Local e-commerce firm WebLinc doubles sales for retail lighting site

In the world of residential lighting sales, online retail is a small piece of a much bigger pot. But thanks to some Philadelphia technology, a major retail lighting outlet is focusing more effort online and seeing impressive returns.

Old City-based WebLinc, which is housed above National Mechanics — the bar that the web developers also own — recently helped Southeast U.S. lighting company Progressive Lighting launch an e-commerce platform to show off its extensive selection of lighting.

Since the launch of LightsOnline.com in April WebLinc’s e-commerce technology has increased conversion by 91 percent, doubling online sales, Progressive Lighting director of e-commerce Jon Eggleton says.

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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.

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Philadelphia to apply for Google’s experimental ultra-high speed broadband

It wasn’t at a press conference or inside the Inquirer editorial boardroom. The city’s announcement to join the rush for Google’s ultra-high speed fiber broadband came during a few minutes of a presentation, backed by dense slides at a technology community event inside a rock venue.

“Let’s light this joint up,” city Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank said, throwing his hands in the air and walking off stage at the fifth Ignite Philly, seemingly surprised by the cheers and laughs the slide earned.

The announcement at Johnny Brenda’s last night, a bar filled with mostly 20 and 30-somethings, came 10 months after Frank first unveiled his $100 million city technology investment vision to Refresh Philly, another young, hip, technology community event staple. Technically Philly urged continued involvement by the community and Frank and, in many ways, that’s continued.

The decision marks something of a marriage between likely the city’s two most prominent officials whom have hands in the region’s technology community: the son of a former mayor and, as City Councilman Bill Green put it last night, “the baddest ass CTO of any city, Allan Frank.”

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Events highlights for the week of July 6 – July 12, 2009

Oh jeez, it’s Monday already.

All in favor of giving the city that can claim to be the birthplace of this nation an extra day off for Independence Day say “aye.”

Great. Now that we gave ourselves an extra day for the weekend, you’ll be delighted to know that this week’s calendar features BBQs, hacking and happy hours galore.

Refresh Philly is taking a short break from trying to solve our city government’s technology problems to get together for a happy hour at Triumph. Come for the fellowship, stay to measure the huge brewing equipment to see if you can fit it in your basement.

The happy hours continue on Wednesday with Center City district‘s Sips event. PANMA and various marketing groups will be on hand to help you join the association that is right for you on what is the self-proclaimed “happiest happy hour.”

You will have to finish working on your time machine by Thursday as Philly Startup Leaders host a BBQ (previous coverage here) at the same time the Philly Cocoa Heads hold their monthly meetup.

And on Saturday, cap it all off with relaxing stroll through The Hacktory at the group’s Open Hack event.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.
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Events highlights for the week of June 29 – July 5, 2009

When there’s only a handful of events in the region, it makes this job easy. But the truth is, we prefer a challenge.

Unfortunately, there’s only a few events scattered on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. But hey, this way, you have practically no excuse to miss any.

On Tuesday, the Philly Ruby enthusiasts of Philly.rb bring back their popular Hack Night, where you sit in comfy chairs, plop your laptop next to your latte, and get cracking on yours and others project hurdles.

SEO Grail meets Tuesday with a talk from Web development company Goldstein Media LLC’s Seth Goldstein to discuss, what else? How to massage the Google.

The following day, DreamIt Ventures will show race film “Truth in 24.” The film has all you could ask for in a race film: action, adventure, drama and not a single sign of Vin Diesel. Oh yeah, and NFL Films Director of Project Management Alan M. Brown will be there to discuss how it all went down.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.
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Events highlights for the week of June 1 – June 7, 2009

Now that summer is upon us, it’s getting harder to stay tethered to our computers.

Assuming the feeling is mutual, while we’re not expecting you to spend your evenings relaxing in parks or sipping cocktails on sidewalk cafes, we are sayin’ it’s an excuse to get to some local tech events.

There’s something going on every day of this week, if you have an hour (or five) to spare.

On Monday, Refresh Philly is brainstorming up ways to improve Philly with special guests Johnny Goldstein of Envizualize and Livia Labate of IA Design Games to help smooth out the process and explain how they get their ideas out on paper.

Tuesday, talk mobile apps for social change with the Net Tuesday crew, but don’t get too hippie-dippy on us. Web Analytics Wednesday is flying in two speakers from behavioral analytics firm Quantivo to discuss the obvious.

