Frank Eliason formerly of @ComcastCares talks customer service and moving on

In the pantheon of social media, Frank Eliason is certainly something of a celebrity.

He was the start of a social media craze from Comcast, chasing down and responding to online complaints from customers. In the history book of social media, Eliason, who popularized Twitter handle @ComcastCares, will be among the forefathers of the movement.

After beginning in September 2007, his role was buffeted with a team of Comcast tweeters and blog readers and outreach specialists.

Nearly as well known as complaints about Comcast service were the signs of that Eliason’s team was listening. It was a strange juxtaposition, an attempt to move a mountain of negative perception with a relatively small team of persistent web-based professionals.

And Eliason was at the start of what has become accepted as the norm.

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Apple Store opening: video, photos and timeline

Two people -- and a police car -- wait outside the Apple Store at 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 31, the day after its official opening and two hours before its second day opening.

Now we can finally drop the Apple Store watch.

As reported and expected, the Apple Store at 1607 Walnut Street near Rittenhouse Square opened Friday late afternoon and did so with much fanfare. Rather than recreate the coverage, we figured we’d offer you a spin through the best.

• Apple Store development timeline — Brownstoner
• Inside the Apple Store photos — Brownstoner
• The Apple of many an eye opening — Inquirer (Good perspective on retail effect)
• The Line for the New Apple Store — Daring Fireball
• That New Store Smell — John Gruber’s Flickr
• Philadelphia finally gets an Apple Store — Fortune (complete with a Philly dig or two)

Below, check out some videos of the opening.

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David Cohen: Comcast not worried about online video

David Cohen (left) is interview by Supernova Hub organizer Kevin Werbach

According to what David Cohen says, Comcast isn’t worried about the shift to online video.

In fact, he says, the company is welcoming it — enough so that the future of online video has become the dominant conversation surrounding the company’s proposed acquisition of NBC Universal. Regulators are a wreck over what the merger might mean for moving pictures on the web, but Comcast maintains that the deal would stimulate, not stifle, competition.

During his keynote interview at today’s Superniva Hub conference, Comcast’s Executive Vice President answered a wide range of questions about his company’s merger with NBCU and privacy concerns (see our Q and A with him here).

“People often don’t realize how large Comcast is,” said Cohen adding that NBCU will only be 20 percent of Comcast.

But Cohen’s main focus was Xfinity and its role in content creation. Below, hear why Cohen and Comcast aren’t concerned about the shift to online video.

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myDunkTank.com makes a cowboy out of Blake Jennelle

Blake Jennelle, receiving the oath of his 'urban cowboy' office from City Councilman Bill Green in front of a City Hall that is, by our best estimation, entirely unrelated to Philadelphia. Screenshot via a video from Revzilla

No one can be sure about the accuracy of Blake Jennelle‘s stereotype of a cowboy. Or how authentically the Philly Startup Leaders co-founder says ‘howdy.’

But what Jennelle has done is made a pledge, donned a Western hat and begun a month of wandering Philadelphia as an urban cowboy, the pledge he made as part of myDunkTank, the new experimental fundraising website launched last month by Jennelle and partner Chap Ambrose.

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Links: Local currency movement, Amish entrepreneurs and more

DEFINITE READS

• Freelancer John Steele writes for Keystone Edge on the growing local currency movement, in which three suburban communities are encouraging the use of a town-specific form of money to develop local purchases.
• Keystone Edge also has a Q&A with Erik Wesner, the author of a new book that includes insight on vibrant entrepreneurial Amish communities.

Below, Science Cheerleader launches new project, GSI Commerce scores (or some other basketball pun) and more.

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Links: Scientist entrepreneurs, a Delaware cell phone ban and more

• Keystone Edge reports on the growing trend of regional scientists foraying into business startups, amidst the region being ranked the second densest collection of bioscience companies in the country — behind Boston.
• The Inquirer reports on another startup trying to offer residents the solar-power-by-lease option.
• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that two Philadelphia University laboratories, one of ‘engineered human protection’ and another of biomedical textile structures, have received nearly $1.8 million in federal funds.

• The Wilmington News Journal reports that long-delayed legislation banning the use of cell phones while driving is expected to pass.
• Fox 29 reports on an entrepreneur that says video gaming helped develop his business savvy. Watch the video below.

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Museum Without Walls audio program tours the art of the Ben Franklin Parkway

The Iroqoius model at 24th Street north of the Ben Franklin Parkway by Mark di Suvero. The story behind the sculpture is part of a new audio initiaitve from the Fairmount Park Art Association.

Ben Franklin Parkway, the cavernous promenade that thunderclaps from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, never developed the type of urban density that the French boulevard after which it was modeled in the 1920s.

In reaction, city and state officials announced this week the immediate launching of $19 million in improvements meant to make the signature thoroughfare more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.

Tomorrow, another, unrelated initiative launches to better connect the prize art and acclaimed cultural institutions that litter the parkway like trash blowing in a neighborhood breeze.

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Comcast Roundup: FCC defends right to regulate, new iPad device and More

DEFINITE READS

• Variety editorializes that Comcast has much to learn about the content world that NBC ownership would drag them into, but “is looking better all the time.”
• The Hill reports that nearly the entire Pennsylvania Congressional delegation supports the Comcast-NBC deal.
• The Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano reports on the ‘chaos’ that analysts predict will come from the FCC’s plan to regulate broadband Internet services, plans to defend so-called ‘net neutrality’ policies.
• The Washington Post reports that cable stocks took a beating because of it — and that the FCC has gone on something of a campaign to assert it does still have authority over cable broadband policy despite a recent appeals court that went in Comcast’s favor.
• With all humility, Technically Philly has a lengthy Q&A with Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen on the company’s relationship with Philadelphia and his views on the region.

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David L. Cohen, Comcast Executive Vice President, talks Comcast, taxes and startups

David L. Cohen doesn’t run Comcast.

He didn’t run the Rendell mayoral administration either, and he doesn’t run the University of Pennsylvania or the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, nor does he have any of the titles that put him as the figurehead of any of the organizations that his fingerprints are on.

But he’s always in the conversations.

The Comcast Executive Vice President who spent much of the early 1990s as Ed Rendell’s mayoral chief of staff — as immortalized by Buzz Bissinger’s noted book ‘A Prayer for the City‘ — and before it had a private law career is as well-connected as they come.

So, Cohen, who is also the chairman of both the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and the University of Pennsylvania, has a unique vantage point on the region’s technology, political and cultural vanguard. Below, Cohen talks to Technically Philly about bolstering college graduate retention, the true affects of the NBC deal and why that purchase has something to do with Vietnam.

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Comcast Roundup: Moving forward with national broadband plan, Cole Hamels shills and More

DEFINITE READS

• The Washington Post has an interview with former FCC chair Michael Powell, in which the agency’s recent battles with Comcast are discussed.
• The Post also reports that leaders pushing for a reform of the national broadband plan are holding strong on the notion that their movement won’t be sidetracked by the recent court ruling that ruled against the FCC having the authority to control Comcast’s bandwidth limitations. An op-ed in the New York Times argues the same point.
• The Post adds depth to the court ruling, though, noting that it may be less a clear victory for Comcast and instead the start of a battleground between the cable giant and host of companies in tangentially related arenas like Skype, Google and Microsoft.

Below, details on Comcast’s 3D taping of the Masters, Cole Hamles breaks plates for Xfinity and more.

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