Philadelphia Media Network and Ben Franklin Technology Partners officially seeking startups for Project Liberty incubator

Philadelphia Media Network CEO Greg Osberg announcing Project Liberty, which includes the incubation program and tablet initiative. Photo by Liliputing

There is real movement on the $250,000 startup incubator program which will be housed at a legacy newspaper company and supported by local and national organizations with stakes in entrepreneurship and new media.

According to a press release sent on Friday, Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Philadelphia Media Network have announced that they are seeking applications from startups looking to be a part of the inaugural class working inside the partners’ Project Liberty incubator. The project has also includes a widely cited tablet program, announced by PMN CEO Greg Osberg as depicted above and detailed by tech news site Lilputing.

We first reported on the program last November, when Philadelphia Media Network CEO Greg Osberg announced the program at a Temple journalism seminar. The incubator program was later formalized with a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation.

The program starts October 31. Those interested can apply here to Ben Franklin Technology Partners before noon on Friday, October 14th.

Exit Interview: Former Startup Leaders President Jameson Detweiler says capital, mentorship are gone

This is Exit Interview, an occasional interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

It happened in a weekend.

Four days after Jameson Detweiler and his team at LaunchRock opened the doors of its launch campaign and analytics platform for startups, artists and others — created over 48 hours during Startup Weekend this winter — it was getting ink in Silicon Valley.

“In case you needed another ‘you know there’s a bubble when …’ tech post, LaunchRock, a startup that builds viral launch pages for other startups, is launching today via its own product,” TechCrunch wrote. Tech sage Robert Scoble brought Detweiler, who at the time, was President of Philly Startup Leaders, in for a long interview on Scobleizer.

It was very quickly clear where the company was headed. Recently, the company has hooked up with 500 Startups, a Valley business incubator — with a $50,000 accelerator investment — and the rest is history. The company is now based full-time in Mountain View.

It’s most notably the story of how the newly elected president of a local organization dedicated to encouraging entrepreneurship in the Philadelphia region now says that Philadelphia “might not be the best thing for your business.”

But at the end of the day, Detweiler says, Startup Leaders is about encouraging smart entrepreneurship. Smart entrepreneurship that means business comes first, not your location.

More with Detweiler after the jump.

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Ben Kessler: Philly has “a lack of leaders looking to take the risk to start a company”

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

In September 2009, Ben Kessler was having trouble getting work.

After a Drexel co-op in San Francisco the summer before, the new graduate and Unbreaded co-founder was living with his parents in Yardley, waiting for what was next. The Great Recession was hot then, but even still, Kessler, now 25, was getting bites in the 67th ward. By that October, he had moved up the Jersey Turnpike to New York City.

Philly has an ugly reputation for retaining its college graduate, but that trend is moving dramatically the other way. Still, we asked Kessler for perspective from  a college graduate who loves this city but hightails it for one with a job for him.

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Kevin Fitzpatrick on Philly’s startup scene: ‘There isn’t much of one’

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Kevin Fitzpatrick had one of those cool white collar tech jobs that actually thrive in Center City.

Born in the Northeast neighborhood of Rhawnhurst, raised in Horsham and a loving resident of Center City, his job with Comcast Interactive Media seemed to suggest he would stick around.

But in June 2010, Fitzpatrick packed up with his girlfriend and moved to San Francisco. It was just time, he says, though his roots may likely bring him back.

“I needed to get out, find mentors and work on new stuff,” he said. Where’s the line between a city that limits and a natural need to try new places. Hear more from Fitzpatrick in his Exit Interview below.

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Startup Roundup: ‘X’ is the only city in which to start a Web company

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

Coverage of city technology scenes continues to dominate startup and entrepreneurial conversations across the country, leading to an important question: Is “X” City’s scene better than others?

You know well that we cheer on the Philly technology community, for good reason. But given a handful of articles that we’ve come across recently and featured in this roundup we can’t help but raise a question that we’ve asked before: Does it matter whether or not we receive national recognition for our startup scene?

American Express’s OPEN forum for small businesses, just, well, completes us. The site asks that very question: For Web entrepreneurs, does location matter?

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Will Philadelphia be included in Fast Company’s city startup series?

A handful of organizations and individuals may be responsible for drumming up some much deserved praise for Philly’s startup scene.

Since business mag Fast Company began running a five-part series about cities where entrepreneurs should consider starting companies, several folks have been proactive in getting Philly on that list.

Venture capitalist and AsktheVC publisher Brad Feld predicts that Fast Company will feature Philly in a next batch of coverage, having already made introductions for the magazine here in Philadelphia, according to a follow-up blog post written by Philly Startup Leaders co-founder Blake Jennelle,

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