Something about “rowhouser” didn’t sound right to Jonathan Butler.

So today, the founder of popular Brooklyn real estate, renovation and restaurant blog Brownstoner, launches a Philadelphia edition under the same brand. That expansion, Butler says, will dictate greatly the direction of the five-year-old site.

Launched in October 2004, Brownstoner is no small force, pulling roughly 200,000 unique visitors and 1.5 million page views a month, Butler says — see the always debated public traffic figures for the site from Quantcast and Compete — and it just so happens to not be the only blog born in New York to open up shop in Philadelphia this year.

Like Midtown Lunch, Brownstoner brings a brand name with a decidedly New York tone to a city not known for a healthy appreciation for its younger brother to the north. So, its expansion just might make for a hell of a conversation on authenticity and the future of growing hyperlocal news. And it all came about because one of the site’s contributors wanted to move.

“Gabby Warshawer, who has been writing for Brownstoner in Brooklyn for the past three years, recently fell in love with Philly and announced she was dying to move there,” Butler, 40, says. “I had been chewing on the idea of expanding to Philly for about a year, so the timing seemed right.”

Warshawer, with the help of four freelancers, will run the Philadelphia edition from her Center City apartment, the local bureau to Butler and his team of two part-time writers and interns. (Butler and Warshawer will also run a weekly column from Ken Finkel, the Temple University American studies professor and architecture writer.)

Brownstoner Founder Jonathan Butler. Courtesy of Butler

Housed on the stand-alone Philly.Brownstoner.com, the site will feature the same collection of pieces on development, real estate and renovation news as its New York counterpart. It will focus to start on neighborhoods in West and South Philadelphia, in addition to Fishtown and Northern Liberties to start — which doesn’t offer the same identifiable stretch of Philadelphia as Brooklyn is in New York — but likely find editorial overlap with the original site on stories related to larger regional or national real estate trends, Butler says.

“Also within a few months of launch, the forum, which has grown to be the largest online community for homeowners in New York, will also start sharing content on topics that are not geographically specific, such as how to remove paint from antique doorknobs,” he adds.

The Manhattan native with a Princeton degree and a New York University MBA quit his job on Wall Street to work full time on the site in February 2007 and now lives in a home in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Clinton Hill that he first launched the blog to write about.

But the former business journalist, venture capitalist and real estate investor says he approaches Philly architecture and communities with “reverence.”

Below, he talks to Technically Philly about his expansion plans, the Brownstone brand and more.

In past years, you’ve gotten the treatment from the New York Observer and New York Magazine. At the risk of redundancy, tell us a little bit about the Brownstoner creation story.

I started Brownstoner on a lark in the fall of 2004, while trapped at a desk job that was less than creatively fulfilling.

I had recently purchased my brownstone in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn and was gearing up for a big renovation on a shoestring budget. I blogged that renovation while offering commentary on the real estate market and observations about a Brooklyn that was undergoing massive demographic changes and housing price escalation.

It was also the first local blog in New York to really embrace commenters and engage readers as sources. The blog now gets more traffic than the three local Brooklyn newspapers combined.

Below watch Butler talk about the renovation project that he first chronicled on his site.

Why expand to portions of Philadelphia and not elsewhere in New York?

“Brownstoner’s success thus far has had a lot to do with being based in a place where people feel a very strong connection to their community, both in terms of quality of life issues and its history. This sets the stage for a level of engagement and activism that is key to the success of any online hyperlocal effort. I feel like folks in Philly share a similar sense pride and investment in their communities and city and hope that brownstoner can play a role in bringing more exposure and transparency to both local issues and matters relating to real estate and development.

In a craigslist ad looking for bloggers, Brownstoner spotlighted the big pockets of West and South philadelphia, in addition to the neighborhoods of Northern Liberties and Fishtown. What is the draw of those parts of the city for your coverage?

Certainly much of what Brownstoner has chronicled in Brooklyn has been the changes that neighborhoods have gone through and the issue that these changes have raised. We’ll devote plenty of coverage to the more established areas in the center of the city, but a lot of the drama and fun is bound to come in neighborhoods where younger, creative people are putting down roots, renovating houses and starting businesses.

