Daily Links 4/10/2013: Another suburban tech firm (iPipeline) adds staff in City: Penn appoints new Chief Investment Officer

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NAB: Adobe Primetime Deployed on Comcast, NBC Sports
Also announces widespread availability of product for streamlining and monetizing multiplatform delivery of content (Broadcasting & Cable)

Now CBS is threatening to become a cable channel if Aereo isn’t shut down (VentureBeat)

Why I Need Aereo TV — And You Do, Too [Review] (ReadWrite)

Genachowski Suggests Limited Role for FCC in Aereo Dispute (Variety)



Verizon CEO hints at a la carte pricing for video (FierceCable)

AT&T's Few Fiber to the Home Users See Speed Boost
Some Users Now Able to Get 24 Mbps -- On Fiber (Broadband Reports)

Deutsche Telekom Sweetens T-Mobile’s Bid for MetroPCS (All Things D)

Peter H. Ammon Named Penn’s Chief Investment Officer (Penn News)



Tech firms keep adding Center City Philly branches (Philly.com: Philly Deals)
iPipeline the latest.

eBay to Share Shopping Data with Retargeting Advertisers (EcommerceBytes.com)

eBay’s PayPal and Magento join hands to offer a mobile payment service (Gigaom)

Blackstone Searches for Tech Partner in Dell Dance (Fox Business)

The PC market is a horror show right now (Gigaom)


Manhattan’s Hudson Yards Gains L’Oreal, SAP as Tenants
(Bloomberg)




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Google Fiber to Austin confirmed: AT&T issues some kind of response

Tom Paine

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Confirming speculation shortly before the scheduled 1pm (central) press conference in Austin, Google Fiber's Milo Medin confirmed on a post on the Google Fiber Blog that Austin would indeed be the second Google Fiber city, following Kansas City Kansas/Missouri.

Medin says Google Fiber hopes to begin deploymments in mid-2014, largely along the same terms and conditions as in Kansas City.

Correction: Press conference was apparently at 9am PST (12pm eastern), an hour earlier than I thought I had read previously.

Austin’s Mayor Lee Leffingwell sees advantage in being the 2nd Google Fiber City, TechCrunch reported.


AT&T shot back quickly this afternoon with an announcement that it would compete with Google to provide 1 Gig broadband to Austin, though the announcement was (in my view) lacking much clarity in terms of the depth of its commitment and breadth of services.

Google Fiber's primary incumbent competitors in Austin will be Time Warner Cable on the cable side and AT&T's U-verse on the telecom side.

Daily Links 4/9/2013: Elsevier finally completes Mendeley acquisition, stirring up hornet's nest

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Google Fiber’s Next Stop: Austin, Texas (Google Fiber Blog)

Intel Cooks Up Future of TV -- a Potential Mess for Cable
An Unconventional Campaign for an Unconventional Platform (Ad Age)

Salesforce Platform Crosses 1 Million Developer Mark, Adds Frameworks To Attract JavaScript Community For Mobile Push (TechCrunch)

Oracle Announces New In-Memory Applications and Faster Performance for All Oracle Applications on Oracle Engineered Systems (Marketwire)

Banner by Ellucian Achieves Oracle Exadata Optimized Status
(Ellucian Press Release)
Ellucian is the result of the merger of SunGard Higher Education and Datatel in 2011.
Its annual user conference, Ellucian Live '13, runs through tomorrow at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

The Empire acquires the rebel alliance: Mendeley users revolt against Elsevier takeover (paidContent)

Cutting edge IT firm sharing its expertise at UD event for entrepreneurs (Delaware.com: Delaware Inc)

Five Emerging Technology Companies Choose the Science Center to Grow (Business Wire)

Daily Links 4/8/2013: Fox threatens to take network to cable over Aereo

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Business Incubator Novotorium Announces Investment in AboutOne, Online & Mobile Family Organizing Platform (PR Web)

What financial analysts think about SAP does (and doesn’t) matter (Dennis Howlett/evilplans)

Hat check: Green Hat and IBM 15 months on
IBM’s play in Service Virtualization (SV) for testing (Creative Intellect Consulting)

News Corp. Threatens to Pull Fox Off the Airwaves if Aereo Wins
(All Things D)

Software contest details getting clearer (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Exton flight equipment maker gets $60M award (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Code for America and Google form incubator to ‘turbo-charge’ civic-minded startups (VentureBeat)

Is Recyclebank worth it?

Tom Paine

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I continually see stories such as this (Oak Ridge, TN) and this (Alcoa, TN) and this (Lambeth Borough, London) and this (Knoxville, TN) about Recyclebank, the recycling rewards program that offers consumers reedemable reward points based on how much they recycle. In spite of the glitzy corporate PR Recyclebank generates, its economic benefits to many municipalities seem to be marginal at best. Of courses, participation rates and benefits tend to vary from one area to another based on demographics, housing mix and other factors.

