Philly Tech People News 9/30/2012



Quality Systems appoints COO (AP via Business Week)
Quality Systems' primary business is EHR vendor NextGen Healthcare of Horsham.

Ex-Yahoo! Chief Thompson Gets a Spot on the Board of Kabbage (Business Week)

Nutrisystem still searching (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Anexinet Hires Susan Haindl as
Vice President of Delivery
(Anexinet Web Site)

Meet Arcweb (Chris Cera)

Richard Fox Joins TMMI Advisory Board (Marketwire)

TelVue Corporation Appoints Emmett Hume as Chief Financial Officer (Marketwire)




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The 'disrupters' who open up the city to possibility (Larry Platt/Philly.com)


DOJ clears SAP's $4.3 billion Ariba acquisition; to close next week



Tom Paine


SAP AG and Ariba Inc. announced yesterday that the U.S. Department of Justice has terminated the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, which allows SAP's acquisition of Ariba to be completed. The companies say they plan to close the acquisition in the first week of October.

SAP annnounced an agreement to acquire California-based Ariba for $4.3 billion in May. Ariba provides a cloud-based service for B2B business commerce and procurement.

SAP and Ariba had received a second request for information from DOJ in early July.



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Saturday Highlights: Comcast preps for Supreme Court; explains the Comcast Hardware Innovation Platform


Comcast antitrust case heading to U.S. Supreme Court (Philadelphia Inquirer)

How the Comcast Hardware Innovation Platform Powers Tomorrow's Technology (Comcast Voices/Official Comcast Blog)

Comcast Ventures among investors in video search firm Ramp (Communications, Engineering & Design Magazine)

Salesforce.com, Enterprise Platforms, and the End of the End of Software (Josh Greenbaum/Enterprise Irregulars)

Why Amazon and Salesforce are pulling away from the cloud pack (Gigaom)




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phillytechnews twitterfeed 9/26 to 9/27




Posted: 27 Sep 2012 02:58 PM PDT
phillytechnews: Daily Links 9/27/2012: Comcast invests in Zeebox, will incorporate its technology http://t.co/wfPZSoDD
Posted: 27 Sep 2012 02:23 PM PDT


Wall Street Journal names 50 "Next Big Thing" startups; none local, First Round Capital well represented


Tom Paine

The Wall Street Journal this week released its list of  50 "Next Big Thing" startups. The selections are chosen from privately held, venture-backed firms with valuations of less than $1 billion, to emphasize those with considerable potential that aren't that widely known yet.

There are no companies from anywhere near Philly on it, and only a handful from the east coast. The closest is video conferencing startup Vidyo, which is based in Hackensack. There are also a few that are based in New York. Whether this reflects a west coast bias, or simply the reality of where most of the VC money goes, I don't know.

First Round Capital did well, having four of its portfolio companies make it:

  • Keep Holdings -AdKeeper,  online ad saving technology (New York)
  • Tremor Video - Video technology for content and advertising (New York)
  • UberMedia - Bid-based marketplace for Twitter (Pasedena)
  • RockMelt - social web brower  (Mountain View)


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Deal search & recommendation site Blue Kangaroo, with King of Prussia office, launches out of beta



Tom Paine


Deal search and recommendation startup ChoozOn came out of beta last week, launching under the brand name Blue Kangaroo. The company plans to rebrand completely as Blue Kangaroo in the coming weeks.

ChoozOn's local presence stems from its having an office in King of Prussia where its CEO, Nick Weir, and a few other employees are based. It also has offices in the Bay area, Seattle, and the Kingdom of Jordan. Of its 40 employees, about 30 are based in Jordan. ChoozOn has raised $4.5 million from angel investors to date.



ChoozOn's three co-founders are all PHDs. Weir, who is a native Texan, originally was an astrophysicist who received his doctorate from Caltech. Subsequently he was with Goldman Sachs, and was Vice President for Data Strategy at Yahoo. The other co-founders are Yahoo alum also; Chairmam & CTO Usama Fayyad was Yahoo's Chief Data Officer and Executive VP, and Chief Marketing Officer Hunter Madsen established the product marketing unit for Yahoo Worldwide Sales.

Nick Weir

Blue Kangaroo is built on proprietary technology that "contextually" matches users' personal interests to the deals that are best suited to them. Blue Kangaroo also give users the option of combining offers from their personal email inboxes with offers from ecommerce sites on Blue Kangaroo into a single place - a personal Blue Kangaroo email box that lets you easily scan offers, according to the company.

Currently, Blue Kangaroo says it features offers from more than 1,500 brands/retailers, deal sites, flash sales sites and discount providers. One of the biggest challenge a startup like this faces is scaling its user base. To reach its market, Blue Kangaroo has partnerships with some major players in the works that will be announced in the coming weeks, CEO Weir told me in a phone interview, and these partners will promote the service using the Blue Kangaroo brand rather than with a white label version. The service is free to consumers; monetization will come by way of commissions paid by brands and retail sites that agree to be featured on Blue Kangaroo. An Android app is expected by Christmas, with an iOS app to follow. Blue Kangaroo also offers social features which allow you to hook up with other users and see what deal offers they are receiving, and localization features down to the neighborhood or mall level.

