Technically Philly is a news site covering technology news in Philadelphia.
The biggest example to date of contest-driven technology submissions for making government better hasn’t gone Philadelphia’s way.
Callowhill-based GIS software firm Avencia was Philadelphia’s lone representative in software application contest NYC BigApps, hosted by that city’ s government and aimed to foster more transparency and accountability. It didn’t turn out as they hoped.
What was trending in Philadelphia Thursday night on Twitter. Click to enlarge.
Tracking the dominant conversations in Philadelphia’s Twitter communities has gotten quite a bit easier.
As the microblogging rock star announced on its company blog this week, in addition to tracking what phrases, words and hashtags are being most frequently used worldwide at a given time on Twitter, the trends can now be localized to 15 cities, including Philadelphia, or one of six countries.
This gives you the option to see while, yes, last night the top trending item in Philadelphia was stimulating conversation over the meme ‘I’m not the type to…,” the worldwide conversation trended more to “Best Sex songs.”
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.
After the jump, more World Series economic impact math, you’re going to be hired in health care and ten more stories to chew on, including our best read piece of the week and a video pick me up.
Aside from being jealous of our World Series rings, New York is also envious of our state’s spending on incubators, specifically BFTP, even as its fate is wavering on the winds of a state budget battle.
“Pennsylvania annually puts $20 million in taxpayer dollars toward new technology businesses…. So where is New York’s equivalent?” writes Matthew Daneman of the Democrat and Chronicle, a newspaper based out of Rochester, New York. A similar article also appeared in the Buffalo News.
But do they really want the cost?
In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.
The state budget deadline came and, like every other year of Gov. Ed Rendell’s tenure, it went by without a completed plan.
This year, though, the fight has something to do with the state collecting $3.5 billion less in taxes than it anticipated. So everyone’s feeling the pinch. Even, it seemed, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, the state-funded, startup investment company that we reported could see a $10 million, 60 percent budget cut or more — and then others did too.
But the Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano thoughroghly researched the report, suggesting that the report BFTP pointed to in its defense was less than square — a report from the Pennsylvania Economy League that showed BFTP bringing in $3.50 for every $1 invested in it.
“That’s not real,” DiStefano wrote. “The authors [of the report] estimated, and extrapolated, and multipliered, using what the Economy League’s Rich Stein told me were “quasi-experimental” techniques.
According to his article, the state put $50.7 million into BFTP this year, a total Rendell wants to cut to $35 million the coming fiscal year. The original Senate Republican budget put it nearer to $20 million.
Little question remains whether BFTP has done good, but much debate, DiStefano clearly shows, can be had on if it’s done enough to avoid one of the largest state budget tightenings in recent memory.
After the jump, Michael Nutter is not on Twitter, a biomedical firm brings jobs to Philly and six other tech and innovation links you need in your life right now, including our most read story of the week.
Earlier this month, New Hope-based myYearbook.com founder Catherine Cook was honored as the number one young entrepreneur in the country by paidContent, according to a press release.
Cook has been loved by media since she and brothers Dave and Geoff launched the high school-focused social media site in 2005—when she was was barely old enough to drive—after deciding that traditional yearbooks weren’t making the cut in the age of new media.
The award was accepted with pride, we’re sure, but we wondered when one becomes a regular, old “entrepreneur.” After all, Cook isn’t sixteen anymore.
Could it be $10 million in sales and 9.8 million unique hits? Maybe being noticed as the third largest and only growing social media portal aside from Facebook would do the trick. Does a title even matter?
“I am 19, I do like having that added honor to it, but I feel like sometimes it’s glam’d up a little too much. When some people hear it they get some kind of skewed perception that you’re a millionaire and a big spender,” Cook told Technically Philly in a telephone interview.
“I drive a 1996 Mitsubishi Galant.”
We’d like to think that Cook might be considering an upgrade since the company recently decided to monetize its Lunch Money feature, a virtual currency with which users can purchase gifts for friends or donate to noble causes. One million fake dollars cost $9.99 real cash. Six months in, Lunch Money is making eight figures in sales, Cook tells us. Virtual gifts have become one-third of the company’s revenue.
We caught up with Cook to see what her and her brothers have been up to since launching the site almost four years ago, what’s happening with $13 million in venture funding raised last year, and whether the Cooks are rooting for the Phillies or the Yankees, after the jump.
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University City incubator and research park the Science Center includes a series of facilities hugging the Market Street corridor between 34th and 38th streets. Photo courtesy of the Science Center.
Europe’s largest organization for advancing chemical sciences has landed.
The Royal Society of Chemistry, which has a worldwide network of members and an international publishing business, needed to set up an East Coast base to continue its expansion.
So, RSC and two other organizations, including a second foreign group making their first U.S. home in Philadelphia, have moved into the University City Science Center, the historic nonprofit incubator and research park, according to a press release from the center [PDF].
With RSC, GADORE Center USA, an outpost of a German collaborative focused on renewable energy, is the newest participant in the center’s Global Soft landing program, which aims to help international companies develop a presence in the region’s life sciences and information technology markets. The program is housed at 3711 Market Street.
Stroll’s company mission is nothing short of bold. They want to bring their customers products that are capable of “transforming” their lives.
And the audio-book Web retailer, which saw its revenue triple from 2004 to 2007 and ships mostly self-improvement merchandise, is doing it from 12th and Callowhill.
For that, Stroll is getting some congratulation. Along with three other Philadelphia companies, it was named to the 11th annual Inner City 100, a competitive ranking of the fastest-growing companies located in the “inner city” of a U.S. metropolis, last week. See what constitutes an inner-city here.
Only Denver and Boston, each of which had five companies headquartered there, were better represented. See the complete list here [PDF].
The list comes from the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a national nonprofit organization founded in 1994 by a Harvard Business School professor. The organization’s mission is to promote economic prosperity in U.S. inner cities through private sector engagement leading to job, income and wealth creation for local residents.
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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