phillytechnews twitter feed 6/24 to 6/25/2012

phillytechnews: Comcast Gets U.S. High Court Hearing on Consumer Lawsuit - Bloomberg http://t.co/K0W10bjR Posted: 25 Jun 2012 09:41 AM PDT phillytechnews: Comcast Gets U.S. High Court Hearing on Consumer Lawsuit - Bloomberg http://t.co/K0W10bjR

phillytechnews: NextDocs leaves KofP for Conshy tower (Philly Deals) http://t.co/WodNddiJ Posted: 25 Jun 2012 08:54 AM PDT phillytechnews: NextDocs leaves KofP for Conshy tower (Philly Deals) http://t.co/WodNddiJ

phillytechnews: PTN Post: DIA 2012 begins in Philly today (Sunday) http://t.co/v8c6jkdS Posted: 25 Jun 2012 08:24 AM PDT phillytechnews: PTN Post: DIA 2012 begins in Philly today (Sunday) http://t.co/v8c6jkdS

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Daily Links 6/29/2012: NBC's 'Today' struggles; who would buy Motorola Home?

State's new e-health authority won't slow IT providers (Central Penn Business Journal)

Processing in the iPipeline (Money Marketing)

What I've Learned: QlikTech's CEO Lars Björk (Wired UK)

FCC wasting time and taxpayer money on Comcast (ZDNet Blogs)

Boxee and Comcast Agree To Something (Zatz Not Funny!)

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Daily Links 6/28/2012: News Corp. to split into two; Dan Moloney leaves Motorola

Rupert Murdoch Announces The News Corp. Divorce: The Full Memo (All Things D)

Latest hacker dump looks like Comcast, AT&T data
Hackers kick off "WikiBoatWednesday" with apparent leak of Comcast and AT&T data. (CNET News)
Comcast data reported to include Comcast employee names, ages and salaries.

Comcast, Boxee Hammer Out Crypto Deal
Initial Solution Entails Development of HD Adapter With an Ethernet Port (Multichannel News)

Moloney Out At Motorola, Fawaz To Take Reins At Home Unit
Former Charter CTO Will Be EVP Of Cable-Focused Division (Multichannel News)


Google Compute Engine Challenges Amazon (InformationWeek)

Google and Graphene Frontiers Move Into Science Center Port Business Incubator (GlobeNewswire)
Google office to focus on working with local businesses to develop Google+ presence.


City Says You Won’t See ‘.philly’ Anytime Soon (CBS Philly)

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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (6/18/2012 to 6/24/2012)

A little late on last week's highlights, but here goes:

I reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue issued a letter indicating cloud software is subject to a sales or use tax, as long as the user(s) are located in Pennsylvania. There's no escaping the tax man.

West Chester-based Hoopla Software, which I reported on at the beginning of the year, announced it had closed on its $ 2.8 Series A Round, led by Safeguard Scientifics with Salesforce.com also participating.

King of Prussia-based InterDigital sold a whole bunch of 3G, LTE, and Wi-Fi patents to Intel for $375 million, but they have plenty left over. In a less publicized move, a Warren, New Jersey-based firm, Magnolia Broadband, sold over 50 mobile patents to Google for an undisclosed price. Magnolia's largest shareholder is Wayne, PA-based SCP Partners.

DIA 2012, the annual meeting of the Horsham-based Drug Information Association, opened at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Sunday and runs through tomorrow. Among other things, it draws many companies from the Philly area's large Clinical IT industry.

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phillytechnews twitter feed 6/23 to 6/24/2012

phillytechnews: @deborahyao But what about those unfortunate souls who don't (won't) get FiOS? Oh, I guess they buy from Verizon's cable partners #nochoice Posted: 24 Jun 2012 09:42 AM PDT phillytechnews: @deborahyao But what about those unfortunate souls who don't (won't) get FiOS? Oh, I guess they buy from Verizon's cable partners #nochoice

phillytechnews: At University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson claimed by all parties in presidency fight - Campus Overload / Washington … http://t.co/42tDTPGx Posted: 24 Jun 2012 08:06 AM PDT phillytechnews: At University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson claimed by all parties in presidency fight - Campus Overload / Washington … http://t.co/42tDTPGx

phillytechnews: So I guess Rubio and Romney could give each other the secret LDS handshake Posted: 24 Jun 2012 06:36 AM PDT phillytechnews: So I guess Rubio and Romney could give each other the secret LDS handshake

phillytechnews: Marco Rubio was briefly LDS Church member as youth Posted: 24 Jun 2012 06:23 AM PDT phillytechnews: Marco Rubio was briefly LDS Church member as youth

phillytechnews: NY Times article on eCommerce customization focuses on Monetate http://t.co/W4WO63Hp Posted: 24 Jun 2012 05:01 AM PDT phillytechnews: NY Times article on eCommerce customization focuses on Monetate http://t.co/W4WO63Hp