Although there are some competitors out there already, ChoozOn sees the market as being very fragmented and believes its development of proprietary technology with emphasis on personalization will give it a distinct advantage.

King of Prussia is an important office for reaching potential partners on the easr coast, but it is not clear what expansion plans ChoozOn may have locally. The company's Jordanian presence stems largely from Fayyad, who was born in Tunisia and has been a leader in the tech startup movement in the Kingdom.

Blue Kangaroo has a sense of humor also, which I appreciate. It conducted a serious scientific survey of 1,090 US adults (see results) that tended to confirm consumer need for its service. In addition, survey respondents said that in order to punish email spammers:

o 65% would permanently block their internet access

o 14% would impose long jail sentences

o 8% would remove some of their typing fingers

o 7% would bring back the medieval rack

Although I wouldn't claim to be an expert, I found in my early exploration of the site that its easy to navigate and use.

See ChoozOn's press release.



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phillytechnews twitterfeed 9/23 to 9/24 2012




Posted: 24 Sep 2012 05:32 PM PDT
phillytechnews: RT @chucksacco: Another great turnout for @momo_ma Mobile Monday Mid Atlantic. #momoma http://t.co/8NuNbaeB
Posted: 24 Sep 2012 05:31 PM PDT
phillytechnews: RT @firstround: Funding the Dorm Room from @danprimack - http://t.co/o2iDcA8B
Posted: 24 Sep 2012 02:36 PM PDT


Daily Links 9/27/2012: Comcast invests in Zeebox, will incorporate its technology



NBCUniversal, Comcast and HBO partner with Zeebox on U.S. launch (LA Times: Company Town)
Comcast takes equity stake in Zeebox, will deploy its "second screen" technology.

Comcast Gives FTTH a Shot (Light Reading Cable)
I took a look last month at what Comcast might be doing with fiber to the premise (FTTP) deployments for businesses, but this article adds another dimension.

Dish Exploring New Web TV Service With Viacom, Univision, Scripps
Could Alter Economics of Pay-TV Business
(Bloomberg via Ad Age)


Will TV will be Apple's Undoing? (Fortune Tech)


Cracking The Nut With Jam, SAP Moves Social Tools Out Of The Silo And Into Business Apps (TechCrunch)

SAP NetWeaver Cloud platform as a service release could be soon (Computerworld)

SAP rolls out new Sales OnDemand mobile app (SAP Watch)

SAP Exec: Here's Why We Spent $8 Billion On Two Cloud Companies (SAI: Enterprise)


SevOne: The Dismal And Hopeful State Of Data Center Performance (TechCrunch)
SevOne is based in Wilmington.

PNC, Wells Fargo join list of cyber attack targets (Philadelphia Business Journal)



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Daily Links 9/26/2012: Highmark to manage information technology for Independence Blue Cross




Highmark to handle data for Philly insurer (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Comcast retracts criticism of state (Sacramento Businss Journal)
Comcast initially blamed California’s business climate as its reason for closing call
centers in the state and laying off 1,000 workers.

Comcast's Cohen: No Justification for Exclusivity Ban (Multichannel News)


Verizon Again Confirms No Future FiOS Expansion
(Broadband Reports)

Accenture Completes Acquisition of Octagon Research Solutions (Business Wire)

Rent-to-own PCs surreptitiously captured users' most intimate moments (Ars Technica)
Software was provided by Philly-based DesignerWare.

Inquirer, Daily News, Philly.com have new No. 2 leader
(Philadelphia Inquirer)


Does hardware matter in the cloud? Oracle is hoping so (ZDNet)

Facebook gets involved with cloud storage via Dropbox integration (ZDNet)

Comcast-Spectacor Puts a Premium on Fan Loyalty at Wells Fargo Center with Neolane and FanOne Marketing (Pymnts.com)



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Highlights last week on Philly Tech News (9/17/2012 to 9/23/2012)



I reported on the increasing number of 4G LTE options coming to the Philadelphia area in
the next year.

NJTechWeekly's Esther Surden provided a detailed report on Princeton-based Tigerlabs' first demo day held in July. Last week Tigerlabs took another step forward by announcing the launch of a startup accelerator for the healthcare industry.

First Round Capital announced it had led a seed round for Perceptual Networks, a startup to be located in Philadelphia. FRC also released a splashy video spotlighting the Philadelphia startup scene.



Salesforce.com's annual Dreamforce conference drew a huge crowd in San Francisco, as the company emphasized broadening its solutions to serve more functional areas within an enterprise.

Philly-based mobile development shop appRenaissance took a major step beyond being a
custom development shop
by introducing a new mobile app development platform, Artisan.

Radnor-based QlikTech launched its new app exchange, QlikMarket.

And unified communications provider Alteva opened its new national headquarters in Old City Philadelphia.


