward.

As VB’s DemoBeat wrote: “We’ll be back on the road over the next few months, to continue our search for more entrepreneurs intent on changing the world with their technologies.”

Maybe they’ll come our way then.

Friday Q&A: Garrett Melby, CEO of Good Company Ventures

Good Company Ventures' panel in NYC. From left to right: Scott Edward Anderson, aka “The Green Skeptic,” Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Jacob Gray of Murex Investments, Roger Ehrenberg of IA Venture Strategies and Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund.

Edit: added audience questions attribution

Last month, at a co-working space in New York City’s Tribecca neighborhood, Philly took over.

There, Good Company Ventures CEO Garrett Melby and COO Christopher Bentley kicked off the incubator’s 2010 class in New York City with a star-studded (for the VC world, anyway) panel about social entrepreneurship that included Union Square Ventures co-founder Fred Wilson and Acumen co-founder Jacqueline Novogratz.

The event marked the start of broad campaign by Good Company Ventures to promote their incubator for social entrepreneurs and helped Philly make its case as the country-wide hub of the social entrepreneurs movement.

We sat down with Melby, who spoke at this month’s Ignite Philly,  to talk about invading the 67th Ward, the incubator’s future plans and why he only has 70 Twitter followers.

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VC Roundup: GoodCompany goes to NYC, ETF changes name

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we�ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup�as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please�drop us a line.

DEFINITE READS

GoodCompany Ventures is kicking off a handful of events up and down the east coast to discuss the social good of entrepreneurship and to raise awareness about the fund’s 2010 incubator. First up: The 67th Ward. The panel will be moderated by Fred Wilson, founder of Union Square Ventures and well-read VC blogger. The fund promises Technically Philly that a Philly event is in the works, but for now we’ll be at the NYC edition. So if you managed to snag tickets, be sure to say hello.

Tengion, a Quaker BioVentures backed company is raising money for an IPO.

ETF Ventures has changed its name to SeventySix Capital. Presumably because of the company’s West Conshohocken location right off of the Schuylkill Expressway. Or, as another theory suggests, they’re big basketball fans.

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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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