Kopelman cancels on TechCrunch (Wonder Why)

“Ask A VC” Guest Swap: Kopelman Out; Hirshland In (TechCrunch)
Didn't know First Round Capital was raising a new fund. But perhaps this has something to do with it:

After Quiet Dinner, Angels Get Indigestion (New York Times: DealBoook)
Collusion in Silicon Valley Investing? (New York Times: DealBook)
Angel investors fire back at Arrington.

Daily Links 9/22/2010: Comcast Not Likely to Boost Investment in Clearwire

QlikTech Succeeds By Keeping It Simple (TheStreet)

Oracle Growth Plans Worry Rivals and Customers (New York Times)

Java Creator James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle (eWeek)

SAP Rolls out Wave of 'rapid Deployment' Apps (PC World)

SAP Analytics - Part One (ZDNet Blogs)

Siemens to Take Health-Care Unit Charge as Growth Misses Targets (Bloomberg)

Comcast Unlikely to Boost Investment in Clearwire (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Beyond NBC Universal: Comcast Talks Growth (CNNBC)

2 bids received for Phila. newspapers (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Philadelphia Reporters Want Scoop on Auction (Wall Street Journal: Bankruptcy Beat)


Motorola exec struts Medios TV guide platform capabilities in IBC video (Engadget)




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Daily Links 9/21/2010: Oracle, SAP, SunGard advance Cloud strategies

Exclusive: Comcast Reshuffles Its Digital Deck Before NBC Comes Aboard (All Things Digital: MediaMemo)



CableLabs Eyes a Super-Sized Upstream (Light Reading Cable)

Oracle, HP Settle Hurd Lawsuit (Information Week)

Hasso Plattner Ventures Invests $6 Million in Panaya
New Investor will be Instrumental in SAP Upgrade Automation Leader's Expansion Plans (Business Wire)

When Group Buying Met Check-In: SCVNGR Hooks Up With BuyWithMe On Local Deals (TechCrunch)

Loan Quality Firms Merge to Form Aklero Risk Analytics (Aklero Press Release)

USA Technologies Reports Results for Fiscal Year 2010 Highlighted by Record Gross Profit for Its Fiscal Fourth Quarter (Business Wire)


MetroPCS Launches First LTE Network in U.S. (PC Magazine)

Oracle Unveils Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management 8 (Marketwire)
I didn't realize Primavera founder Joel Koppelman was still with Oracle. Bala Cynwyd-based Primavera was acquired by Oracle in 2008.

Exalogic: Larry Gets the Cloud Now & He Wants It All (GigaOM)

Exclusive: Sungard to launch public cloud services (Computer Business Review)

SAP Moves an OnDemand Service to Amazon (PC World)






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First Round-backed Solve Media (formerly AdCopy) officially launches

Two months ago I wrote about First Round Capital's investment in a startup called AdCopy, which was seeking to monetize CAPTCHAs (those letters you type in on many websites to verify you are not a bot) as an advertising vehicle. AdCopy had offices in New York and Philly, according to its website. There hasn't been much news about them since then.

But today the company, now renamed Solve Media, officially launched. It has reportedly raised about $6 million, from First Round, AOL, New Atlantic Ventures, and individual angel investors. CEO Ari Jacoby was previously a founder of VoiceStar, the Philadelphia pay per call advertising service sold to Marchex in 2007. VoiceStar was also a First Round portfolio company.

Daily Links 9/20/2010: Rosetta buys digital agency Level Studios

I.B.M. to Buy Analytics Firm for $1.7 Billion (New York Times: DealBook)
Right in the middle of Oracle's big party.
Global CIO: Will Larry Ellison Launch Bidding War With IBM For Netezza? (Information Week)

Digital Agency Rosetta Bulks Up, Acquires Mobile Firm Level Studios
N.J.-Based Shop Adds 215 Employees, $45 Million in Revenue (Ad Age)
Rosetta is based in Hamilton, NJ.

Who Will Run NBC? (The Daily Beast)

John Malone Heaps Praise on Roberts (Multichannel News)

Verizon Lines Up Seidenberg's Successor (Light Reading)

Philly Tech Tidbits 9/20/2010: SCVNGR, IDEA2010, Tedx Philly

The New York Times on Saturday had an indepth article on the psychology of entrepreneurs, focused on SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch. SCVNGR started as a project at Princeton, went through Philly's DreamIt Ventures incubator in 20008, before being backed by Highland Capital Partners and eventually, Google Ventures. The company is now based in Cambridge.

IDEA2010 is coming to Philadelphia September 30
through October 2. The annual conference of the Information Architecture Institute, which serves User Interface Design professionals, will be held at the Independence Seaport Museum.

Philly finally gets its own TEDx. TEDx Philly will be held on November 18 at the Kimmel Center.

Philly area entrepreneur Gabriel Weinberg (search engine Duck Duck Go) is part of an informal group of angel investors called Hacker Angels, who describe themselves as hackers "in the good sense." The group's website says "we may provide feedback, advice, mentorship, hacking, investment and/or serve as advisors or independent board members, on an individual basis". Other members include AOL executive Roy Rodenstein, Delicious founder Joshua Schachter, Hotornot's Jim Young, and Punchfork founder Jeff Miller. Four of the five members recently participated in a funding of Boston-based Locately, which provides consumer location analytics using GPS data.

