Podcamp Philly registration table seen above. Photo by Theresa Regan.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods program, the capstone class for the Temple’s Department of Journalism.

Online media beyond podcasting played a large role Saturday at the fifth annual Podcamp Philly, held in the Tuttleman Learning Center at Temple University.

“[The event] started out being focused toward podcasting and video podcasting and has really grown to encompass everything from blogging to social media tools,” Linda Whitney Hoffman, the director of operations for Podcamp Philly said. “It’s about teaching people to share information, not just online media.”

Graphic design, content strategy, business basics and the social media giants all were discussed in multiple sessions, among other topics that don’t directly touch podcasting.

From L to R: Gloria Bell, Whitney Hoffman and Lynette Young give the closing remarks of Podcamp Philly. Photo by Theresa Regan.

WordPress, the open source publishing platform giant that has its own unconference to be held at Temple in November, too, was heavily featured, serving as the basis for several lectures on its introduction and advanced utilities.

“We talked about how to set up a WordPress commerce site to run a business and talked about all the different tools with it, which was pretty useful,” Michael Kluseck, an attendee from Port Richmond said. “It’s always good to know what products are tried and true.”

Search engine optimization was also a hot-button topic at Podcamp Philly.

“It’s equally important not just to create additional content, but to also find a way to get it found,” Hoffman said. “Google has sort of changed its algorithm, things have gone from where you used to be able to game searches to have stuff show up in search rankings better, but now things are more weighted through social media and other channels.”

Sunday sessions included those focused on Audacity and Wikipedia, in addition to a crush on, of course, podcasting.

Geekadelphia co-founder Eric Smith in an artistic favorite of his friend Michaelangelo Ilagan.

Eric Smith is a friend.

Let’s not hesitate in sharing the disclosure. A figurehead of Philadelphia’s young blogging scene, there aren’t many people involved in web communities in this city who don’t know Smith.

But Smith, 27 (though he turns 28 this Sunday), is involved in enough cool projects that intersect with technology, the web and Philadelphia that it’d be something of a sin to not share them.

He is the newly minted chief of social marketing for indie Old City-based Quirk Books — famed for its Pride and Prejudice and Zombies title — after ending a three-year tenure at the helm of popular arts and entertainment blog uwishunu, and spends his weekends and nights, well, he spends them playing.

“I like to have fun,” Smith says, in what is much more an ethos than a cliche for him.

Smith is probably the ultimate social butterfly. If you catch him in one of his haunts in and around the Rittenhouse Square area he calls home, he’ll likely be incessantly texting or tweeting.

At any moment, he’s probably organizing an event — like the annual Halloween bash he throws with his crew from the popular geek blog Geekadelphia, which he co-founded in November 2007, and his friends at Old City coworking powerhouse Independents Hall.

You might call him a connector.

He’s decidedly from the social side of a broad technology community that includes startups, investors, social entrepreneurs, tax activists, designers, developers and consultants.

Smith, on the other hand, recently put a down payment on a custom suit of armor modeled on the Master Chief character from the epic Halo video game series. …Seriously.

He has chops though.

Blogging and social media has become a staple of his for a vocation, but he teaches English courses at Peirce College and has done the same at Holy Family University.

For a guy who’s awfully adept at writing in 140 characters, he knows the classics well — he, like, actually read Beowulf — and this summer he took off on a road trip with a friend to write something of a coffee book called The Whiskey Road, which would chronicle the country’s most famed whiskey spots. This fall he’s self-publishing his long-developed novel Textual Healing, which he’s also in the midst of releasing as a podcast.

Below, Smith talks about the novel, recording and releasing it as a podcast and a handful of other projects he has in the works.

Edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about your first novel.

Textual Healing is a quirky romantic comedy about a once famous writer named Andrew Connor, who owns a used bookshop. He sort of lives in this world in his head, where he thinks he’s still this big shot. Unfortunately, reality shatters that. Over the course of a week, a number of mishaps make him realize he isn’t such a big deal anymore.

As a result, he ends up in a support group called Textual Healing, a group of writers who aren’t writing anymore. Here he meets an array of characters with bizarre problems. He also meets a woman (surprise surprise), who he forms a strange new relationship with.

