A bubbling of tech firms in Philadelphia's Old City (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Why performance will help Google steal cloud customers from Amazon (Gigaom)
Uber, an App That Summons a Car, Plans a Cheaper Service Using Hybrids (New York Times)
A bubbling of tech firms in Philadelphia's Old City (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Why performance will help Google steal cloud customers from Amazon (Gigaom)
Uber, an App That Summons a Car, Plans a Cheaper Service Using Hybrids (New York Times)
Philly Tech News VentureWatch 6/29/2012
Tom Paine
ISGN, the heavily funded and expanding mortgage technology company that had been based in Bensalem, apparently picked up and moved its headquarters early this year to Melbourne, Florida. I can find no trace of the company in Pennsylvania now (other than a location in Pittsburgh), and received no response to an email to the Florida headquarters. My guess is that the headcount in Bensalem wasn't that large, since many of its operations were acquired and located in various parts of the country, as well as in India. ISGN's most recent announced equity raise was a $30 million round announced last August. Another promising startup that departed the Philly scene (actually last year-I'm late in catching up on that one) is Venmo, the company that created the peer-to-peer mobile payments app of the same name that launched this Spring and is backed by Accel Ventures. Its headquarters is now in New York.
To replace these two on Philly Tech News' "Young Companies to Watch" list, I've added two other promising companies: Unirisx, the Philadelphia-based SaaS property & casualty-oriented insurance platform headed by former Harleysville Group CIO Akhil Tripathi, and CloudMine, the Philly-based "backend as a service" provider for mobile and web apps, which though still early stage appears to have generated considerable traction.
A couple of items relating to Radnor-based NewSpring Capital: the Boston Business Journal reported earlier this month that Bedford, MA-based FirstBest Systems, in which NewSpring is an investor, is "well into the double digit millions" for revenue, according to its CEO, and looking toward an eventual public offering. It aims to serve as the "Bloomberg for insurance". Also, LLR Partners' recent investment in Columbia, MD-based Message Systems returned an unspecified amout of liquidity in a partial exit for NewSpring, which had invested in 2010. LLR paid double the price NewSpring paid in 2010 on a per-share basis, reported the Inquirer's Joe DiStefano, citing sources.
Princeton-based DoughMain, a startup that helps families and children learn how to better manage money, has received an investment of unspecified size from a private equity fund managed by former auto executive Lee Iacocca’s family. DoughMain recently acquired Allowance-Plus, a similar company founded by Iacocca son-in-law Ned Hentz, who will serve as Chief Creative Officer and have a board seat.
phillytechnews twitter feed 6/24 to 6/25/2012
Posted: 25 Jun 2012 09:41 AM PDT phillytechnews: Comcast Gets U.S. High Court Hearing on Consumer Lawsuit - Bloomberg http://t.co/K0W10bjR |
Posted: 25 Jun 2012 08:54 AM PDT phillytechnews: NextDocs leaves KofP for Conshy tower (Philly Deals) http://t.co/WodNddiJ |
Posted: 25 Jun 2012 08:24 AM PDT phillytechnews: PTN Post: DIA 2012 begins in Philly today (Sunday) http://t.co/v8c6jkdS |
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!)
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)
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.
phillytechnews twitter feed 6/23 to 6/24/2012
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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
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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
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Posted: 24 Jun 2012 06:36 AM PDT
phillytechnews: So I guess Rubio and Romney could give each other the secret LDS handshake
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Posted: 24 Jun 2012 06:23 AM PDT
phillytechnews: Marco Rubio was briefly LDS Church member as youth
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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 |
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)
Bradford Media Group is doing interesting things in West ChesterTightly integrating video and social media marketing
Tom Paine
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| 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.
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| Julie Roehm |
Julie Roehm, who became Senior Vice President - Marketing for SAP early this year, is a Partner at BMG (
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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