Drexel’s 2009 Entrepreneur Conference happens Thursday, an all-day event with a great lineup of speakers there to talk all things innovation and business.

Finally, on Saturday don’t miss HigherEdCamp, which we covered late last month. After hosting our own BarCamp unconference, we have high expectations for this meetup about all things post-secondary education.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.
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Events highlights for the week of May 25 – May 31, 2009

While you rested in your Memorial Day beverage- and feast-induced slumber, we couldn’t wait to wake up this morning and get cracking on this week’s event highlights.

Why? Because we love you. Not to mention we’re hoping to check out of here by noon, planning to feed off of leftovers in days to come, and reveling in the relaxation that comes with a four-day work week.

That said, we can’t stress enough that you drop in on one of Philadelphia’s many tech events this week. Not next week when you will be backbreakingly re-entrenched at work. No siree. We’re talking about this week, when you are truly appreciating the humidity and the slowed pace of life for the very first and last time this summer and will end up feeling guilty for not getting out there while you can.

We’re anxious to see how the The New Voice of Business kick-off party will go, what, with Mayor Nutter dropping in for the festivities. We’re as skeptical as the next guy about Philadelphia actually becoming the greenest city in America, but hell, let’s let loose Tuesday.

Speaking of letting loose, let’s drop your WordPress into fourth gear and truly get it pumping on the search engine internerds. SEO Grail has blog and new media consultant Michael Klusek to talk about how to mod the heck out of that out-of-box blogging experience. 409, baby.

And last, to echo our love of all things grilled, Philly Startup Leaders is organizing a committee to help plan its first-ever BBQ. Pass the Heinz and a sesame-seed level fund. Holy, we did not just say that. Technically Philly out. Hit the jump for more details.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.
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Old City Shooters wants state help to develop digital film production in Philadelphia

The Curtis Building in Old City, home of post-production company Shooters Post and Transfer

Updated 5/15/09 3:08 p.m.

Sometime in the 1990s, Ray Carballada was thinking of moving a Cherry Hill-based post-production company to New York City.

Instead, he did something strange. He moved it here.

“Then, there was something special, something different about being in Philadelphia,” says Carballada.”It was part of our draw.”

Dave West, Jay Hartidain and Craig Needlamn started Shooters in 1981 in Cherry Hill, where they still have an office. But the crown jewel of Philadelphia’s post-production community is housed in Old City at the old Curtis Building, once part of Philadelphia’s global publishing nerve center. in 1981 in Cherry Hill, where they still have an office. But the crown jewel of Philadelphia’s post-production community is housed in Old City at the old

And, so, whether Carballada likes it or not, he’s become something of an activist in support of $75 million worth of suddenly tenuous annual state tax credits for film production.

The city’s place as a growing home to the screen could depend on it.

Last week, another hearing of the state Tourism and Recreation committeeas the Inquirer reported. The state Senate approved a budget that cut $400 million worth of tax credits, including those aimed at the film industry, as KYW reported Friday. went through a variety of proposals aimed at postponing or tossing out the credits,

If those cuts pass the House, Carballada says the state’s film industry is in trouble.
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Events highlights for the week of May 11 – May 17, 2009

Hello, newly sunny Philadelphia, that’s a hell of a farmer’s tan you’ve got there.

Let’s keep that weekend energy going with our region’s active tech community. Half of our highlights are straight outta West Philly. It’s not bias, we swear! But if you just refuse to do anything West of the Schuylkill, our events calendar would be happy to schedule an appointment for you.

On Saturday and Sunday, help University City with some GPS mapping. The folks at Philly OpenStreetMap realized long ago that Google might one day threaten our existence so they’re mapping the world until it happens. How else are you gonna find the way to good Chinese restaurant when the Goog steals your identity and shuts down Maps?

Wednesday, academia will sign-up for Second Life, get harassed by creepy dudes and annoying tweens, and beg for a way to get the heck out of there while still applying some of those virtual concepts to higher education. With Wharton hosting, it might be a little smarter than our summary.

Monday, IndyHall will host a PHP Meetup featuring Sigurd Magnusson of Silverstripe, an open source CMS for the WordPress haters out there. Magnusson will even be taking feature requests, so give him some advice or he’ll ignore your feedback when the next version hits.

Philly Office Geeks are trying to spread the word about social media in the business community on Tuesday. It might be a clever attempt at getting network privileges for Facebook in the office, but we’d bet there’s a little more too it than that.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.
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