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is supposedly going to be launched on October 11, and it faces a difficult challenge getting developer mindshare away from Google's Android and Apple. To get things going in Philadelphia, Microsoft has scheduled two events: a Windows Phone 7 Firestarter event this Wednesday the 22nd at Penn's Houston Hall (there is also an evening workshop that night), and a Windows Phone 7 Developer Launch on October 6 at the Park Hyatt Philadelphia.

Chattersource, a new website created by two Wharton students, Amy Cooper and Kristina Anderson, is intended to be a sort of Yelp targeted initially at Philadelphia-area college students. A school email address is required for each account.

Philly Tech People News 9/19/2010

Comcast hires Dobrow from T-Mobile (PR Week)

Canoe Hires Four More Crew Members
Cable Joint Venture Adds to Technology, Product Management Roster (Multichannel News)

ONPATH Technologies Appoints New Chief Executive Officer
Brian McCann accelerates company's growth strategy (PR Newswire)

ONPATH Technologies Announces New Global Vice President of Sales (PR Newswire)

Brad Bernard promoted to Vice President Online Media & Analytics at Harmelin Media (Philly Ad Club News)

Ascent Media Group Promotes Donna Thomas to Senior Vice President, Sales for Cable, Telco & New Media Initiatives (Business Wire)

Vanguard Group #1 on 2010 Information Week 500

The new Information Week 500 is out, and although it often tends to read pretty much the same from year to year, one interesting move is that the Vanguard Group of Malvern, the giant mutual fund, now has the top ranking (though it has been highly ranked in previous years). See detailed profile here. I'll do a rundown of the other area companies included soon.





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NBC's fall guys
Comcast assembling exec army for autumn run (New York Post)

Nemours Tops in the Nation for Health Information Technology (PR Newswire)

Motorola 'eager' to get into tablet market, but won't do so until next year (Engadget)

Oracle posts strong first quarter: Hurd makes debut; Exadata the focus (ZDNet Blogs)
Also, Oracle's Larry Ellison suggests his company is way ahead of SAP in developing in-memory database technology.

Apple, Google and Others: Vying for Prime Time in the Digital Living Room (Knowledge@Wharton)



Potential buyer gives WPCS International ultimatum (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Daily Links 9/16/2010: Comcast sees huge opportunity in business services

Angelakis: Big Opportunities in Commercial
NBCU On Track for Year-End Close (Multichannel News)

Coalition Seeks Another Comcast/NBCU Hearing
Argues deal deserves another vetting because it will 'set the benchmark' for future consolidation (Broadcasting & Cable)

Netflix. Meet Hulu. Now, How About Merging Together? (Fast Company)

Sprint CFO: Clearwire buyout too expensive for now (Reuters)

Motorola Mobility: Westward, Ha! (Light Reading Mobile)
Not sure what this is going to mean for Horsham-based Motorola Home, which is to be spun off as part of Motorola Mobility.

Philly Fed Index Shows Contracting Manufacturing in Mid-Atlantic Region (Wall Street Journal: Real Times Economics Blog)
Philly Fed Business Outlook Survey

Oracle FY Q1 Revs, Profits Exceed Street Estimates (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
Oracle Earnings Top Estimates on Software, Sun Sales (Bloomberg)


Philly's Newspapers Are Going Back on the Block (Daily Finance)

Checkpoint Systems Creates RFID-centric 'Visibility' Division (RFID Journal)

Alteva helps channel partners with no money down UC rental plan (FierceVoIP)
Alteva is based in Philadelphia.

Taleo Powers Talent Exchange With Aria Billing and Subscription Management Platform (Marketwire)
Aria is based in Media.




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Daily Links 9/15/2010: InstaMed raises $6 million

New auction set for Philadelphia newspapers (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Air Products Nominees Win Three Seats on Airgas Board (Bloomberg Business Week)

InstaMed Raises $6 Million in Growth Capital
Capital will support InstaMed’s triple digit growth and enhance its bi-coastal data centers (Business Wire)


The World According to Dick Ebersol
The 2010 Broadcaster of the Year reflects on his accomplishments, a successful 2010 and what lies ahead (Broadcasting & Cable)

Comcast CFO warns that programming costs will continue to go up (LA Times: Company Town)

Canoe CTO: 'T-Commerce' Coming in 2011 (Light Reading Cable)

Main Line tech stock keeps rising (Philly.com: Philly Deals)
On QlikTech.

Microsoft Questions Salesforce.com Cloud Computing Growth Prospects (Intelligent Enterprise)

The making of the Technology Park deal (Philadelphia Business Journal: Real Estate Blog)

Google Health--Rumors of its death have been somewhat exaggerated (The Health Care Blog)

WPCS Reports FY2011 First Quarter Financial Results (PR Newswire)

C&D Technologies Reaches Agreement in Principle with Group of Major Noteholders on Financial Restructuring Plan (PR Newswire)



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