Give us some stories we might expect to see from the Philly edition.

There’s bound to be some overlap and cross-pollination with some of the topics already covered by PlanPhilly and the many blogs that cover the restaurant scene. We also will be seeking to engage directly with the civic organizations that are so crucial to the city’s community fabric.

On top of that, we will seek to bring the same level of transparency and discussion to the real estate market that we have in Brooklyn. We also hope to shine a light on preservation and development issues on a building-by-building level. It’s amazing how much ground a half dozen reporters with bicycles and cameras can cover and how effective the medium can be for getting public officials to pay attention to things they may have tried to sweep under the rug before.

What is the plan for revenue? Anything different here than in Brooklyn?

I’m not even going to think about revenue for the first few months. I just want to make sure the editorial is the best it can be — plus it’s not really worth it to try to monetize the site until it has a critical mass of readers. I’ve actually given away some free advertising in the beginning to some community groups and nonprofits whose missions I think are enhancing the city.

Are there other markets you see expanding to in the future? Where do you want Brownstoner to be in five years?

Really hard to say. Frankly, it depends a lot on how well received the blog is in Philly. Other obvious cities include D.C., Baltimore and Boston, but nothing’s even close to being in the works.

Did you consider different branding for a city that doesn’t really use the word ‘brownstone’?

I certainly thought about it and have heard from some people who don’t think the name is right for Philly, but I’ve spent five years building a brand and, while I certainly understand why ‘rowhouser’ or something along those lines would be more literally appropriate, the blog in Brooklyn, like many publication names — Plain Dealer, hello? — long ago transcended literalism.

Probably less than 10 percent of the content on the Brooklyn site deals with brownstones. It’s just a brand now. I’m operating under the assumption that good content will rule the day and that over time the name won’t be an issue. Of course, I could be wrong, but I think as people see the reverence with which we approach Philly’s architecture and communities, there won’t be a problem.

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Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly’s tech scene, but aren’t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

Kendra Gaeta is facing branding issues with her allowance service for kids but remains bullish on the idea. Here she presents her concept at Ignite Philly 3 on May 3, 2009 in Fishtown's Johnny Brenda's.

Updated 3:02 7/20/09 for copyright clarification

It’s KidsZillions now and legal vagaries may force that to change once more, but that doesn’t make Kendra Gaeta any less passionate about the mission.

You may have seen her present at Ignite Philly 3 in Johnny Brenda’s on May 3 (where we declared her to have given the best performance), but the allowance chore management savings site for kids that Gaeta described was then called KidsMoney.

During her presentation, she briefly alluded to the possible name change then and made the move not long after, respectfully forfeiting the brand to a juvenile financial management author with a similar mission.

Her team is now dubbed KidsZillions, but some legal advice has left them feeling compelled to make another jump.

An e-commerce company called GiftZillions owns their similar trademark, and while it doesn’t appear to have anything near the same education mission as KidsZillions, Gaeta is getting more advice that branding may be a problem there, too. (Her company is tweeting at the far less distinctive @KidProject)

“I’ve been told we could have enough of an e-commerce edge that users would see us as a kids versions of GiftZillions,” she says. “It stings a bit, that we [could] have the copyright for a name we really like and yet are told we shouldn’t do anything with it.

“But I know building the project is more important.” So that’s what she’s doing.

While the name debate continues and their Web site’s interactivity features remain in development, the company, which is part of the second class of University City incubator DreamIt Ventures, this week launched the Allowance Project, a video blog that will feature interviews of a broad, diverse cross-section of people explaining their savings and spending habits as children.

Gaeta, 34, grew up in a single-parent household in San Diego, and, while she “wasn’t without privilege,” she had to learn how to save. She says saving has made her a savvier adult. It’s a trait, she says, she’s surprised many people haven’t learned. In 2005, she bought a home near the Art Museum after having saved for that expressed purpose for just 18 months.

“It wasn’t because I had a ton of money,” she says. “It was because I was able to save and was always paying attention to my credit.”