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Quewey moving out, selling furniture on craigslist



Tom Paine

Quewey, the Center City-based business Q&A site that pivoted last month to matching people with common professional interests amd bringing them together for social meetups, is moving out of its Rittenhouse Square offices by the end of September.

They are selling furniture on craigslist:



I'm not drawing any conclusions about what this might mean; I reached out to the company for comment but haven't received any response yet. The website is still live, but I haven't seen any other word from Quewey about what might be happening.

Quewey has raised $350,000 from angel investors, according to FormDs.com. Founded by ICG executive and Wharton MBA Matthew J. Safaii (ICG was not an investor) and launched in March, the startup's original concept was built around using LinkedIn to qualify the background and expertise of contributors to the Q&A site. But it never seemed to get much traction in building a user base before moving to its new format last month.



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Daily Links 9/25/2012: Cable operators may challenge game consoles



SAP's Emerging Cloud Platform Strategy (Frank Scavo/Constellation Research)

Xbox Challenged as Cable Plots to Make Consoles Obsolete: (Bloomberg)

Verizon Nears Launch Of FiOS Media Server (Multichannel News)

How the U.S. is winning the race to next-gen Internet (PC World)

Cable outpaces iTunes for iVOD movies: Comcast leads rental category (Variety via Chicago Tribune)

FTTH Quietly Grows 10% in North America (Light Reading Cable)

Chattanooga, Tenn., tries to lure in tech experts (Philadelphia Inquirer)

University City innovation zone grant to aid new companies (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Fisker Karma 'plagued with flaws,' says Consumer Reports (Reuters via San Jose Mercury News)



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SEER Interactive looks at sources of monetization by major Web brands



Philly-based SEO/SEM agency SEER Interactive has a feature on its website, How do our favorite tech companies make money?. It looks at some 47 major web-based brands (including several from Google) and the revenue components each has monetized to this point.

Not clear what its data sources are so its difficult to verify accuracy, but nonetheless its worth a look. Maybe SEER will expand upon it.



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Daily Links 9/24/2012: First Round Capital launches "Dorm Room Fund" in Philadelphia



The Dorm Room Fund (Redeye VC)

For Students, By Students: First Round Capital Announces Dorm Room Fund in Philly (PandoDaily)

Mobile Services and Cable TV Are Unexpected Allies (New York Times)

Verizon to Pay More Than $510 Million to TiVo, ActiveVide (Bloomberg)

What caused New York’s startup boom?
A few early and broad questions in our exploration of NYC's startup community.

(O'Reilly Radar)

Ad Tech Company eXelate Raises $12M C Round Led By NewSpring Capital (TechCrunch)


Cable deal awaits verdict
City board has spent 2 years in negotiations
(Wilmington News Journal)

AppMobi Unveils Mobile Cloud Platform For Businesses
(CRN)

Why Software-As-A-Service Could Be A Dead End
If enterprise apps all become SaaS, your software investment will have a very precise lifespan and return.
(Information Week)

Salesforce.com's Next Steps To Become The Next Oracle (Information Week)

SAP Bundles Analytic Apps with IQ Database (CIO.com)

Tech sector hopes Princeton president's replacement continues to partner with business (NJBiz.com)

MedRisk and Acrometis Partner to Maximize Network Penetration and Effectiveness for Physical Medicine Management (Business Wire)
Both firms are based in Malvern.



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Reintroducing the Philly Tech News Search Engine



This is to introduce, or in some cases reintroduce, a valuable tool on Philly Tech News: the Philly Tech News Search Engine.

Built on Google Custom Search, the search engine now includes about 1600 sites, including major news and meta information sites for the Philly area, associations, VC firms, incubators, tech-related academic resources, user groups, established tech companies, relevant blogs and a multitude of startups in the region.

Since its built on Google Custom Search, its easy to use, and a very specific tool for finding information about people, places and companies with a Philly focus without getting the overwhelming clutter from everything else on the web. It also covers all the content from Philly Tech News.

Philly Tech Search Engine





Give it a try if you haven't yet. The search bar is located on the right sidebar.



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Philly Tech People News 9/23/2012



Linda Yaccarino Takes Over All NBC Universal Ad Sales, Including Flagship NBC (Ad Age)

Microsoft hires CBS' Nancy Tellem to form new Xbox studio (LA Times: Company Town)

SCTE appoints Time Warner Cable, CableLabs, CommScope, Comcast execs to board (FierceCable)
The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers is headquartered in Exton.


