TicketLeap and Social Media, a match made in heaven

In the highly competitive world of online ticketing, it’s often the little things that set a company apart.

This is no news to Chris Stanchak, CEO of the rapidly growing Philly-based ticketer TicketLeap.

When he founded TicketLeap in 2003 as a student project, Stanchak had a vision of providing professional-grade ticketing for events too small to attract the attention of ticketing giants such as Ticketmaster.

Since then, the company has saved bicycling in Philadelphia, raised capital and has completed a drastic redesign of the company’s homepage and changed its business philosophy.

“Before [the redesign] we were focused on being a destination site for people trying to find tickets to events near them,” says Stanchak. “But with everything happening in social media, the idea of a destination event website is kind of going away.”

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Startup Roundup: D.C.’s startup soul offers lessons, DreamIT-backed SCVNGR growing strong, TicketLeap redesigns

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. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

Philly Startup Leader Founder Blake Jennelle writes long-form about Washington D.C.’s “startup soul,” after taking in the scene there earlier this month. There’s a lot for Philly to learn from it’s neighbor to the south, Jennelle says, and we’ve got much in common. Like Philly, growth comes from the grassroots, but D.C. lacks a central community of entrepreneurs. And our brethren know Philadelphia. “The reputation of [Philly's] creative communities is strong,” he writes.

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Friday Tech Links: Archer Group is tracking eyes, the city’s radio system upgrade and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

Wilmington, Del.-based Web marketing and design firm the Archer Group is using new-age computer-user tracking systems to see what you’re looking at. That’s the same Delaware company that recently helped Wawa brand its products on Facebook.

As the Web has matured and its users have too, the group’s “Eye-tracking Usability Lab” is meant to give its designers insight into how computer users, with years of Internet-browsing behind them, are digesting the Web today, as Delaware Online reported. [Full Disclosure: Sean Blanda loves Delaware].

It’s what you’ve heard before: freaky pinpoint infrared sensors that follow eye movements as they bounce from whatever the tester spots. Get the deets and what Archer is doing with the work at the full story.

After the jump, Bussiness Week reports that one of one of our own seed-stage investment firms is saving venture capital, the city’s emergency radio system with Motorola isn’t “reliable” and seven other tech stories you need to read — including our best read story of the week.

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TicketLeap launches Anywhere, saves competitive biking

TicketLeap saved bicycle racing in Philadelphia.

Or at least the Center City-based event-planning ticketing service provider was one of many partners that helped make sure the 25th annual Philadelphia Cycling Championship was possible, even after a city budget hole left the international race short $500,000.

The company doubled their ticketing of VIP seating with merchandising and donation soliciting to help bring cash to the June 7th race, famed for its chase of the “Manayunk Wall”

While they were saving racing, TicketLeap was also introducing Anywhere, which just might be the first product allowing users to create a virtual box office out of an Internet-enabled computer.

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