Looking for Philly’s Next Big Start-Up?

Innovative companies that are changing the region’s tech landscape

At Technically Philly we've written nearly 1000 posts covering the technology community here in Philadelphia. If you paged through our archives, you would come across hundreds of local companies, each with something innovative to offer the city and the world.However, in the rare circumstance that you do not have hours to look at TP's back archives, let us help you take an easier, much more fun approach: Switch.

Forget Snookis, Old City is Overrun with Techies

All is not lost in the historic ’hood. By day, it’s a thriving technology hub

Philadelphia magazine's September feature by Richard Rys documents an Old City in transition—and not a pretty one. A neighborhood once thriving with artists, entertainment and prominent restaurateurs turns into a bad episode of Jersey Shore on weekends, the writer contends.But that's not the Old City we know. By day, the historic neighborhood has become something of a Web development and technology startup haven. Earlier this year, as city technology leaders prepared Philadelphia's bid for Google's ultra high-speed broadband Internet pilot, it was Old City that was chosen as one of the city's potential technology hubs, for the diverse technologists that live and work there.Here's our look at what still sparkles in Old City...

The Top 12 iPhone Apps by Philadelphians, For Philadelphians

From traffic reports to killing zombies, these awesome apps have the city covered

Great news for all the iPhone-addicts out there: Philly's ever-increasing number of techies has been up to more than just taking up all the seats at your favorite Wi-Fi café. They’ve been busy developing truly Philly-centric apps, from the genius (SEPTA travel, local concert information and traffic reports) to the just-for-fun (zombie braining and saving kittens).Some of these Philly finds may take a little digging through the app store, and with tens of thousands of apps to choose from, who has time for all that? Well, we do! Get those downloading fingers ready for these 12 awesome iPhone apps by Philadelphians, for Philadelphians.

Techgirlz Hopes to Bridge Gender Gap in Philly Tech

New group aims to provide role models for middle school girls

If you have ever been to one of the dozen weekly technology events around Philadelphia, you likely have quickly noticed that the room is often largely filled with men.“I’ve been in tech for 15 years and I've never been in a room full of women," says Techgirlz co-founder Anita Garimella.To help bridge the gap, a handful of local women have created Techgirlz, a new organization that hopes to solve the gender gap in Philadelphia's technology community. According to Techgirlz, most girls begin to dial back the pursuit of subjects like math and science in middle school. Technology jobs are often...

Philadelphia’s 10 Most Influential Twitter Users

We know who the most-followed Twitterers in town, but who are the must-follows?

Some people count how many friends they have, and some people count the value of their friendships. In the world of social media, it's no different.We can precisely measure just about everything online, and so it should surprise no one that as social media has boomed, so have the comparisons between Facebook friend counts and Twitter followers.But there's a nuance that raw numbers can't show. There's quantity ... and then there's quality.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.' Who are the biggest Philadelphia voices in the Twitter conversation? We're not talking about spam accounts with big follower numbers, but those people who you should be following, whose opinions matter and whose tweets are being heard.Which Philadelphia Twitter users matter most? By incorporating standard metrics like follower counts, communication total and update frequency — in addition to actual power, background and title — we've compiled a list of the 10 Tweeters that every Philadelphian should be following.

Philly Is “Gigabit City” (with or without Google)

While cities wait to hear Google gigabit fiber winners, next-gen broadband plans forge ahead in Philly

Last week, Google thanked the 1,100 applicants who entered its Google Fiber for Communities contest, an initiative to test high-speed, next generation broadband — known as 'gigabit' fiber — that is up to 100 times faster than current average household Internet connections. As we've written in this column before, Google plans to wire between 50,000 and a half-million households with gigabit, an experiment which could have broad implications for technological innovation and national broadband policy.The thank-you was but a tease for Philly's technology community, which, as part of the City's application to the Google Fiber for Communities contest, created "Gigabit City," a repository where folks brainstorm specific projects that may be possible with gigabit technology. Like everyone else, they'll have to wait until Google announces the winners in the fall, but City of Philadelphia Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank isn't sitting around. He's turned the city's application into an opportunity to engage Philadelphia around next-generation broadband policy.In the process, he's been able to push the city's telecommunication heavies  — Comcast and Verizon — to consider Philadelphia's future.

Philly 311: There’s No App for That

The city promised to deliver a Philly 311 iPhone application in May. So where is it?

Last week, while the City of Philadelphia was busy celebrating the country’s 234th birthday, another anniversary passed by with little fanfare. July 5 marked three months since the city announced it was developing its own 311 iPhone application to allow citizens to access city data on the go. It also marked the day the application was two months late.In an April 5 announcement, Division of Technology chief Allan Frank said the application would be available in May, yet there’s still no sign of it on the city’s 311 site or in the App Store.While we're certainly on board with city government embracing new technologies, there were several alternatives to the city developing the application itself that would have sped up its development and saved precious taxpayer dollars."We need to be less focused on managing servers and more focused on serving citizens," said Councilman Bill Green in a phone interview with Technically Philly about the 311 application. Green says the city could have cheaply crowd-sourced the application development using a service like Force.com.In building the application itself, the city showed that it didn’t even perform a simple Google search to weigh other options. Philadelphia is not the first city to attempt a 311 application, nor is the 311 department the first city department to bring its data to a mobile platform. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Tourism On Your Phone: Why It Matters To Philly

Recent deals put Philadelphia at the forefront of mobile tourism trends ... who benefits?

With tourism, it's all about where you are. Exactly where you are.In Philadelphia, the past month has seen a wash of mobile geo-location tourism applications launch in and around the Cradle of Liberty. Trends say those deals and the mobile tools they employ today will help to profoundly reconfigure how tourists experience this 'greene country towne' in the future.City tourism officials announced with great fanfare last week a mobile app that puts users onto competitive 'treks,' sending them throughout the city to find and explore and earn points for what they find and how they find it. Philadelphia is the first city to use the platform, developed with SCVNGR, a now Boston-based company with roots at Princeton and Drexel universities.In May, a deal was announced between  VisitPA and geo-location social media powerhouse Foursquare, offering users digital badges for checking in at locations across the state in one of three categories: dining, buying and museum-going. Visit Bucks County has also launched a Foursquare deal, and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. is starting to play there too.Then in early June, the Fairmount Park Art Association unveiled its multi-platform Museum without Walls, in which visitors to the Ben Franklin Parkway can dial a phone number and choose to hear professionally produced oral histories about the city's public sculptures.

Tech Transfer: Why It Matters and How Philly’s Making It Better

While others bicker, University City Science Center CEO Stephen Tang offers a solution

As we approach our nation's birthday this weekend, let's give a nod to another Philadelphia first: The University City Science Center. It's the nation's oldest and largest urban business incubator, providing physical space, resources and funding to help startup companies and university researchers commercialize new technologies. With 31 university partners across the region, the Science Center is no stranger to technology transfer, the process that allows university research to be commercialized for greater public benefit.It's also at the center of a national debate over whether tech transfer encourages or hampers the creation of tech startups.