Through a mix of the support group, the romantic interest, and the colorful cast of characters that surround him — including a local florist who only speaks in haiku — he learns to just, well, accept who he is.

How? Eh, you have to read the book.

I started the book my senior year of college, while attending Kean University, and finished it shortly after I wrapped up graduate school at Arcadia. So it took about three years, during which I was working and schooling full time.

But, without a publisher, you’re recording the novel as a podcast. Why give it away for free?

For two reasons.

One, as a little marketing stunt, to drive attention to the actual print release of the book. And two, well, because it’s fun. I’ve been roping in good friends, having them record different characters, all over wings and beer. We have ourselves a good time.

What are you doing with the recordings?

I’m uploading an MP3 every Friday to my blog — the second part ran today.

Once there are enough episodes, I’m planning to submit it to podiobooks.com, a great website that syndicates podcasted novels. It’s a fantastic community that my pal Dan [Tabor from Geekadelphia] introduced me to.

Should this mean anything to other aspiring novelists?

I think it’s just another cool medium to publish your work in. Some of these podiobook folks publish solely as podcasts. It’s interesting. The world of publishing is always evolving.

A few months ago, you launched a blog focused on harassing people’s craigslist posts, right?

[laughs] Yes, ‘Missed Corrections.’

That’s one of my latest silly internet side projects. I suppose grammar snobs and fans of craigslist will enjoy that site the most.

It’s essentially me ragging on awfully written posts, pointing out misspellings, faults in logic or just general rudeness. Just because you’re anonymous and on the Internet, doesn’t give you the right to be crass, Craigslist Man.

Writing is a love and planning events is a passion, but we hear your real dreams are with entering the professorial class full-time someday. You’ve already broken in, having taught classes at Peirce College, Holy Family University and others. We’ve heard of some fun you’ve pulled on your students, do you have a favorite prank?

Ah, yes, the joys of having a classroom, and somehow convincing a local college that you’re a trustworthy individual [laughs].

I love teaching. My favorite is a staple of my classroom routine: pretending I’m a student on the first day.

I just let the kids file in, watch the clock run ten minutes over, and abruptly start class from my seat amongst the students. Great way to break the ice and show the students you’re a fun prof.

What have you seen change about the Philly scene since you first got here?

I think I arrived in Philly just in time to witness the online community really blossoming into something wonderful. Spearheaded by a lot of the brains in Indy Hall, bloggers around the Internets, and local web developers, I saw all sorts of wild events launching left and right.

With all the various unconferences and camps, charity events, the Geeks Who Give gals, Ignite, Pecha Kucha, your Switch event, TEDX, Junto, even art exhibits, like DrinkPhilly.com hosting First Fridays, I’ve gotten to watch folks leave the glow of the monitors and create something more than just a blog post or a status update.

I’m not sure if that’s something that changed — all of us nerds and geeks are just driven and kind by nature — but it was certainly something that seemed to evolve.

I wish I could claim a larger part in all of that. I just write about these things when they happen and host video game competitions and movie screenings.

Secretly, I want to be Roz Duffy.

What first brought you into tech and geek culture?

Eh. I’ve always been a self proclaimed geek.

I grew up addicted to video games — specifically Final Fantasy –  disassembling computers and loved me some Star Wars, Star Trek, the Last Starfighter, Starman — hell, anything with the word Star in it, with the exception of A Star Is Born.

I obsessed over select action figures, adore limited edition screenprints and have to buy every single special edition video game that comes out. It’s a sickness really, but there are worse things to be addicted to.

When I moved to Philadelphia, I was surrounded by this awesome scene of geeks and wanted to be a part of it. But alas, I was writing about cheesesteaks and museums all the time. Thus, Geekadelphia was born, as an outlet for what I really cared about, a city I had come to love, and the passions that kept me happy.

What’s your background?

I’m originally from Elizabeth, New Jersey, one of those cities that people claim they are proud to be from, but have no real reason for that sort of behavior. Now, I live in Philadelphia, a city that does deserve that sort of selfish ego trip. Love this place.

I went to Kean University, where I earned a BA in English, and moved to Philly to go to Arcadia University, where I earned my MA in English with a literature concentration. My family is your standard, hardworking, American, could-be-a-Norman-Rockwell-painting sort of family. Dad was in the military, Mom worked at my high school, they adopted me and my sister. My background leaves me as racially ambiguous as Thorny from Super Troopers. We’ll leave it at that.