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Daily Links 6/27/2012: Proxy battle at USA Technologies board meeting tomorrow

Google's Nexus 7 could force Apple's hand on 'iPad Mini' (Computerworld)

Greenwich investor activists go after USA Tech on Thursday (Connecticut Post)

Unisys Gets Homeland Security Job Worth Up To $3B; Shrs Spike (Forbes)

Unisys Reaches for the Clouds with New IT Service Management Solutions to Help Organizations Improve End-User Experience (PR Newswire)

SAP Systems and Big Data: Big Deal or No Biggee? (Thomas Wailgum/ASUG News)

NBC's Ebersol adviser for Olympics telecasts (AP via NECN)

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Bradford Media Group is doing interesting things in West ChesterTightly integrating video and social media marketing

Tom Paine

Brad Heureux and Matt McGlynn in BMG's studio
(Source: BMG)  

Bradford Media Group, located in the middle of West Chester near the corner of Market and High Streets, has a model that's different from many social media agencies. The innovative agency has a passion for integrating social media with video production to meet its client's needs, and is trying out new formats that marry the combination.

It is perhaps not surprising that BMG's founder & CEO, Brad Heureux, has a multimedia emphasis in his background, having had considerable experience with Comcast, where among other things he help build what ultimately became known as Comcast Spotlight (its cable advertising sales unit) into an industry juggernaut. He also founded and ultimately sold Off The Wall Productions, a pioneering multi-platform marketing company, and helped launch PAXTV, a TV Network later acquired by NBC. He started up BMG in 2009.

BMG defines itself as having three primary components: Studio BMG, which creates original media production including branded entertainment series, product videos, and episodic programming for multiple platforms including social media and television; BMG Social, the agency’s social media platform management arm utilizing social strategy and custom application development; and BMG Reach, which specializes in creating individualized and targeted online advertising campaigns designed to drive specific audiences to the customized video and social content. In other words, the three parts are all intended to function in a tightly integrated manner together in support of meeting customers' objectives. BMG also has its own inhouse production studio.




BMG is big on using Facebook, although they employ other social media platforms as well; Pinterest is becoming very important for them, they tell me. It manages Facebook Fan Pages for about 80 clients, Heureux told me in a phone interview, and each one includes a Studio BMG-produced video element. BMG doesn't target a specific vertical niche, and works with both consumer-facing and business to business brands. Heureux says there are probably some 12 million companies (in the US), who need to have brand pages with a professional image on Facebook, and BMG is out to help many of those who don't have the inhouse resources to maintain that kind of presence by themselves.

BMG's senior staff, in addition to Heureux, includes Matthew McGlynn, Director of Operations and a Temple (Tyler School of Art) grad, who might be described as the chief digital person; Rachel Burke, another Temple graduate who was just promoted to Director of Social Media; and Leslie Nichols, a Conestoga High grad with some Hollywood TV producing credits who returned home and, after working for WPVI and running her own company, joined Bradford as executive video producer for Studio BMG (see recent MainLine Times profile). Lara (Toscani) Weems, another Conestoga alum who had previously worked for Comcast Spectacor and has also handled some assignments for the Harlem Globetrotters, serves as Marketing Manager. BMG currently has 16 employees, and also has a New York outpost.

Julie Roehm

Julie Roehm, who became Senior Vice President - Marketing for SAP early this year, is a Partner at BMG (and an investor) and serves as a strategic advisor (Correction: BMG tells me that while Roehm does have some equity in the firm, she has not made a financial investment in it). Roehm, who has a reputation for being a marketing whiz, had her short tenure running marketing communications for Wal-Mart end in considerable controversy in 2006. In a recommendation she made on LinkedIn last year, Roehm wrote: "Having advised BMG Media, I can say that this group is performing some of the most interesting and credible work in the field of e-commerce for social media. They are really starting to crack the code on the idea of QVC for social media".

Two projects are good examples of where BMG may be heading. One is the Studio BMG-produced social media-driven TV show, "Life Around Home", which launched in April on the digital channel NBC Philadelphia Nonstop. The lifestyle show, which covers subject such as organic living, do-it-yourself projects, home organization, fitness, style and fashion, and parenting, chooses its content based on posts to its Facebook page and other social network presences, and also responds to other posts. BMG hopes to roll the concept out to other markets. CEO Heureux calls it "a completely new model of show production".

Another example is the hyper-local approach BMG is taking in developing a Facebook Fan Page for its home town of West Chester. Studio BMG will use original video production to tell the stories of public and advertiser events, all housed in custom applications within the community created by the company’s social media arm, BMG Social. BMG Reach, the marketing arm, will place online adverting and promotional campaigns to drive traffic to these West Chester stories. The page will also include a (free) directory of businesses, restaurants, and events located in the West Chester area, to be launch within a few weeks. It sounds almost as if BMG wants to reinvent the Yellow Pages on Facebook, something Yellow Page publishers have never been very successful in doing .




