10 most trafficked Web sites in Philadelphia (maybe)

Traffic estimates from Compete.com for Philly.com, NBCPhiladelphia.com and CBS3.com, likely three of the most trafficked websites in Philadelphia. Click to enlarge.

July marks the middle of the calendar year, quarterly reports and time to evaluate progress on yearly goals.

At the beginning of 2010, we looked at 10 competitors and their relative web traffic. With six months done, we wanted to make the first attempt at listing the most trafficked websites in Philadelphia, using monthly unique visitors as the metric of choice.

To make the comparison, we’ve used public traffic website Compete, but, by way of disclosure, we’ll always offer that any public web metrics are notoriously controversial. It’s also important to note that there is often a drag in such traffic estimates being pulled, so the surest figures are from the end of May.

So, consider this a comparative start and nothing more.

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Philly.com denies malware allegations

Philly.com is denying allegations that Philadelphia’s largest news portal is distributing malware that could potentially harm user computers.

“Philly.com takes seriously the online security of our users, and we go to great efforts to combat issues including malware,” according to a written statement issued to Technically Philly.

“We will continue to investigate all claims regarding Philly.com and stand by our pledge to provide our users with a safe and secure online experience.”

Earlier today, city blog Phillyist reported that one of its readers was issued a warning by an employer to stay off Philly.com because the site could contain malware.

Only one mention of the malware allegations appeared in a Twitter search, but it was posted before the Phillyist’s story and was not the blog’s original source. “Whatever you do, don’t go to Philly.com, it’s infected with Malware,” April Robinson wrote on her Twitter account a little after Noon.

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Friday Tech Links: Philly tax criticism, Webby awards and more

Read about what's going on here after the jump.

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.

Philadelphians are the highest taxed people in the United States. So says eminent Philadelphia Daily News legacy columnist John Baer.

That’s enough to crack any red-blooded American’s Liberty Bell.

In a column, Baer was railing against Mayor Nutter’s calls to Harrisburg for legislative authority to hike the city’s sales tax from seven to eight percent. The story actually has a good dialogue in the comments section, too — a rarity for Philly.com.

The topic came up elsewhere this week.

Joe Distefano, the Inquirer’s top bearded business columnist, wrote an absolute must read on Nutter’s stalling of and his administration’s subsequent rethinking of continuing the move to “eradicating”the city’s two-pronged business privilege tax.

By no account should you think this is strictly a Philly problem these days.

Fast Eddie Rendell said this past week that if he was forced to push for a hike in the state’s income tax, he would vie for it to return to its normal state three years later, according to reporting from foxy Inquirer state capital correspondent Angela “It’s Greek” Couloumbis.

After the jump, why ET is with a Philly cop above, why 600 people paid $500 to be in Delaware and more than five other itches you need scratched, including our best read story of the week.

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Shop Talk: Obama Girl’s Leah Kauffman on Phrequency.com redesign

Updated: 5:33 p.m. 6/10/09 with additional attribution

This is part of an irregular series of our Shop Talk department, called The Redesign.

On a Friday afternoon in early May, Leah Kauffman dons a t-shirt to show off her gang affiliation.

A pair of hands screenprinted on the bright red tee are positioned similarly to the Bloods street gang hand signal. Fingers on the right hand are contorted into the shape of the letters ‘b,’ ‘l’ and ‘o.’ The left hand is flipped upside-down, and the index finger curled, creating a hanging “g.”

‘Blog,’ it reads.

At first glance, it’s easy to miss. But it makes sense. Kauffman runs Philly.com’s Phrequency, a news portal that covers the movers, shakers and rattlers of Philly’s music community.

In April, Phrequency was redesigned with a more streamlined, blog-esque interface; dropping the clunky, genre focus that forced users to choose hip-hop or punk, R&B or jazz, for a content-oriented design that doesn’t split hairs on artists who span all of those.

It was a move that Kauffman had wanted to make for months.
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Comcast Roundup: E-mail monetization accusations, and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup,

The ability to bookmark your Comcast.net e-mail account page has changed, gripes a reader, who tipped us to the problem, and it’s all for advertising.

(Send us your Philly tech and innovation tips, insight or story ideas!)

That reader says no longer can you bookmark your e-mail account page and browse directly there. Now bookmarks, old or new, send you to the Comcast.net homepage, forcing extra clicks to their “monetized articles & ads,” the reader says.

Sounds like conspiracy theory, a Comcast spokesman told Technically Philly.

Older bookmarks may need to be updated once more because of the final completion of a new Comcast.net e-mail iteration that began rollout last year, says Charlie Douglas, the director of communications for Comcast’s corporate online products.

“I don’t think it’s any different than Yahoo or almost any other e-mail service,” Douglas says. It should be noted that some, like Gmail, can have direct bookmarks.

Douglas was unaware of any push for increased click-rates on the Comcast.net homepage by e-mail users, which likely would be negligible for canceling those using bookmarks anyway.

A Philly.com executive jumps ship, Comcast ain’t the worst company in the country and four other Comcast stories you should read, after the jump.

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