What kind of person and what would you be doing 50 years ago?

Probably a lot of what I’m doing now, just minus blogging. I’d be teaching someplace, and probably struggling to write books. Despite how internet-y I am, I’m perfectly happy when I unplug for a couple of days. I think everyone should be like that. It’s healthy.

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Every Friday, Technically Philly brings you an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia s technology community. See others here.

Ryan Ritchey (left) and Jamie DeGrazio host a Halloween edition of TDL Live. The next episode airs tonight at 9 p.m.

The normal population may have let May 28, 2004 slip by without notice, but many tech-heads could tell you a tragedy occurred that day in late May.

It was then when TechTV, a cable station dedicated to tech news, was folded into G4 television. The station had a passionate cult following and Wired magazine even dedicated a piece on the “Mad as Hell” fan base.

However, the site’s format of in-studio tech reviews lives on through popular podcasts like This Week in Tech and Diggnation. Now, North Wales-based TheDigitalLifestyle.TV (TDL) is trying to add itself to that list.

Launched in November 2007, the site began as a network of Apple-focused video programming and is now, beginning next year, expanding to general tech news. TDL often covers live Apple events, has posted dozens of iPhone application reviews and has sat down with local techies — like iSepta — and national figures — such as Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple. Ritchey and a few other TDL contributors have worked for Apple in the past, both in retail and at the company’s headquarters in California.

TDL is even looking to begin a community video studio for local podcasters and believes that Philadelphia’s burgeoning tech scene would be a great starting point for the next TechTV.

“It certainly would be based here. I think there is such a good pool of people [in Philadelphia] that we could easily find great hosts and build relationships that would make this much more interesting,” says founder Ryan Ritchey.

Ritchey started TDL as a proof-of-concept for his full time gig: his video production company R Cubed Networks. Ritchey envisioned having businesses aggregate and produce content related to their niche and then stream that video 24 hours a day.

TDL pushes its content through the dozens of available video channels using TubeMogul and the iTunes Music Store. Ritchie says his most popular content is related to Apple events such as MacWorld and the network’s iPhone application reviews have more than 1,000 subscribers. Acorss all channels the network has reached more than one million views.

“Currently it’s monetized through very simple means such as Google ads and video ads,” says Ritchie who said he wanted to target small developers who can’t buy an ad on Engadget or Gizmodo.

Eventually, TDL would like to have a studio in a building like the Globe Dye Works which it would share with other local video podcasters. Ritchey is hoping to begin reaching a general tech audience using Philadelphia as a home base of operations and recruiting hosts and production talent locally, especially from the area’s universities. Ritchey says that Philadelphia has a thriving podcasting scene that generally keeps to itself, something he’d like to see changed.

“There are brilliant people doing really smart things, but they tend to be doing them in secrecy. There are a lot of little pods of people doing great things,” says Ritchey.

See Ritchey interview former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki:

Though the podcast is for a national audience, TP kept it strictly Philly, chatting about the prospect of a “Philicon Valley,” the big stories we are working on and the roots of TP. Somewhere in there, the Jonas Brothers are mentioned.

The conversation is only 20 minutes long, so give it a listen while catching up on your weekend email. And, while we are at it, can we all agree that Ken has the smooth voice of a 60′s late night radio DJ?

Daniel Delaney is sorry.

He just finished a bit of a rant about how zoning laws that govern where street vendors can do business are putting a stranglehold on Philadelphia’s food cart culture, and seemed startled when I said I assumed he was now based in New York.

“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” he says. “I just look at this stuff a bit scientifically.”

Indeed, Delaney, 23, is taking his food very seriously since launching in February Vendr.TV, a weekly podcast devoted to finding the best-tasting street food in the world. It was just picked up by a network funder, Delaney says, though he can’t yet disclose who.

While the University of the Arts alumnus has made that not uncommon trek up the Jersey Turnpike and his podcast’s stock is on the rise, he might have reason to remember where he first got his taste for food entertainment.

Read what goes into Vendr.TV and how he says our great food city could become a great street food city, too, after the jump.