Scala Announces Advanced Analytics Expert Dr. Stefan Menger Has Joined The Company (PR Web)




Ask Engadget: best Philadelphia wireless carrier? (Endgadget)

Fisker hope fades
Former Del. autoworkers see industry's future as bleak as plant remains empty

(Wilmington News Journal)




Salesforce.com Seeks Foothold Throughout The Enterprise (Information Week)

Two Days at Dreamforce 2012:Gamification Drops in on San Francisco
(Hoopla Ideas)

Redbox-Verizon Streaming to Challenge Netflix by Year-End (Bloomberg)


phillytechnews twitterfeed 9/20-9/21 2012


Posted: 21 Sep 2012 08:32 AM PDT
phillytechnews: How many people know about WW2 in the Aleutians? http://t.co/wEzuwCta
Posted: 21 Sep 2012 07:21 AM PDT
phillytechnews: @Cecilyk Thats happens occasionally. Usually back to normal in a day or two (hope).
Posted: 21 Sep 2012 07:05 AM PDT
phillytechnews: RT @jedsinger: Join us next Thursday at the @PhillyPhIMA Social Media Summit! http://t.co/yDjNJpC7


Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic looks at the Personal Cloud on Monday


Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic will host "Mobility and the Rising Personal Cloud" on this coming Monday, September 24, at 6pm at The Hub Cira Centre. Individual tickets are still available at this time on TicketLeap.

 Presenters include:

Frank Gillett, VP and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

Bob Moul, Chairman and CEO, appRenaissance

Michael Yetter, Director of eBusiness Development at Independence Blue Cross

Kevin Garton, Chief Marketing Officer at The Neat Company

Phong Nguyen, Vice President of Platform Services at Concur Technologies

Jason Press, Chief Technology Officer/ Vice President of Technology & Operations for Comcast Interactive Media.


It promises to be a very worthwhile event.



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First Round Capital Video: Start Up Philadelphia





Daily Links 9/20/2012: QlikTech Launches QlikMarket

QlikTech Launches QlikMarket Business Discovery Exchange
Simplifies search and evaluation of partner solutions for the QlikView platform
(Business Wire)

 Philly Fed Firms Report Steady Business Activity (Business Wire via MarketWatch)


Philly Fed factory index shrinks but pace moderates (Reuters)

Support Newgrounds! (Tom Fulp/Newgrounds)
Glenside-based Flash game site says money is tight, pitches opt-in paid "supporter upgrade". 

Salesforce.com Goes To Work.com 
Salesforce.com and Facebook co-developed new Work.com app for goal-setting, employee feedback, and performance reviews. (Information Week)

 Oracle FY Q1 Revs Light; Profits In Line; Shares Edge Lower (Forbes)

Verizon sees FiOS third-quarter growth slower than expected (Reuters)


  Comcast Uses TV Streamer to Pump Mobile Bundles (Light Reading Cable)


 Inside the largest student-run hackathon, a breeding ground for tech talent (VentureBeat)
 PennApps.

 Clearwire breaking ground on new LTE Network (Gigaom)
 Will focus on major metros and wholesale only.

 PHD Virtual revamps partner program (SearchStorageChannel)



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Daily Links 9/19/2012: Campbell Soup Co. Boosts Digital Efforts



Site Lets You Simulate a Facebook Hack, Goes Viral at PennApps (Time.com: Techland)

Campbell Soup Co. Boosts Digital Efforts
Training Programs, New Positions and Increased Budget Part of the Plan
(Ad Age)

SAP Channel Chief Kevin Gilroy: Still Delivering 25% Growth (The VAR Guy)

Salesforce.com Unifies, Extends Cloud Portfolio (Information Week)

Salesforce.com shows off upcoming Chatterbox, Identity services
Chatterbox will give companies a secure, easy way to share files, Salesforce.com says
(Computerworld)

Salesforce.com's Benioff invites customers to join 'social revolution'
The flamboyant CEO spun a broad strategic vision during a keynote at the Dreamforce conference
(Computerworld)

Unisys scores $504M DHS task order under Alliant contract (Washington Technology)

Unified Communications Leader Alteva Celebrates Grand Opening of First-Ever Innovation Center and New National Headquarters in Philadelphia (Marketwire)


Comcast CFO: Cable Giant Prepares for Possible 2014 Buyout of GE Stake in NBCUniversal (Hollywood Reporter)

NCC, Comcast Spotlight To Sell Ads On Synacor Web Portals (Multichannel News)

New T-Mobile CEO faces big problems, but he could shake up the mobile market (Gigaom)

Verizon Reaches Tentative Union Pact With 43,000 Workers (Bloomberg)



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Highlights last week on Philly Tech News (9/10/2012 to 9/16/2012)



I gave a preview of the IMPACT 2012 Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic, scheduled for November 7 & 8 in Philadelphia. Steve Case will give the keynote address, and PACT plans to have more out of town investors than in past years. The deadline for companies seeking a presentation slot to apply has been extended one week until this Friday, September 21.

At long last, the Philly311 mobile app finally launched, through the assistance of PublicStuff.

Two Philly-area newspaper groups faced pressure, as Yardley-based Journal Register received criticism over its second bankruptcy despite what was said to be a turnaround, and Inquirer/Daily News owner Interstate General Media sought another round of concessions from workers. Meanwhile, Philly-based turnaround firm Versa Capital Management announced it had formed a new group including the newspapers it had acquired, to be called Civitas Media LLC.

SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann-Snabe opened up to Information Week on SAP's Cloud strategy, HANA platform, and other subjects in an interesting onstage interview.

Janney Capital analyst Tony Wible rated Comcast a buy, saying long-term technology trends were in its favor.