That helped led her to the idea of helping parents teach their kids healthy money management habits.

“What if kids could learn to save for what they really wanted instead of the crap they didn’t need?” Gaeta says. “We want kids to be able to more easily see their saving over time.”

The Allowance Project — see Gaeta’s own submission to the site below — is just one step to that educational goal.

WHAT THE PROJECT WILL LOOK LIKE

Gaeta’s Web-based service — whatever it will be named — is due to launch this fall under her Task Farm LLC.

Gaeta says the heart of the product — well under construction — is separate but duly linked accounts for kids and their guardians.

The kid account will feature a bookmarking tool that can be used while trolling third-party online retailers, like Amazon. If he peeps something he’s into, he can ask the KidsZillions interface to collect the basics — name, cost, thumbnail and product info — and categorize it in his account. Back at KidsZillions, he can create a wish list, prioritize those items and create a personal budget based on buying items.

“So they can partition their allowances. If you get $10 a week for allowance, you can say six dollars goes to my skateboard fund, and three dollars go to my Legos and one in my savings,” Gaeta says. “Then there is a timeline bar that shows how long it takes to save the money you’ll need for that item… Maybe 18 weeks is too long to get that skateboard.”

The site will walk parents and kids through an allowance contract, making it clear how often it will come, what, if any, chores are required for the sum, if any extra work is available, what can be bought and more. It will be abutted by a calendar function, with deadlines and planned saving and work goals.

“We’re just keeping track of the promise of money, so there’s no actual transfer of money,” she says.

As the child completes items, he can check them off in his account, which will trigger a message to the parent in any desired way, from a text message to an e-mail. Once the parent confirms the chore’s completion, KidsZillions will add the promised cash to the kid’s overall tally.

Their platform, Gaeta promises, will cater to myriad of incentives that parents offer beyond traditional weekly allowances, from long-term grades-based prizes to shorter-term events-specific bonuses.

“Every single family does allowance different,” says Gaeta, who herself has a child-like wonder about her, transitioning from silly to serious during our conversation and never straying far from a giggle.

HOW THEY WILL MAKE MONEY

KidsZillions is investigating two revenue models.

With a significant user-base, they hope to find steady income through affiliate programs when purchases are made from a child’s wish list. They’re also tinkering with a freemium model, in which some basic services on the site would be free, but users would pay for advanced planning applications.

She’s excited about future development, with concepts like individually-limited prepaid debit cards that can be given to kids to teach lessons about handling plastic. She also has hopes of developing something like a PayPal service for kids.

“Kids don’t have to buy only kid things, but they have no way to make online purchases. It’s not facilitated online,” she says. “That’s somewhere else we can develop in the future.”

HOW DREAMIT VENTURES HAS HELPED

DreamIt, the pre-seed investment fund and incubator, launched in early 2008, offering chosen applicants seed funding, collaborative work space, advisers, legal and administrative help and access to funding sources. Gaeta learned of the DreamIt program at the end of last summer. She applied, was accepted in April and began her time there in May.

“When people ask what DreamIt is, I’ll say now that it’s unlimited resources for a very short period of time,” she says. “We have three months and then we’re kicked out of the nest. It’s pretty fierce.”

Gaeta and her team of seven are using the time to develop a “deep platform” site that can catch buzz and take on users quickly after its launch before the year’s end. The free legal and accounting advice are helping Gaeta focus on her mission, she says.

While not a programmer herself, Gaeta says she applied to DreamIt with the inclusion of a coalesced team of seven who have a variety of talents and backgrounds, from Web development to project management and marketing.

“These are all people we know and love,” Gaeta says of her team, who are intimates she’s collected from college through to Philadelphia.

GAETA THE ENTREPRENEUR

The skateboard-culture head is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill by way of community college in Portland, Ore. After time in San Francisco and a half decade in New York, handling production work and project management, she made the move to Philadelphia.

