10 Twitter users every Philadelphian should follow

Some people count how many friends they have, and some people count the value of their friendships. On social media — and the web generally — we have the same kind of experience.

We can count just about everything online, and so it should surprise no one that as social media has boomed, so too have the comparisons between Facebook friend counts and Twitter followers.

But there’s so often a nuance that raw numbers can’t show.

It’s easy enough to track who are the most followed Twitter users in Philadelphia, but everyone is trying to figure out how those figures measure in influence — or ‘resonance.’ Suppose we want to see who are the biggest Philadelphia voices in the Twitter conversation — not spam accounts with big follower numbers, but those people who you should be following, whose opinions matter and are being heard.

Simply, what Philadelphia Twitter users matter most?

Find the rest on the Philly Post of Philadelphia magazine.

10 most trafficked Web sites in Philadelphia (maybe)

Traffic estimates from Compete.com for Philly.com, NBCPhiladelphia.com and CBS3.com, likely three of the most trafficked websites in Philadelphia. Click to enlarge.

July marks the middle of the calendar year, quarterly reports and time to evaluate progress on yearly goals.

At the beginning of 2010, we looked at 10 competitors and their relative web traffic. With six months done, we wanted to make the first attempt at listing the most trafficked websites in Philadelphia, using monthly unique visitors as the metric of choice.

To make the comparison, we’ve used public traffic website Compete, but, by way of disclosure, we’ll always offer that any public web metrics are notoriously controversial. It’s also important to note that there is often a drag in such traffic estimates being pulled, so the surest figures are from the end of May.

So, consider this a comparative start and nothing more.

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Ten most followed Philadelphia Twitter users

Roots drummer Questlove is Philadelphia's most followed Twitter user as of March 2010. Graph courtesy of TwitterCounter.com.

It’s tough to say just what it all means, but there’s some fascination with Twitter follower counts.

It’s a metric of some kind. Not quite popularity or power or purpose. Influence, yes, though many a spam account accrues tens of thousands of followers. So, take that as our warning. Twitter follower counts don’t necessarily mean jack, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

So we took a quick spin to meet who was out there representing Philadelphia in Twitter conversations. Who are the 10 most followed Twitter users listing Philadelphia as their home?

Below, you find out.

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Ten Philadelphia competitors and their January Web traffic

Click to enlarge.

Perhaps one of the most influential realities of the Web is metrics. The details of traffic and audience online have so rapidly become expansive that they have likely not yet been entirely harnessed.

Arguments still rage around the accuracy and importance of a myriad of Web analytics, but, away from page views, an increasing standard is to compare sites by their monthly unique visitors, though that number’s efficacy has no doubt come into question.

Until now, very little attention has been paid publicly to comparing Philadelphia’s many competitors by way of traffic comparison. With the first numbers for 2010 released this month by public Web analytics company Compete, Technically Philly decided to compile the first such digest.

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Ten Philadelphia Web sites then and now

Web designer in 1999

As the first decade of the 21st century closes, the Internet continues to change everything it touches.

Ten years ago, the Web was still working its way into everyday life of everyday people in Philadelphia. Now, it’s finding even more crevices of existence to transform. So, using the Internet Archive, we thought it might be a hoot to look back at the Web sites from ten Philadelphia technology institutions from the end of 1999.

It’s another in our completely irregular Top Ten Tuesday department.

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How to open a business in the City of Philadelphia, or 15 reasons people move to the suburbs

So you want to open a business in Philadelphia?

A Technically Philly reader recently launched her first venture in the city’s limits and thought the process was agonizing enough and the help non-existent enough to share.

She’s fairly straight-laced, she tells us, so she wanted to open her operation as legitimately and legally as possible. Yes, a good tax-paying business opening up shop in Philadelphia, so I’m sure we all expect the red-carpet treatment from the city.

Except, of course, as you know, the process was laborious and involved so many wrong turns, that we decided to give you all a short hand.

Below, in addition to the 15 steps and more than two months this passionate entrepreneur took to give money to the city, we show you the right way to launch your business in Philadelphia in five (oh my God, we know it won’t actually be easy) steps.

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Ten Philadelphia iPhone apps that don’t exist but should

The iPhone application news has to be getting a little tiresome, no?

Google says the mobile application collection is a fleeting concept. The iPhone store is completely flooded with more than 36,000 and few are making money or much worth the time.

Still, they keep coming. We reported that Comcast has its own new iPhone and iPod touch mobile app. Educational software company Blackboard and freakin’ Harry Potter have apps. Newspapers on occasion have them, but big ones like the Wall Street Journal and USA Today are trying to figure out how to charge.

Philly has many apps made by Philadelphians, like one about old Abe Lincoln and a righteous one for Philly concerts, but they are hardly comprehensive.

So why doesn’t Philadelphia, rife with culture and on the cusp (and perhaps in need of a bit) of a technology renaissance, have more of their own?

That profit problem, of course. Because, really, with rare exception no real money is being made, so it isn’t likely that a crush of Philadelphia-specific iPhone apps are going to be made anytime soon. But it sure is fun to indulge.

So, after the jump, find the 10 Philadelphia iPhone (or Windows mobile) apps that should exist, but don’t and probably never will.

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Ten Philadelphia tech organizations that should have Wikipedia entries but don’t

Look, this is down right embarrassing.

Earlier this month we retweeted Viddler founder Rob Sandie. He was self-promoting, but damn it if we didn’t agree with him. Why didn’t the growing video-hosting service have a Wikipedia entry? Now that Google News has begun to link to the Web’s largest community-edited encyclopedia, it’s clear it’s bypassed mainstream and shot straight to influential.

So, it’s become something of shorthand for the importance of a subject, person or organization. But, as we found, Philadelphia generally and its technology and innovation communities specifically are dismally represented in the Web 2.0 powerhouse.

When someone answered Sandie’s call to create a Viddler Wikipedia page, it was deleted because, as one Wiki editor wrote, the article was “about a web site, blog, online forum, webcomic, podcast, or similar web content that didn’t assert the importance or significance of its subject.”

Sounds like a call to make clear the Philadelphia technology scene is significant. Below, we share our list of 10 members of our community that don’t have Wikipedia entries, but should, including Viddler.

We respect the mission of Wikipedia, so don’t consider this spam posting. Rather, we think our community is very underserved by the online encyclopedia. This, my friends, is basic stuff we need to get down. Who’s stepping up?

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