And NJTechWeekly's Esther Surden contributed a writeup on the New Jersey Technology Council's Health Information Technology Summit, held in July in Princeton, which involved several Pennsylvania participants.


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Daily Links 9/18/2012: First Round Capital backs Philly-based Perceptual Networks; AppRenaissance launches platform



Perceptual Networks Receives Funding from First Round Capital and Founders of YouTube, PayPal, Rackspace and Others
Founder of HotOrNot and I/O Ventures Announces New Venture to Help People "Find Their People"
(Business Wire)
Will be based in Philly.

Welcome Perceptual Networks (Redeye VC)

Excited to Announce AppRenaissance! (Amish Jani, Just Getting Started via Business Insider)

Tyco board votes to spin off ADT, its best brand (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Bentley’s Acquisition of Ivara Redefines Asset Performance Management:
Integrating OPEX with CAPEX!
(Bentley Systems Press Release)

Comcast expands 305 Mbps tier to Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, D.C.; touts fastest wireless gateway (FierceCable)


Time Warner Cable Selling Clearwire Stake (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
When will Comcast follow?

Dell debuts Salesforce consulting service for app development (ZDNet)

Salesforce.com offers sneak peek at Marketing Cloud (ZDNet)


SAP: The Client/Server Is Back And It Is Cloud (TechCrunch)

Analysis: Nimble HR software firms grab share from bigger rivals (Reuters)
I don't think Workday was looking to be acquired and is doing an IPO as a consolation prize, as this article suggests.

Sage to dump US business unit? (ZDNet)



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Tigerlabs Demo Day Boasts Student Companies with Promise


Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, NJTechWeekly.com








On August 14, 2012, seven very early-stage companies pitched their new products at the Tigerlabs inaugural Demo Day in Princeton.

The companies were part of the Tigerlabs summer program, a 12-week tech accelerator aimed at undergraduate student entrepreneurs.

Introducing the group, Bert Navarrete, an experienced investor who, along with Jason Glickman, cofounded Tigerlabs (Princeton) initially as a coworking space, said seven companies made up of 25 students from around the country had participated in the program.

Mentors and advisers helped them with everything from developing and designing their products to assisting with business development and strategy. By Demo Day, 100 percent of all the companies had both live products and some users.

“We’ve had 11 pivots. We’ve had 14 speakers come throughout the summer and meet with the teams over pizza and ravioli, and 241 mentor and adviser meetings,” Navarrete said. “We’ve played 1,314 ping-pong games,” many of them in the middle of the night. Each team slept an average of 5.6 hours a night.

The first presentation came from Princeton University’s Shubhro Saha, cofounder and CEO of Panther Logic (Princeton), a company that aims to “make it dead simple for other companies to track their competitors online.” Saha said Panther’s product is aimed at medium-sized companies. He provided the example of investment portfolio holders who want to track the competitors of the companies they hold but can’t afford a million-dollar experience.

Tracking competition “becomes a problem, because companies are operating in many parts of the Web, including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. … There are people getting hired, changing jobs, getting fired,” Saha said. With that information all over the Web, “the result is a lot of noise,” he noted. Panther provides both a “deep dive and an affordable analytics solution,” he added.

Saha said the product’s “elegant user interface” should help employees at midsized companies learn how to use it faster. Panther includes cofounder and CTO Andrew Cheong, a Princeton grad, and COO Madeleine Foote, a member of Oxford University’s class of 2014.

Next up was the team from TonightLife, a mobile platform that lets users find same-day events. Aimed particularly at the city crowd, the app answers the question, What is going on tonight? There may be a lot going on, but it’s not easy to discover the activities a user wants to attend. In most cases users are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of events, Cesar Devers, CEO, who graduated from Princeton in 2011, said.

Devers provided the example of Live Nation, which often has a large amount of inventory left over when it puts on an event. But people who want to fill those seats might not even know that event is happening. Smaller venues can also use the system to unlock their unsold seats.

“We take out all the noise and let you know what is going on today, this evening,” Devers said. The app has a simple interface: the platform provides suggested events and then drills down to all of them. The mobile device also includes a social aspect, so users can let their friends know about the events they are considering. The company, which will start by serving New York, wants to include special offers and other deals for people who purchase multiple tickets.

In addition to Devers, The TonightLife team included two other Princeton 2011 grads, Val Karpov and Justin Knutson and two Virginia Tech grads, William Kelly (2011) and Matt Green (2012).

Faaez Ul-Haq presented for Phonar, a platform that helps users find assets through location-based technology. The company makes hardware and software that GPS-enables products in the real world. Phonar is planning to work with sneaker manufacturers, for example, to GPS-enable children’s footwear so parents need only use a smartphone to locate a lost child. Parents would find their wandering child by following a clever avatar in an augmented reality (AR) scenario. Ul-Haq said Phonar envisions several other markets for the device and app, including pets, cars, small-businesses equipment and anything that can work with a GPS hardware tracker.