Gaeta and boyfriend Laris Kreslins, an equity partner whose Lime Projects is handling marketing and project planning, have not quite yet gotten out from under the rock of an infamous August 2005 New York Times story that profiled, among others, the two then-Brooklyn transplants, who had moved here that year. The Times story, which, somewhat inexplicably to some, says, “Philadelphians occasionally refer to their city – somewhat deprecatingly – as the ‘sixth borough’ of New York,” covered a trend of young professionals who bailed on the 67th ward for the cheaper, greener pastures of Philadelphia.

Kreslins and Gaeta bought a four-bedroom home near the Art Museum and launched Movetophilly.com, a site designed to coax those young people to Philadelphia, one of a growing list of projects and ventures the two and their cohorts have conjured.

“We’re Philly and proud,” she says.

Adding a vibrant online startup to Philadelphia is no doubt an interest of hers, but Gaeta says her objectives are far less geographically restrictive.

“We want to help parents be consistent and kids be consistent,” she says. “We want to reinforce good behavior and let the rewards be very real.”

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Gaeta is a total scenester. In January 2008, she won the first First Person Arts Story Slam competition.

Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly’s tech scene, but aren’t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

If you build a great product, your customers will be your best advertisers.

That’s something Kevin Kiene has learned. The founder of ezLandlord Forms, an online provider of property-management legal documents, remembers a time before that lesson was entirely his.

“In the beginning, we were marketing and advertising before we had a great product,” he said of his Web site, which will turn three this August. “We have a great product now.”

There were usability and design concerns and nowhere near the breadth of options the site now offers. But a lot can change in three years.

Last month, they launched a complete site redesign and are in the process of becoming a green certified business and doubling their staff. This month, they surpassed 300,000 members, many of whom are paying into its subscription model, pushing year-to-date sales by more than 225 percent. In September, HGTV’s Designing Spaces will be shooting a segment on the site to air at the year’s end.

“Business,” Kiene says, “is good.”

The company, which has office space in Cinnaminson, N.J., currently features seven employees who work from their homes across the country, including a Willow Grove-based Web developer and Kiene, 40, a native of Fox Chase in Northeast Philadelphia.

But Kiene, who now lives in Frankford, is proud to talk about the site’s national appeal, in addition to its growing traffic and how the idea for ezLandlord Forms came to him because he could never find a lease that would square away who was taking care of the damn lawn.

“It came out of a need, being a landlord for more than 15 years, knowing that I couldn’t always find a good lease agreement that could really protect me,” he said. “You’d call a friend who is a landlord, or you contact a real estate agent and say, ‘Hey do you have a lease? I need a lease.”

What lease documents he has bought were rarely up to date, Kiene says, and they rarely detailed responsibilities like cutting the grass, shoveling snow and switching batteries in smoke alarms. So he created his own basic lease and added or subtracted items and details as he saw fit.

That formed the core of what has become what Kiene says is the largest, most comprehensive property-management legal document resource on the planet.

It’s a subscription model: two weeks for $25 designed for one property; six months for $40 and one year for $76. It costs less than $10 per year to add an additional property. Membership gives users access to, as Kiene puts it, “the whole ball of wax.”

That includes the site’s robust Lease Builder Wizard, which puts users through a checklist of details to create a state-specific, tailor-made lease agreement, and its state assist features, guiding users through different laws, practices and expectations from state to state, including how large a security deposit, return-check fee and pet fees.

The site also has a network of real estate attorneys from each state, and just about every property-management document with a wide variety of details. Of course, the site’s staple products are its rental agreements.

“If you have to buy each form, is it really worth it?” Kiene says. “We give you a central source.”

Below, watch an animated tour of the company’s development, which cost a cool $20k, Kiene says

Kiene says he’s proud to be building this business in his native Philadelphia. (He says the above video was made by a Chicago-based firm, which plunked in the New York and Windy City references, much to our displeasure.)

It’s here where he found his real estate experience. At peak, he owned 10 rental properties in other parts of Northeast Philadelphia and “Kensington in the beginning,” he says. Now he says he’s filling a new role in a trade that became his career.

And Kiene isn’t done growing the site. He wants to develop a premier and secure resource for tenant credit checks and eviction history

“We want to build the best system,” he says.