Many South Jersey communities that were early adopters have since dropped the program.

Recyclebank was founded in Philadelphia and later moved its headquarters to New York, although it still has staff in Philadelphia. Upon Philadelphia winning $1 million from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors challenge last month, Mayor Nutter cited Recyclebank as an example as the type of program the Bloomberg Challenge might help create.

The company has raised upwards of $100 million in venture capital funds. You can see part of a recent presentation by Jonathan K. Hsu, CEO of Recyclebank, at a Wall Street Journal conference below:





No one questions the value of increasing recycling rates and influencing consumer behavior to help accomplish this. But what I've consistently heard from many communities is that participation in the rewards program is too low and the cost of supporting it is too high for many municipalities.

Allen Stern, influential tech blogger and entrepreneur, passes away

Tom Paine

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Allen Stern passed away last week, his sister reported on his Facebook page. There are few details at this time.

Since I didn't know much about his personal history, I'll leave that to others to describe. What I do know was that he was a pioneer in tech blogging through his website, CenterNetworks. Although based in New York, and very involved in the tech scene there before it really exploded, he was by no means provincial and totally New York focused. In fact, I remember he was very aware of the Philly tech scene and would write about major developments there and would come down for big events. I assume many in Philly met him or communicated with him at some point.

As an observer and evangelist, he served as one of the catalysts for the emerging tech ecosystem in New York City, as it began to become swamped with startups, entrepreneurs, technologists, and tech VCs. CenterNetworks also served as a model for many aspiring, creative tech bloggers.

CenterNetworks was sold at some point a few years ago and Stern apparently moved to Austin, Texas, reportedly making considerable progress attacking a longtime weight issue (see the before and after photos he posted on Facebook), and running a website on which he shared weight management and recipe advice with others. He also had other entrepreneurial ventures, such as one aimed at capturing business card information in the Cloud.

CenterNetworks was influential, but it never had the financial success of websites that emerged later on such as TechCrunch or Gigaom. The site now appears to be largely dormant now.



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Philly Tech People News 4/7/2013

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ShopRunner Appoints Scott Simmons as COO and CFO (PR Newswire)

RES Software Announces VP of Business Development to Fuel Enterprise Adoption and Accelerate Company (Business Wire)

My return to The Wharton School as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (Brett Hurt, Wharton MBA 1999; Vice Chairman and Co-founder, Bazaarvoice/Wharton Entrepreneurship Blog)

Four Industry Veterans Join Rosetta's Technology and Telecommunications Vertical
New Additions to Leadership Team Enhance Personalized Marketing Expertise in Rosetta's Fastest Growing Vertical (PR Newswire)

Supply Chain Solution Provider Elemica Adds Chief Information Officer & Head of Global Customer Support to Executive Team (Marketwire)

PEI-Genesis Names David Jones New Director of Global Sales (PR Web)

Legal battle with RCN is not over for Comcast (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Disruptions: The Logic (or Lack of It) in Appraising Start-Ups (New York Times: Bits)

This Austin TV station thinks its got Google Fiber story confirmed

Tableau’s IPO ‘book’ is tech’s next bestseller (Inorganic Growth)
Radnor-based QlikTech's total revenue for the full year 2012 was $388.5 million, an increase of 21% from the full year 2011 and 26% on a constant currency basis. GAAP Net Income was $3.8 million.
Upstart competitor Tableau doubled its revenue in 2012 to $127.7 million, and the company has been profitable on a GAAP basis since 2010.

Where Social, BPM and Event Technologies Must Go (Brian Sommer/Enterprise Irregulars)

Digital First Media CEO John Paton discusses future of media after JRC bankruptcy (Lansdale Reporter)

Microsoft to open Specialty Store at King of Prussia Mall on April 13

Tom Paine

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Microsoft said in a post today on the Official Microsoft Blog that it is opening five new Microsoft Specialty Stores, including one at King of Prussia Mall on April 13. Microsoft said its Specialty Stores, the first of which opened last Fall, "sell an array of Microsoft products, including Microsoft Surface Pro with Windows 8 Pro, Microsoft Surface RT, Windows Phone 8 and Xbox/Kinect." Microsoft lists about 75 stores (rough count), some of which are considered Specialty Stores and some not, in North America, including the five new locations.

Microsoft has three stores in New Jersey (Bridgewater Commons is the closest to Philly) and one at Christiana Mall in Delaware, which is not a Specialty Store.

Microsoft Specialty Store in Aventura, Fla./
Microsoft Blog

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