“We’ll make hardware that is appropriate to the market we are addressing,” Ul-Haq said. “We make hardware that is unobtrusive and software that is delightful, painless and easy to use.”

Three of the cofounders, Ul-Haq, Nitin Viswanathan and Hamza Aftab, graduated from Princeton in 2012, and Shreshth Singhal will graduate in 2013. The three are looking for help with H-1B visas so they can remain in and build their company in N.J.

Speaking to the Demo Day audience, Kenrick Rilee, cofounder and CTO of Mapsaurus, discussed his company’s innovative graphical service for discovery of Android apps, which has already been widely accepted in the Android App Store.

Explained Rilee, “The problem is that app stores are broken.… I can go on the app store. If I know what I’m looking for, I can search for it. However, if I want to find something new I have to wade through the ranked list of applications in each category. … Our application lets users explore applications in the direction they want.” Evaluations are also seamless, he said. “Users can compare apps side by side.” He added, “We are innovators in the space. Nobody does this the way we do it. And our algorithms are really fast.”

Along with Rilee, the Mapsaurus team includes Alice Zheng, CEO, who designed the product; Danny Guo, COO; and Evan Leichter, chief science officer in charge of back-end development and system administration. All the team members are seniors at Princeton this fall except Zheng and Rilee, who are taking time off to take advantage of the market timing for their opportunity, Zheng told NJTechWeekly.com in an email.

The next company up, FlavorTech (which appears to have changed its name to HelloLabs), is “dedicated to making communication and sharing experiences” more enjoyable through electronic gadgets. Tianlong Wang, who obtained a master’s in computer science from Princeton in 2012, showed JoinMe, a small, $80 agile robot that includes telepresence videoconferencing via a smartphone.


The smartphone becomes the “brain of the telepresence robot,” Wang explained. The advantage: a significantly reduced consumer-friendly price for this kind of item. The device could follow a parent and child as they played and chatted with extended family, or be employed for child monitoring, Wang said. It could also be used by the work-at-home set.

Xinyi Chen, a Princeton sophomore, is the other member of the Flavortech team. NJTechWeekly.com recently learned the company will be launching a Kickstarter campaign for JoinMe. It also plans to give away some of its demo models to test out the power of viral marketing.

Speaking for Tigervine, a team from Penn State, Arianna Simpson said the company allows business-to-consumer (B2C) web-based companies to create, implement and customize their own loyalty programs. “Acquiring and engaging customers are two of the biggest challenges that companies face,” she noted. “Referrals and rewards are crucial to growth. Referred customers are most valuable. … They have a lower churn rate and a higher lifetime value.”

When a company sets up a loyalty program and a customer uses it, that customer links to its social media profile. Tigervine can relay this information back to the businesses using the system so they can target their customers more effectively.

“We can provide them [the companies] with information about who their top 20 engaged customers are, or what the best networks on which to reach them are. We are helping companies change their behaviors to achieve results,” said Simpson.

Tigervine says its advantage in the marketplace is it focuses on smaller and medium-sized businesses and follows the customer acquisition cycle all the way through.

The last group presenting was founded by students who recently graduated from The Lawrenceville School (Lawrenceville), the N.J. boarding school. Eko is trying to find a better way to maintain communication among members of high school and college extracurricular groups.

“Our goal is to make sure group members never again get lost in conversation,” Korawad Chearavanont, presenting from Eko, said. The company does this by organizing group conversations in threads. Groups are thus able to go to a thread and participate, or check for important announcements. Like Chearavanont, cofounder Raman Rajakannan is taking a gap year. As for the other cofounders, Lyra Schweizer is now at Princeton and Shipley Foltz is at Lehigh.

“The messages that really matter don’t disappear and are not lost. We are also integrating calendars between all the groups that you have,” said Chearavanont, so conflicts can be eliminated, resulting in higher participation by group members. For marketing, the company is using the Facebook model — Mark Zuckerberg started out with a small group of colleges — to get teams and clubs at various universities and high schools to adopt Eko in the U.S., but it also has an international strategy.

After the accelerator student companies presented, Bert Navarrete, a Tigerlabs founder, gave several tech firms that make Tigerlabs their coworking space time to discuss their companies.Pitching were Health Options Worldwide, which helps self-ensured companies reduce overall health spending; Tussle, a company still in beta that is trying to provide a platform for competitive play; and Wattvision, whose device allows users to reduce spending on energy by providing them usage feedback via mobile phone or the Web.

Wattvision recently mounted a Kickstarter campaign and secured more than its $50,000 desired goal. At this writing the firm had raised $60,285.

Also see NJTechWeekly.com interview with James Smits, Tigerlabs’ program director.




Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of NJTechWeekly, and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in two parts in NJTechWeekly.




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More LTE choices coming to Philadelphia (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile)



Tom Paine

Up until now, Verizon Wireless has been the only LTE choice for most mobile device users in the Philadelphia area (it says its currently covers more than 70% of the Philadelphia region). Metro PCS also has LTE available in parts of the area, but its speeds have reported to be limited by the narrow slice of spectrum it currently has available. Now additional options are on the way.

