Life Around Home: new NBC TV show for women pulls content directly from online Facebook conversation [VIDEO]

You’ve probably seen TV shows and news broadcasts attempt to incorporate Facebook and other forms of social media into their content in all sorts of ways — some successfully, some not so much.

But NBC Philadelphia and social media agency Bradford Media Group, which has regional offices in West Chester, are trying a new way to bring social media to television.

The pair premiered Life Around Home, a new project to create television programming entirely driven by the conversations taking place on the show’s Facebook page last week, according to a press release. The show aired on Philadelphia NBC Nonstop, the station’s 24-hour cable channel, which features some original programing on loop.

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Councilman Jim Kenney on $29k Chatterblast digital strategy contract: using staff would do same work “at a much higher cost”

Councilman Jim Kenney outsources his social strategy. Inquirer file photo

Councilman Jim Kenney’s relationship with Twitter appears to be complicated.

The same Councilman who two years ago threatened to sue Twitter over flash mobs works with digital marketing firm Chatterblast with a $28,800, 12-month contract to manage, among other aspects, his Twitter account.

And it’s become quite the story: from the Daily News to the Associated Press to Fox News, all of which focused on the idea that Kenney was paying a third-party to tweet for him, when everyone else on council uses internal staff.

After the news cycle pumped the story, Kenney and Chatterblast staff told Technically Philly it’s overblown.

“I looked at my staff’s skills and responsibilities, my operating budget, and the demands on my office and determined it would be best to partner with an outside expert firm for social media communications,” said Kenney, 53, in a statement released for Technically Philly, noting that he sought out a Philadelphia-based firm. “Many other council people have communications consultants or in-house staff to handle some of the scope of services provided, in most cases at a much higher cost.”

Instead, as the Daily News first reported, the story has focused on a five-figure contract from Kenney’s legislative budget, the third highest in council, which includes $650,000 in salary for 10 staffers. Kenney says he’s freeing up staff to do other tasks, while getting good value from a local firm.

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How Philadelphia police try to crowdsource safety [Links]

• Social Media in Law Enforcement [Social Media Today] — A write up on how @PhillyPolice are crowdsourcing safety, an effort we have covered before here.
• #FedValentines [Economix: New York Times] — Earlier this month, you may have seen the meme celebrating Valentine’s Day with economist friendly puns — you should know it began with Wharton’s own Justin Wolfers. More from Wall Street Journal.
• Brewerytown community center’s computer lab goes underused [Philadelphia Neighborhoods]

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MyHeartMap Challenge launches contest and mobile app to crowdsource map of Philly defibrillators

Updated 2/9/12: The MyHeartMap Challenge will run for six weeks beginning Jan 31 through March 13, 2012. Applications to participate in the challenge are now open to the public. The application was developed by GIS firm Azavea.

Automated external defibrillators are life-saving devices located in buildings and public spaces like fire extinguishers across the country. But no one really knows where they are in any broader way.

With the MyHeartMap Challenge, launching this week, a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania is hoping to crowdsource the location of every AED in Philadelphia and raise awareness about the tools, as Technically Philly previously reported.

Here’s how the challenge will work: interested participants should register at the MyHeartMap site and download the contest app to a smartphone. If you find an AED, take a picture of it. The app will geotag the photo for the Penn researchers who plan to use the information to create a database and comprehensive map of all the AED’s stashed throughout Philadelphia county.

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Going Postal: Penn GIS student Evan Kalish creates community around U.S. Postal Service, an early innovator

Evan Kalish

For much of its 220 year history, the U.S. Postal Service was something of a technology company: speeding communication and commerce through innovation, says postal geek Evan Kalish.

Today, in batch machines that can process 40,000 pieces of mail per hour, some 95 percent of handwritten addresses are properly dispatched by OCR technology, the 25 year old student in Penn’s master of urban spatial analytics program.

“[The machines work] from the ZIP code first, then to the address and select the proper street from the limited number of options available, tagging them with the bar codes that you can see on the bottom of first-class letters you receive. Human operators resolve the rest of the addresses remotely,” said Kalish, who lives in University City. “With Delivery Point Sequencing, another machine properly sort the mail for dozens of carriers in proper delivery order, based on their routes, with just two passes of the mail through the system.”

From today to the first ‘fully automated post office‘ back to the pneumatic mail tubes of the past, Kalish, a native of Queens, N.Y., has discovered new corners of the world’s original modern national postal system while writing his popular Going Postal blog, which has been profiled by Time magazine, the Washington Post, BBC and NPR.

All the stories use young Kalish as something of a juxtaposition for growing news of inevitable cutbacks at the U.S. Postal Service. While no doubt an important issue to Kalish, he says the best he can do is grow interest in what remains an impressive organization.