“I had interest in food, but when I went to school in Philadelphia, my interest exploded,” says Delaney, who graduated with a multimedia BFA from UArts in May 2008. “Really, Philadelphia has my favorite food scene. It’s originally a blue collar city, and I like unpretentious food. With Pennsylvania and its liquor laws, the BYOBs that have developed in Philly are my favorite food scene of all, of anything, I think.”

He noted South Street mainstay Pumpkin and Little Fish, the celebrated Queen Village haunt, as among his favorites.

But food ain’t Delaney’s only thang.

THE TECHNOLOGY AND PROFIT

He’s making a self-financed food podcast look and feel clean cut and professional.

The food geek with bushy black hair and matching rimmed glasses has a rotating crew of three cameramen and a traditional boom operator — after finding wireless microphones unreliable in the wind and noise of street food. He lucks out by having talented friends — all of whom are currently working for free.

His team films in HD, mostly on a Panasonic HVX. Vendr’s hot film look comes from shooting at 24 frames per second in 720 p — the actual size of HD — and also swinging a wide-angle lens.

Delaney proves his diversity of skill by adding to his on-camera work by handling most of the editing, doing so in Final Cut Pro, though his operation is expanding. The show’s pre-roll graphics were created by motion designer Eden Soto, who has done work for Diggnation and Yahoo.

Justifying its professional look and crew, Delaney says he’s confident in bringing Vendr.TV to profitability.

Delaney, who will apparently always be known as that guy who started a Rittenhouse Square Twitter account, declined to give specifics, but says he’s in talks for long-term sponsorships, content-sharing and other monetization excitement. There are licensing agreements in the works for distribution online with MySpace and others. He also points to plans for advertising, merchandise sales, micro-donations and even long-term hopes for publishing the best recipes he finds.

Later this month, the WordPress-based site will see a complete redesign.

IS IT PHILADELPHIA?

Delaney says he fully intends on Vendr to become a national brand that finds street food around the world, but his academic and culinary ties to Philadelphia make it hard not to call him one of our own.

Two of his first nine episodes were in Philly — others being in New York, Washington D.C. and at Rutgers University — including his most recent on Jamaican D’s near the Community College of Philadelphia, seen below.

It’s perhaps important he remember the country’s fourth largest media market because it’s city is one that takes its food very seriously. But it is important Delaney brand himself separately because the food media market is certainly a saturated one (see sidebar at right)

Delaney thought it important enough to personally welcome the cluster’s new entrant, Salt.Pepper.Ketchup, which quickly received love from WHYY and uwishunu after launching.

But Vendr seems simply the most professional product of them all. So it just so happens that the best Philadelphia food podcast isn’t in Philadelphia at all.

An old head of mine once told me, as we walked on Pine Street near 15th, that there are only two kinds of kids who go to UArts.

“Those who want to be in Philly,” he said, looking toward Broad Street and the school’s landmark Hamilton Hall on the Avenue of the Arts. “And those who want to be in New York.”

After graduating, Delaney found himself going to New York more often and staying in Philly less. He decided to leave.

FOOD PASSION

But his street vendor obsession came with a senior thesis he did on how design affected business of Philadelphia’s mobile vendors. That said, the New Jersey-native says he has always had an eye for entrepreneurship, starting with his dog-walking business at 12-years-old — “complete with business cards and contracts,” he says.

“I particularly believe in low-level entrepreneurship,” he says, “And I don’t think you can get much lower level than a guy chucking hot dogs out of a cart to people on a sidewalk.”

He promises more Philadelphia-based episodes, including spots on roast pork carts and a cheesesteak crawl, partnering with Ben Kessler of Unbreaded, whom we have covered. In mid-March, Delaney was shooting at University City’s vegetarian cart Magic Carpet.

But because city street vending licenses are tied to specific locations, Delaney says, many cart owners sit on a single corner for decades, relying on the cheapest, most common fare and not taking any chances. Licenses without guaranteed locations, like they are in New York, he says, breed competition and bring more diverse choice.

It’s here when Delaney seems most excited and passionate — food legislation.

That enthusiasm and the glut of other food blogs are all possible because of an increasingly better-versed public, he says, which is in thanks to the Food Network.

“It has built a new vernacular for food and entertainment,” Delaney says. “And then in just the last three years, there has been a complete change of how entertainment is being created. The Internet is democratic, and the tools to use it are cheaper than ever.”