On Friday, AT&T announced that it has officially turn on 4G LTE in the Philly area . Many in the area had reported picking up LTE signals from AT&T for some time during the pre-launch phase. And Philadelphia is on Sprint's recently released list of 100 cities that will receive Sprint's 4G LTE service "in the coming months". (Word is that Sprint will begin lighting up Boston and Chicago this week.) T-Mobile is expected to launch its LTE during 2013; it should be enhanced in the Philly area by its swap/purchase of large blocks of AWS band spectrum from Verizon as part of Verizon's effort to smooth the path for regulatory approval of its deal with cable operators, which was received from the DOJ and FCC last month.

Clearwire hopes to begin moving away from WiMAX and launch its own LTE network by 2014, but despite a wholesale purchase commitment from major shareholder Sprint its ability to accomplish that is in question. Cricket's LTE expansion plans (it is currently live in one market) are also uncertain.

For AT&T and Sprint, as well as Verizon Wireless, the introduction of the LTE capable iPhone 5 is a key to the timing for launching or enhancing LTE. T-Mobile is not directly offering the iPhone 5, but does plan to offer a SIM card for unlocked iPhone 5s by October, although there will be limitations for a while in some areas due to network incompatibility issues.



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The next big enterprise acquisition target? Gamification startups (Gigaom)




Verizon Advised to Slow Internet Speed Claims Ads challenged by Comcast (Ad Week)

FinancialForce.com deepens integration with Salesforce.com (PC World)

Software Division CEO Insights: Rick Nucci, Dell Boomi (SIIA Digital Discourse)


phillytechnews twitter feed 9/14/2012

Posted: 14 Sep 2012 05:35 PM PDT
phillytechnews: RT @joshk: Hanging out @PennApps. Huge turnout!! (@ Houston Hall w/ 12 others) [pic]: http://t.co/aOm5GmED
Posted: 14 Sep 2012 05:32 PM PDT
phillytechnews: Tami Hansbrough resigns from her post at North Carolina - http://t.co/VdYK1TxY http://t.co/tyyU6ZRl


Still Room for IT Innovation in Healthcare Tech Marketplace, NJTC Panelists Say

Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, NJTechWeekly.com

A panel discussion on connected healthcare, held during the New Jersey Technology Council (NJTC) Health Information Technology Summit in Princeton on July 19, 2012, revealed how much more healthcare IT companies need to do to make connections between data and real patient outcomes.

As moderator Al Campanella, strategic business growth and analytics EVP for Virtua (Marlton), said, the market is facing big challenges regarding interoperability, personalized medicine and mobile health. Campanella pulled together a diverse group of panelists, who also pointed out gaps in big data analytics between the information needed and the software available to get at it, issues surrounding privacy and security, and legislative and regulatory challenges. They also identified significant opportunities for industry companies that can fill those needs.

Data analytics and analysis tools are needed to help address the problem that Kenneth Gross, Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers (Camden) director of research, is seeing. Gross is dealing with a familiar problem brought close to home: some 1 percent of the population is responsible for 30 percent of healthcare system costs.

Gross said his mission is to identify patients who use the system more than they should, and do something about it. Many of those patients return to the hospital because they have neither health insurance nor the transportation to venues that can refill their prescriptions, so they are not going to the doctor.

Business intelligence tools aren’t enough to help with this challenge, Gross said. “We need population intelligence tools, especially around accountable care and healthcare delivery,” he added. In addition, those tools are not immediate enough, Gross said. “We currently get a daily feed that tells us who is in the hospital and who has had two or more visits within the last six months.”

However, that feed doesn’t tell him who is an oncology patient and who is pregnant, since patients with those conditions aren’t covered by the program. “We are dealing with people with multiple chronic conditions or social factors that are getting in the way of healthcare,” Gross said. Each morning his organization has to go through medical records, trying to figure out which people belong, and looking for indicators. “We could use predictive analytics technology in real time,” Gross said.

The organization now works with claims from the three hospitals with which it has contracted, and it doesn’t receive that information until the end of the year. “That just doesn’t work for us,” Gross said. “We’ve found that if we can intervene with patients at bedside and start working with them before they get discharged, we can help them navigate the system from that point on. We need real-time data.”

A major challenge noted by Todd Fisher, VP of MobleMD (Yardley, Pa.), a division of Siemens, is how to meaningfully engage patients. Fisher noted that health information exchanges (HIEs) are held back in their attempts to deliver information to patients whenever and wherever they need it. “We’ve aggregated a lot of information and have gotten much data off paper,” he said, but inhibiting progress is the “healthy tension” around the laws surrounding privacy and security.

Fisher said the industry has to figure out what its obligations are, as it disseminates and aggregates information, and how to eliminate identities as it creates data on large populations. “The challenges moving forward include aligning legislation with the behavior changes that have been requested by our administration, to make sure that when we digitize all this information, we are able to use it in ways that are truly beneficial,” he said.