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NetTuesday, Corzo Center and more [Event Highlights]

Happy New Year, Philadelphia. Our resolution? To keep covering the people that make the Philadelphia technology community amazing. Before we get to the tech events, don’t forget that today is the NHL Winter Classic at Citizen’s Bank Park. The game starts at three, so we suggest you take a very long lunch.

Events this week: a meta meetup, crowd-sourcing social media and get help with your business.

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Ilya Zhitomirskiy, 22, Diaspora* co-founder and Lower Merion high grad, dies in apparent suicide, services Sunday

Center City memorial services are scheduled Sunday for Ilya Zhitomirskiy, the co-founder of the much-hyped Facebook killer Diaspora*.

Coverage by the New York Times and Gawker recount the unsettling possibility that the apparent suicide could have been precipitated by, at least in part, the hype around the more secure, community-driven social network that had thus far failed to have any real traction. Though Zhitomirskiy’s death happened in San Francisco, the Inquirer dutifully reminds us that the Moscow-born New York University dropout spent part of his childhood in Lower Merion and graduated from that high school.

Officially, suicide and other details have not been confirmed, though multiple reports are pointing in that direction.

As the Inquirer reports: “The memorial service for Zhitomirskiy will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday, November 20, at the First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street.”

City Director of Communications Desiree Peterkin Bell on social media strategy [Friday Q&A]

Photos courtesy of the City of Philadelphia. Photo Credits: Mitchell Leff

It’s been a year since the City of Philadelphia hired Desiree Peterkin Bell as Director of Communications and Strategic Partnerships.

In that time, we’ve seen a more proactive approach to social media across Philadelphia city agencies, and even outside of it, like this week’s announcement that the Philadelphia Parking Authority would pursue an aggressive social media strategy.

When Technically Philly interviewed Mayor Michael Nutter last fall, social media was barely a blip on his radar.

Since Peterkin Bell took the helm of the office and began pushing the City toward social media engagement, Mayor Nutter has taken to Twitter, growing from 300 followers a year ago to more than 18,000.

That count doesn’t yet match the brand of Newark Mayor Corey Booker, Peterkin Bell’s employer from 2006 to Fall 2010, who has engaged 1.1 million followers. But it’s a far cry from the city’s once inept social media strategy, which only a year ago was blindly sharing press releases typed out in all-caps, a strategy much satirized by Philly’s tech community.

Though her early career impact will likely be attributed to her social media chops, don’t call Peterkin Bell — who earns a $150,000 salary from the City and lives in a home on South Broad Street, the Avenue of the Arts — platform dependent. In New York City, she worked under Mayor Bloomberg as Senior Director of Government Affairs for the New York’s marketing development corporation, working with brands like General Motors and Universal Studios to sell city assets for marketing purposes. She now uses that experience to persuade national media organizations to recognize Philadelphia’s assets as a continually growing and prosperous city.

At the heart of her role, she’s coordinating a centralized communications strategy that includes interface with national media, the city’s public access television channel, and making sure that no matter the citizen and no matter the message, the city is working to reach them.

After the jump, Peterkin Bell shares her experience in New York and Newark, the extent of her role as Communications Director, and where she think the city’s communications strategy is headed.

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Philadelphia Parking Authority launches social media campaign to bolster responsiveness, transparency and customer relations

Following quiet structural changes at the Philadelphia Parking Authority, the oft-criticized state-run agency announced today a transparency-driven social media campaign.

After news this month of staff sensitivity training and staff restructuring around customer service, the PPA will launch outreach efforts through Facebook, Twitter, QR codes and other tools.

Find the PPA on Twitter @PhilaParking and on Facebook here.

Tossing out an estimated 1.7 million tickets a year and forking over $99.6 million to the city and school district, according to a press release, hasn’t always earned the love of residents and visitors alike. The agency is famously the subject of the A&E reality show ‘Parking Wars,’ suggesting a divide between parkers and enforcers.

“While solving problems and addressing customer issues will be a major thrust, we will also use Facebook and Twitter to keep the public informed about parking emergencies during inclement weather – special holiday parking
discounts – parking at the airport during holiday rushes, as well as residential parking issues in our neighborhoods,” PPA Executive Director Vince Fenerty said in a press release. “Facebook and Twitter will help us better educate the public about parking regulations in the city, as well as our signage.”

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‘Google Offers’ launches in Philly, to compete with Groupon, Living Social

Google Offers, a competitor for Groupon and Living Social from the search engine giant, has launched in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh today, according to a press release.

The move puts Google Offers in 15 cities with plans for 25 more in coming months. The initiative beta launched in Portland, Oregon in June.

The first offer in Philadelphia — to be found at  google.com/offers — is for the Marathon Grill. Future offerings include ones for Southwest staple turned Old City cheesesteak shop Campo’s.