Text Blast: text alert app for community organizations launches

If you have a civic group, and you’re looking for a new way to remind your members of an upcoming meeting, a new tool has launched with you in mind.

The hobbyist hacker turned Philly 311 project manager Tim Wisniewski launched his side-project Text Blast, a mass SMS tool for civic groups, at the BarCamp NewsInnovation hackathon during Philly Tech Week at the end of April.

[Full Disclosure: Technically Philly helped organize the BarCamp NewsInnovation hackathon.]

The idea for Text Blast was born out of necessity, Wisniewski told Technically Philly, and he’s been using earlier versions of the application to help organize community meetings in Kensington, where he is president of the Police District Advisory Council int he 24th District. He’s been working on the project for months.

Try out the tool by visiting the TextBlast site here.

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Philly SNAP: hackathon-built text messaging service to access nutritional assistance retailers begins outreach [VIDEO]

Philly SNAP, a project to create a simple text messaging tool sharing nearby farmers’ markets and stores that accept state supplemental nutrition assistance vouchers, is still being moved forward by its team some three months after it was first conceived at the Random Hacks of Kindness held at Drexel University in early June.

Technically Philly was a sponsor of the event, organized locally by Michael Brennan.

The four-person team has launched outreach to hunger-related nonprofit organizations in the hope that they will share their service with their constituencies. SNAP benefits, which stands for supplemental nutritional assistance program, are more commonly known as food stamps.

After texting a Philadelphia street address to 267-293-9387 — using any text-enabled phone regardless of Internet-access — a Philly SNAP user receives the nearest farmers’ market address, its dates and time of operation, the closet two SNAP-participating retailers and information on how to maximize SNAP vouchers through local fresh food initiatives, said Katey Metzroth, who came to Random Hacks interested in food justice from past nonprofit work but without any web development background.

“This became an important issue for me,” she told Technically Philly, lauding team developers Mark Headd, Tim Wisniewski and Danny Chang.

With that interest, Metzroth has led the group’s outreach effort.

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Disaster Mapper, Philly SNAP star at Random Hacks of Kindness Philadelphia [VIDEO]

One half of the teams at Random Hacks of Kindness Philadlephia, held June 4-5, 2011. Photo by by Philip Neuffer

The first Philadelphia Random Hacks of Kindness featured six teams working on at least that many projects, including three that were awarded special recognition by judges this weekend.

The weekend-long hackathon focused on climate change and disaster relief management was held at Drexel University and organized by Drexel computer science PhD student Mike Brennan, partnered with Technically Philly. After a kickoff reception at Indy Hall, as many as 50 coders, designers and subject matter experts arrived Saturday morning at Drexel’s computer science building on JFK Boulevard. Photos of the event here.

[Full disclosure: Technically Philly co-organized Random Hacks and this reporter was an event judge.]

Find the three featured hacks and other projects built during the weekend, in addition to getting a video tour of the end of Saturday’s hacking.

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Comcast Roundup: RightNetwork to be based in Philly, net neutrality affects Comcat stock and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

The Associated Press reports that actor Kelsey Grammer is “an investor and public face” of proposed politically-conservative-leaning RightNetwork, which aso has investment from Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider and drew buzz in April for incorrectly being associated with Comcast partnering.

Philly Tech News reports that Red Tettemer is handling the network’s PR and that it will be based in Philadelphia. That has since been confirmed.

Multichannel News reports that Comcast has launched a customer service text-messaging service dubbed “Comcast4U.”

Below, what net neutrality means for Comcast stock, a charitable mood and more.

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mychinoki.com gets businesses and consumers text messaging

Some time in between e-mail and Facebook, the viral social media of choice was text messaging.

But Matthew Balin seems to think the business of texting was never fully capitalized. In July, Balin launched mychinoki.com, a mobile platform that connects consumers and businesses for SMS updates.

It’s a chance for users to cherry pick what messages they want from what local businesses, which is why Balin chose a name he says is a Westernized translation to a Japanese phrase meaning ‘cherry picker.’

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Venmo mobile payments drives exchange for charities, retail

A few weeks after a disastrous 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 150,000 people, Peter Groverman was organizing.

By the end of his planning, Groverman—a Villanova law student and CEO of local advertising startup Tapinko—had brought together 126 people from around the world and 40,000 pounds of cargo, including $1 million in medical supplies, which all traveled on an airplane chartered to fly to Haiti last month.

It was another drill for Groverman, who first began organizing relief efforts when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005 and he gathered 40 students to head to New Orleans. But Groverman says another Philadelphia entity was helping drive his recent mission: Rittenhouse-based mobile payment startup Venmo.

Using the text message-based payment system, Groverman was able to raise $50,000 immediately—when that immediacy was vital. “Venmo [was] the whole backbone of our fundraising effort,” he says. “I cant imagine any nonprofit not using text message-based donation systems. There’s no need for a check, no need to go to a bank to deposit. I didn’t have time for checks to come.”

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