That’s how your users will spread the word about the good work you do, he now says he knows. He continues to have the site’s usability tested, with the help of volunteers, and he keeps plunking down money that he says could score him the big suburban home some might dream of over a modest Frankford rowhome.

“Four years ago, this was just an idea. It took a year just to get the product together,” he says. “We have more to do, but there’s still nothing that comes close to what we offer. There’s nothing more important than that to me.”

Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly�s tech scene, but aren�t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

Kensington-based solar startup Solar States fuses education with a unique business plan. Photos courtesy of Solar States.

The growth generation of the region’s solar-tech work force is going to be trained in Northern Liberties, if solar startup Solar States has anything to do about it.

This Saturday is the first of a four-session training course called “Green by Example” held in the NoLibs Community Center by Solar States. The $350 class, taught by LEED For Homes expert Sam Klein, will give participants the shot at learning the latest in solar technology and weatherization. Guest speakers from top green building companies will join the party, too.

It’s the education arm of a fully-fledged solar business.

See, Solar States Solar States aims to become an independent solar power producer by 2010, and the plan is to do so with the help of Philadelphia high school graduates and others who might want the work but don’t have the training.

Saturday’s beginning of the adult vocation course is another step in that mission of developing this city’s sustainable workforce.

But the company is more than education. Its founders say what they’re developing will help shape the solar energy industry for the better.

Solar States is going to undercut PECO. That’s their business plan, and their clients will help them.

Last week, Solar States applied for a state grant after having an approval accepted for a solar array on the Crane Arts Building, a century-old converted artist community space on American Street just above Girard Avenue. If approved, the 83 kilowatt system could be operational as soon as August.

Solar States would fund the installation — which will be handled by King of Prussia solar startup Aztec Solar Power — own the solar array and sell the electricity to Crane Arts at a lower rate than the city’s energy company at a time of much debate about looming statewide rate hikes. For putting up the array, offering reduced costs to Crane and other considerations, Solar States gets itself a free 25-year lease on the artist space roof and a client contracted to buy their solar-powered electricity.

Watch a Solar States promotional video

Solar States, which is based in Kensington, first won widespread attention for launching a pilot program at the Science Leadership Academy, at 22nd and JFK Blvd., in which students were taught the science behind and how to install and maintain sustainable energies.

“A lot of people want to have solar panels on their houses but just don’t have the technical skills,” Gold-Markel told CBS3 last November.

Watch Solar States on Energy Watch from CBS3

Some have said green tech jobs could replace some of what has been lost in the great loss of industrialization in U.S. urban centers. And the jobs can be varied. Government at the federal, state and municipal level are increasingly joining that dialogue. Earlier this month, as the Inqy reported, the state’s long awaited rebate program for solar energy systems is operational. Still, the city’s unemployment rate is nearing 10 percent.

Gold-Markel, a Web designer and former teacher who launched Solar States last August and grew up in West Philly’s Powelton Village, says he’s hoping to capitalize on the times: building a sustainable-energy distributor and putting people to work through training. The company could become one in a crush of a new standard — your neighborhood solar energy distributor.

The next step just happens to be with a class in Northern Liberties.

If interested in joining the four-week course that begins this Saturday, June 6, sign up here.

Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly�s tech scene, but aren�t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

They offer a path to happiness, for five bucks.

Based on research from a noted University of Pennsylvania psychologist and coordinated by a team of three telecommuters in various Philadelphia neighborhoods, Happier.com is on the forefront of positive psychology and research dissemination.

Last week, the site rolled out a Freemium-style revenue strategy to its 20,000 users — a $4.99 monthly subscriber charge for full access to the site..

“The best researchers get up everyday trying to figure out how to get a grant, write a paper, be seen to fund their work,” said Andrew Rosenthal, a co-founder. “We get up everyday building tools for people to use this research.”