Heureux is watching the M&A activity involving many of the big players in the social media business with interest. For example, one company he works with is Vitrue, which Oracle recently announced it would acquire. But BMG is not heavily dependent on any one social media marketing platform. In terms of its own strategy, while BMG may develop some proprietary technology, my sense is they are much more focused on creating proprietary content vehicles, through which customer content can be packaged and distributed.



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Daily Links 6/26/2012: T-Mobile drops opposition to Verizon/Cable deal after spectrum swap

T-Mobile drops opposition to Verizon-cable deal (The Hill)
Following agreement on spectrum deal with Verizon Wireless.

Supreme Court takes on damaged-class issue in suit against Comcast (Philadelphia Inquirer)

New Issue-Comcast Corp sells $2.25 bln 2-pt notes (Reuters)

GRUBER: 'Something Big Is Going On With Apple TV In Cupertino, But It’s Still Being Cooked' (Silicon Alley Insider)


‘PayPal for business’ Traxpay gets $4m to take on US (Gigaom)

Health records support genetics research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (O'Reilly Radar)

TCTV: Interact’s Anthony Coombs Talks About The Philly Tech Scene (TechCrunch)



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Nat Turner & Zachary Weinberg's new startup: Flatiron Health

Tom Paine

Invite Media co-founders Nat Turner and Zachary Weinberg have a website for their new healthcare IT startup live now.

Its called Flatiron Health, its located in New York City, and the site doesn't give a clue yet of what they might do in healthcare IT (but maybe they don't really know yet; that was the story of Invite Media, which pivoted a few times before finding the formula that led to an $81 million exit to Google). One open position is listed; a software engineer.



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Mobile App Boom Faces Serious Obstacles, NJTC Panel Says

Alan Skontra

The mobile app boom has great potential for growth but faces some serious hurdles, according to an expert panel meeting during the New Jersey Technology Council (NJTC) Mobile Application Forum, held at Princeton University on June 14, 2012.


The panel, the first of two that met during the forum, included Mung Chiang, professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University; Bryce Hunter, a mobile and gaming specialist at Canadian company DHX Media; Bert Navarrete, cofounder of Princeton-based Connected Sports Ventures; Paul Nolting, senior legal counsel at Verizon Wireless; Guy Story, chief technical officer at Audible (Newark); and Jordan Usdan, deputy director of public and private partnerships at the Federal Communications Commission (Washington). Ian Goldstein, a Princeton-based partner at the national law firm Drinker Biddle, which cosponsored the forum, moderated.
The panelists reached the consensus that while developers are rushing to meet increasing consumer demand, rising costs for both consumers using data and carriers building infrastructure threaten to stall the app boom.
“Growth and demand outrun the growth of supply,” Chiang said. “The creativity of app developers will lead the wave; the supply of capacity will be behind. It's a major issue that we create a win-win for everyone; otherwise, this exponential growth will come to a stop.”
Chiang said app data has become too expensive for consumers, even citing his own high phone bill as an example. He asked how many in the audience still pay for unlimited data plans, then said no carrier will be able to offer that option in two years. “Restaurants charge by how much we eat, and carriers will have to do the same,” he noted.
Representing prominent carrier Verizon, Nolting said as carriers rush to meet rising demand, they will have to pass on their costs to consumers. “It's no secret that appetite for data has outstripped delivery,” he said. “There are questions about availability of spectrum. Cellphone towers involve difficult engineering and are expensive. Everyone is worried about access to capital.”
Hunter, whose company produces television and other interactive content for popular children's shows like “Yo Gabba Gabba!” and “iCarly,” used DHX as an example when discussing the problems content providers and developers face in getting their products to consumers.

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Daily Links 6/25/2012: Comcast gets Supreme Court hearing on class action antitrust suit

Comcast Gets U.S. High Court Hearing On Consumer Lawsuit (Bloomberg)

Verizon, T-Mobile swap spectrum for mutual LTE growth
The Big Four's largest and smallest carriers strike a deal for AWS spectrum (CNET News)
Gives T-Mobile more AWS spectrum in Philly area. See my previous article on T-Mobile's spectrum holdings in the Philly region.

It’s Official: Microsoft Confirms It Has Acquired Yammer For $1.2 Billion In Cash (TechCrunch)

Quest Gets $27.50-A-Share Bid, Topping Insight’s Offer (Bloomberg)
Dell presumed to be bidder.

TicketLeap relaunches with deeper social integration, better mobile apps, & more (VentureBeat)

Help wanted at SAP: Mobile, cloud, big-data practitioners (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Cisco, Citrix link arms for VDI partner push
Virty desktops are like ERP in the 1990s (The Register: The Channel)



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