Event Highlights for November 9 – 15, 2009

Good morning Philadelphia, I have excellent news for you: SEPTA has returned to work.

And just in time, as this week contains lots of events worth spending your hard earned tokens for.

First, meet up with The Innovator’s Club in the burbs to chat social media. The group promises the presentation will be mixed with some humor. But honestly, every time I hear a grown man say the word “tweet” I snicker a little.

Then, hop on over the Ben Frankline Bridge for the NJ and Philly Tech November meetup in a Cherry Hill bar possibly owned by Hillary Swank.

And lastly, get some sleep Friday night because Saturday is the all day party/un-conference that is BarCamp Philadelphia.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.

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Event highlights for the week of August 31 – September 6, 2009

Good God, it’s September already.

Which means it is time to stop blaming your recent lazy streak on the freggin’ hot August weather to prepare for a week chock-full of events. Actually, scratch that. You should prepare for a Tuesday chock-full of events.

Due to some strange alignment of the heavens, all of the events on our calendar happen to be taking place on Tuesday.

The only logical thing to do, of course, is to frantically try to attend all the events like that Flintstones episode where Fred has to be at Pebbles’ birthday party and the lodge on the same night.

First you’ll have to head on over to Buffalo Billiards to attend Net Tuesday, then hop over to Old City for Indy Hall’s birthday party. After you are done drinking with the Two Guys on Beer, you should cap it all off with the Linux meetup.
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Friday Q&A: Amy Hoy of Slash7 and Twistori

If you have never seen Twistori in action, go look. Seriously, I’ll wait.

The popular Web site and screensaver scans Twitter for uses of a handful key phrases such as “I hate,” “I love” and “I wish” and displays the Tweets anonymously and in real time, offering a revealing look into the life of people you may never meet. The site arranges the Tweets into a beautiful cascade of bright colors on a dark background that could suck you in for hours.

Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs, the couple behind the mesmerizing service, have just just released a desktop version where users pick their own keywords to be displayed. The application was one of the first ads on Twitter, was featured on Apple.com and has been covered by ReadWriteWeb among many other outlets.

Hoy may reside in Austria, but you can’t tell the story of Twistori without mentioning Philadelphia.

The desktop application was released through IndyHall Labs with the help of the hosts of� Two Guys on Beer, Dave Martorana and Johnny Bilotta. Hoy has been to the city several times, and was even there the day IndyHall opened.

We chatted with the Maryland-native as she closed the business day in Vienna about the recent release of Twistori’s Desktop app and her thoughts about her recent appearance on the popular tech podcast This Week in Tech.
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Ignite Philly 3 speakers announced

With the event only four days away, Ignite has published a list of the 16 speakers scheduled to present.

Included are several people who should be familiar to Technically Philly readers, including Andrew Rosenthal of Happier, Ben Kessler of Unbreaded, and Johnny Bilotta & David Martorana of Two Guys on Beer. All of the speakers have five minutes to present their topic of choice, and each presentation will have 20 slides that rotate every 15 seconds. The idea is to get a sampling of all of the great things happening in our fair city.

TP’s Brian James Kirk talked with organizer Geoff DiMasi, earlier this last month.

Ignite Philly starts at 7 p.m. this Saturday at Johnny Brendas. Admission is free.

Shop Talk: ‘Two Guys’ on cheap video podcast production

Johnny Bilotta and David Martorana produce Two Guys On Beer on the cheap.

It ain’t a bad week to be a beer lover in Philadelphia. For Johnny Bilotta and David Martorana of the Old City-based Two Guys On Beer video podcast, Philly Beer Week is sure to be a busy one.

The show, which demands deliciousness from the brews it tests, is coming up on its 60th episode, which is no small feat for a low-to-no budget production released twice per week. According to the duo, the podcast has grown a steady national viewership of 700 to 2,000 viewers per episode, and they’ve been considering syndication models that could end up planting it on the face of news Web sites anywhere.

Now that we’re half through the city’s week-long hoppy, malty escape from all things mixed-drink, Technically Philly has a confession. Last week during an interview for Shop Talk, when we told the show’s co-host and co-producer Dave Martorona to take it easy on the suds, we didn’t mean a word of it. We’re expecting Two Guys to make it their day job. Fortunately, Martorona proved that the show can afford a break from worrying about the production back-end, when he shared with Technically Philly some tips for aspiring vid-casters.

Read their advice on production and distribution, and check out Two Guys’ shooting rig, which includes a steal of a deal from EBay, after the jump.

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