Happier launched in mid-November 2008 with the help of more than 30 largely Radnor-based individuals and family trusts .  They are not investing through a formal group. Rosenthal’s fellow founder is Doug Hensch, a Philly native who now lives outside of Washington, D.C., serves as chief operating officer and handles the firm’s product development. The small staff also includes Robb McCall who works from his Northern Liberties home and serves as director of customer service. Director of technology development is Mike Eidlem, who works from his Pennsport home.

A free registration will get you trackable, validated assessments and a limited amount of research-based exercises. The paid membership offers access to a host of such exercises, aimed at finding just what keeps you down and how to get away from it, in addition to video, writing from field-based academics and other assessments designed to measure otherwise intangibles like optimism, personal strengths and, yes, happiness.

Below, watch a demonstration of Happier.com.

“You’ll get advice on what to start doing tonight and tomorrow. Within a week, you’ll notice a chance in thinking about what went well and why,” Rosenthal, 25, says. “You’re going to feel better.”

The touchstone of the project is Penn professor Dr. Martin Seligman, though Happier is independent of the university and pays consulting fees to Seligman. (Watch Seligman discuss the site’s benefits.)

His research, that has come to be known as positive psychology, is considered the scientific study of the virtues that enable individuals or communities to develop and thrive. The field of study, which has found an industry hub at Penn’s Positive Psychology Center, has three primary focuses: positive emotions, positive individual traits and positive institutions.

If it all seems a little mushy, that’s because it’s just so gosh darn young. Seligman, Rosenthal and the rest of the Happier crew are presenting at the first World Congress on Positive Psychology, to be held in Center City in June. It will be the first international confab on what makes some folks smile and others frown.

“People have been studying happiness from Buddas to the Llamas for thousands of years, but it was ten years ago when someone really sat down and said, ‘Let’s use the research we have and evaluate what actually works,’” says Rosenthal, who lives in Rittenhouse. “Everyone’s mother has a suggestion, but it was the first time there was rigorous study and design through replication to validate and verify. That started at Penn. That started in Philadelphia.”

But it’s certainly gone global. There are master’s degrees for positive psychology in the United Kingdom. The Australian government has begun funding research to help find how to keep their residents chummy, Rosenthal says. The Bhutan government evaluates its own gross national happiness.

“There is a deep academic history and access to the best researchers in the field here, so this is where we are going to be,” says Rosenthal, who moved here from Portland-Oregon in 2002. “The creative class is growing stronger everyday.”

Happier is more than a for-profit business, he says.

Though they maintain a strict privacy agreement, the Happier project does give the team great access to raw data that can further the field’s progress.

“We’re leading the way on this new methodology for dissemination of positive psychology tools,” says Rosenthal, who also serves as the young firm’s marketing director.

They’ve been promoting through pay-per-click AdWords in Gmail.

“So someone is writing to a friend about breaking up with her boyfriend and there is an ad for Happier.com, about solutions and help.” Rosenthal said. “We’ve gotten viral response to that. People are on Twitter talking about those ads… sending us more traffic.”

Rosenthal himself has worked in the academic field, implementing similar research at a school in Australia.

“There is a strong desire among a lot of people to find ways to be happier. The academic pace is not keeping up, and not everyone is interested in buying a book and often that isn’t enough anyway,” Rosenthal says. “Sometimes you need that help to get to where you can be. People want that tool. They want to see change on a computer screen. That online method is letting us effectively combine science and happiness.”

“It feels great to get tools out there that are helping people because, of course, there seems to be more distress and despair now than in recent memory,” he says.

Rosenthal also serves as president of the regional Penn alumni group and says he has seen an increase in the “conversation on innovation” in Philadelphia.

Upcoming features include text-message reminders for self-assessments, in addition to a continually growing list of exercises and tools that more specifically target individuals. There technology break-through, which isn’t quite ready for display, is a customized algorithm for each user, more accurately measuring causes, effects and being able to offer more customized advice for action and defense of a happier life.

“You don’t need a therapist to be happy. That’s the breakthrough,” Rosenthal said. “You can do it on your own, and we want to help.”

Below watch Dr. Seligman discuss Happier.com’s iPhone application.

Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly’s tech scene, but aren’t necessarily technology focused. See others here.