Looking at healthcare technology in a more disruptive way, Kelly Lewis, president and CEO of Allied Health Information Exchange (Harrisburg, Pa.), said he looked forward to a time when one or two brands made everyone so comfortable with exchanging healthcare information that no one would worry any more about privacy abuse. Added Lewis, “We need to create a brand, like a MasterCard or a Visa,” that would create a comfort level such that people will allow their health information to be exchanged under the right circumstances. It would be inherently compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) so consumers would know that, as with the financial data held by MasterCard and Visa, their health data would remain secure and private.

Oracle (Reston, Va.) enterprise solution architect Adrish Sannyasi said many of the changes occurring at healthcare organizations could benefit from the change-management systems offered by companies like his. He added that larger organizations in particular could be helped by the structure and multiple offerings of a company like Oracle. “You may need a modular product that can sit on top of a general EMR [electronic medical record],” to connect modular specialist applications, he said.

Ending the discussion, David Shepard, senior VP of vertical market and product sales at IO Data Centers (Phoenix), said, “What I am hearing from others in the industry is, over the past six years there has been an increase in health information data breaches,” coupled with increased HIPAA enforcement. “There is a lot of concern about security, both physical and logical, for mission-critical applications. The concern about compliance extends to business associates and contractors,” he added.

“As a data center provider, we need to make sure we have the controls in place…to protect patients and providers,” Shepard said, adding, “We also need to have the right systems and protections in place to guarantee that our systems are always on.”


Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of NJTechWeekly, and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in NJTechWeekly.



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Daily Links 9/13/2012: Philly311 Mobile App Launches; Churchill Club to Honor SAP Co-Founder Dr. Hasso Plattner




Churchill Club to Honor SAP Co-Founder Dr. Hasso Plattner With 2012 Global Benefactor Award (PR Newswire)

SAP Co-CEO Explains Cloud Plan, 'Wacky' Hana (Information Week)

To Your Rescue: Philly311 Mobile App Launches
(Philadelphia Daily News)

Just what is Dell's cloud strategy? (Computerworld)

Burke: Rebuilding NBC Remains Top Priority
Cable networks can increase ad, sub fee revenue
(Broadcasting & Cable)

Steve Burke says animation and franchises are key for Universal (LA Times: Company Town)

Comcast caters to SMBs with new Business Class Signature Support services (PC World)

MRO Corp. Announces Acquisition of Florida Medical Record Services, Inc.
MRO expands geographic footprint and extends disclosure management services to existing FMRS customers through acquisition
(Business Wire)

Epicor to Acquire Solarsoft Business Systems (Marketwire)

Google Wallet gets heavier with Barclaycard US support (ZDNet)
Barclaycard US is based in Wilmington.

All About Monetate’s Infographics (Monetate Blog)

EPAM SYSTEMS AND THOMSON REUTERS ANNOUNCED A PARTNERSHIP TO DEVELOP AND HOST AN APP STORE SOLUTION (Thomson Reuters One)



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phillytechnews twitterfeed 9/11 to 9/12 2012

Posted: 12 Sep 2012 08:19 AM PDT
phillytechnews: RT @xpangler: Google Adds ESPN And Disney Nets To Fiber TV Diet http://t.co/ufg0XZkv
Posted: 12 Sep 2012 07:47 AM PDT
phillytechnews: Notre Dame will leave Big East to join the ACC – http://t.co/krVuhK0C http://t.co/0R8XatsM
Posted: 12 Sep 2012 06:18 AM PDT
phillytechnews: Daily Links 9/11/2012: Janney's Wible considers Comcast long-term buy http://t.co/jL2UfWoB
Posted: 12 Sep 2012 06:04 AM PDT
phillytechnews: RT @TechCrunch: Preparing For An IPO, Online Customer Service Platform Zendesk Raises $60M From Redpoint, Goldman Sach... http://t.co/CZ ...
Posted: 12 Sep 2012 05:55 AM PDT
phillytechnews: @scarylawyer Too many teams in front of them, time running out
Posted: 12 Sep 2012 05:18 AM PDT
phillytechnews: expect to pay even more for gas
Posted: 12 Sep 2012 05:17 AM PDT
phillytechnews: Libyan situation giant f/u
Posted: 11 Sep 2012 05:27 PM PDT
phillytechnews: RT @WSJ: U.S. missions stormed in Libya, Egypt as demonstrators protest a film by a U.S. producer deemed insulting to Islam. http://t.co ...
Posted: 11 Sep 2012 02:47 PM PDT
phillytechnews: Daily Links 9/11/2012: Janney's Wible considers Comcast long-term buy http://t.co/ghK7MfYM
Posted: 11 Sep 2012 02:19 PM PDT
phillytechnews: Says bet too much on HTML5; now focused on native.
Posted: 11 Sep 2012 02:18 PM PDT
phillytechnews: Zuckerberg talks a mile a minute - is he always so hyper?
Posted: 11 Sep 2012 12:39 PM PDT
phillytechnews: Highlights last week on Philly Tech News (9/3/2012 to 9/9/2012) http://t.co/g6TGcGuY




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