He’s leveraging that trend of online communities. Vendr.TV will begin to give away merchandise, like T-shirts, to viewers and will soon launch regular “Five Dollar Dinner” meet ups.

He hopes it all will help him get further faster in the development of his product, he says. And for that, he isn’t apologizing.

Every Wednesday, Shop Talk shows you what goes into a tech product, organization or business in the Philadelphia region. See others here.

Johnny Bilotta and David Martorana produce Two Guys On Beer on the cheap.

It ain’t a bad week to be a beer lover in Philadelphia. For Johnny Bilotta and David Martorana of the Old City-based Two Guys On Beer video podcast, Philly Beer Week is sure to be a busy one.

The show, which demands deliciousness from the brews it tests, is coming up on its 60th episode, which is no small feat for a low-to-no budget production released twice per week. According to the duo, the podcast has grown a steady national viewership of 700 to 2,000 viewers per episode, and they’ve been considering syndication models that could end up planting it on the face of news Web sites anywhere.

Now that we’re half through the city’s week-long hoppy, malty escape from all things mixed-drink, Technically Philly has a confession. Last week during an interview for Shop Talk, when we told the show’s co-host and co-producer Dave Martorona to take it easy on the suds, we didn’t mean a word of it. We’re expecting Two Guys to make it their day job. Fortunately, Martorona proved that the show can afford a break from worrying about the production back-end, when he shared with Technically Philly some tips for aspiring vid-casters.

Read their advice on production and distribution, and check out Two Guys’ shooting rig, which includes a steal of a deal from EBay, after the jump.

Two Guys' rig is gleefully simple. A Flip Mino digital video camera, a $35 boom mic from EBay, tripod, and mic stand is all it takes.

Martorana revealed that the pair has no experience producing and editing video�their first 15 episodes were shot with an old mini-DV camcorder set atop a step ladder. Two Guys on Beer decided to upgrade to a pocket-sized, inexpensive Flip Mino video camera, which Mortorana says performs better in low light situations than its big brother, the Flip Mino HD. And they now proudly prop their cam on a real, three-legged, gosh darn sturdy tripod.

But Bilotta and Martorana quickly found that their camera’s audio quality wasn’t meeting expectations. They wanted a boom mic to improve audio, but with the high-quality condenser microphones starting at $150 per pop, decent quality audio seemed beyond their out-of-pocket budget.

Two Guys decided to take a chance with EBay, settling on a no-name $35 boom mic straight from Hong Kong: the HTDZ HT-81 Super Uni-directional Electret Condenser Microphone. It was a gamble worth taking, says Martorana. “The boom mic was the best thing we ever got.”

They import the audio and video tracks into Final Cut Express, Apple’s cheapest professional-level video editing suite, and use two sync points to match-up the external audio. A few cuts later, the show is ready to make LCDs scream.

Martorana says that video distribution is a crux for the show, and their experimentation has led to a solid model that we’re sure others would be keen to borrow. Bilotta and Martorana rely on Viddler to power video on the show’s Web site but turned to Tube Mogul to reach as many video sharing outlets as possible. Mogul is a free service that allows sharers to upload content that is then automatically distributed to a dozen video platforms such as MySpace, YouTube, DailyMotion, and Revver. Users can then track video metrics across its aggregated sites.

Two Guys utilizes Blip.TV to aggregate iTunes and RSS feeds, which Martorona says handles the complicated video podcast submission process with ease. With the help of Viddler, Tube Mogul, and Blip.TV, the show has been able to chip away from the painstaking hours it once took to export in multiple video formats. Now, they cut just one final lock-and-load MP4 video.

Saving time means more to spend with their liquid inspiration. This week, the pair will be headed to Beer Week events all over the city, with plans to attend more than 20. They’ll be interviewing famous brewmasters whom they wouldn’t divulge, and probably tasting more beers each day than you’ve had in a lifetime of St. Patty’s Days. Be sure to check up on the Two Guys on Beer Web site, but don’t be concerned when checking their BAC. These guys are professionals.

Shop Talk is a weekly feature devoted to what goes on behind-the-scenes with tech throughout Philadelphia. It’s just like Dirty Jobs, except without Mike Rowe and with shiny electronics instead of dirt.