PodCamp Highlights The Tech Hub of Philly
Podcasters, vloggers and other online multimedia producers, enthusiasts and hopefuls congregated in Philadelphia last weekend for the first anniversary of PodCamp. Like any conference, part of the attraction of PodCamp was the sessions, but the main draw was social. The Mid-Atlantic location — it was held on the Drexel University campus in University City west of downtown Philadelphia — drew a number of attendees and sponsors from around the East Coast, but it was especially clear that Philadelphia’s technology and online publisher community, although small, is growing.
The first session, held last year in Boston, was organized by Chris Penn (who posted video updates like the installment below) and Chris Brogan. The two were inspired to put on their own “unconference” after attending the first BarCamp Boston and envisioning a more content-focused event.
This year, the Friday evening social hour was held at the offices of P’unk Avenue, an interactive ad agency. It drew an unexpectedly large crowd and spilled out onto the sidewalk and benches of Pat’s King of Steaks. While the Philadelphia tech startup scene is small, it was well represented by the likes of Viddler, which offers sharing and enhancement tools; RedLasso, which allows people to set up alerts that match search terms phonetically to broadcast television and delivers them matching video clips; Comcast Interactive Media, a research division of the cable giant; and Qwizzy, a platform provider for interactive FAQs.
One of the highlights was a live taping of the Best Damn Tech Show, Period. Two of the team’ members, Rand Bradbury and Adam Plante, share a home near the campus known as the House that Geek Built (thanks to being crammed with multimedia production hardware and furnishings acquired via Craigslist). Another focus for the local community is the new coworking space, Independents Hall, put together by Alex Hillman.
Drew Olanoff, a Best Damn Tech Show, Period host and producer of Scriggity, helped organize and hosted a live broadcast via Ustream. Mark Schoenveld, who recently signed up as a community manager with local startup XLNTads, explained that he gets a budget for his show Cheap Dates! Philadelphia from the local tourism board. And Alive in Baghdad — represented by Brian Conley and Steve Wyshywaniuk — became the cause celebre of the weekend, with much of the conversation focused on ways to get funding for what many feel is one of the most important shows online.
The spectrum of topics covered in the sessions was appropriately broad. One session looked at how to optimize your video and audio for search engines, hosted by Liana Evans of Search Marketing Gurus (she recommended using metadata and descriptive text such as transcripts in a blog context, such as Danny Sullivan’s podcast); another featured a tetchy audience grilling the organizers of the Association for Downloadable Media, a trade group for vloggers and podcasters; and another saw the production a short video as part of a fan-submission project for a book promotion hosted by Steve Garfield. Many of the sessions are available as video feeds from the university.
It’s always refreshing to discover a new location that has all the ingredients for becoming a production and technology hotbed — especially when it’s positioned outside of the traditional poles of major media influence. Philadelphia, with a constant stream of young, educated people pouring in and a relatively low cost of living, presents great opportunities. But new media producers can only hold out so long on inexpensive rents and cheesesteaks — hopefully events like PodCamp can serve to connect producers to startups and investors willing to enable revenue streams and provide sponsorships for new content.
Recent
GigaOM Network
Copyright 2001–2008 Giga Omni Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Powered by WordPress.com. Marketing consulting by ACS.
Great seeing you at Podcamp Philly.
Here’s my post:
http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/2007/09/making-friends-at-camp.html
steve Garfield on September 10th, 2007 at 7:22 pm - Permalink
Wow! I’ve been a reader since post 1, so I’m so excited you wrote up PodCamp. Sorry I missed you, as scheduling caused a little issue, but I’m glad you had a good time. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh turn out to be these little hot beds of quality video, Jackson. Have you seen Something to be Desired? A video show with a cast of 26? Ludicrous. And yet, my friend Justin gets it done. Oh, and Pittsburgh is also home to iJustine. Pennsylvania: home to new media. Who knew? : )
Thanks for the write-up.
chrisbrogan on September 10th, 2007 at 10:03 pm - Permalink
Jackson, it was great having you in the city of Brotherly Love. As you know, I’m extremely passionate about our city, so to have an event such as Podcamp hosted here was a dream come true. The web is truly world (and country) wide.
drew olanoff on September 10th, 2007 at 10:11 pm - Permalink
Thanks for mentioning Qwizzy :) Definitely enjoyed PodCamp and was pleasantly surprised by how many new media folks there are in Philly.
Adam Ostrow on September 10th, 2007 at 10:16 pm - Permalink
My name is actually Rand Bradbury, not Rand Richards…
Rand Bradbury on September 10th, 2007 at 10:49 pm - Permalink
Thanks so much for coming to Podcamp Philly! We are excited to see the community really come together, and we’re so glad you’re a part of it as well! We had great sponsors, great attendance, and I hope this becomes a regular part of the Philly new Media scene.
Whitney Hoffman
Lead Organizer
Podcamp Philly
ldpodcast on September 11th, 2007 at 4:06 am - Permalink
Great write-up and video, I think you hit the high points perfectly.
Colin Devroe on September 11th, 2007 at 4:43 am - Permalink
Toonamation is also Philadelphia-area startup video tech, co-located in Boston, and we were around at PodCamp Philly. We may be harder to notice, because we’ve intentionally chosen a bootstrapping trajectory to maintain autonomy, although we’ve had inquiries and opportunities otherwise.
Stan Schwartz on September 11th, 2007 at 5:31 am - Permalink
Just a clarification on Redlasso. Redlasso records and indexes broadcast TV and Radio thereby allowing users to search for anything that was broadcast. From there a user can create clips of up to 10 minutes which can be syndicated using Redlasso’s Flash player. Lastly, users can search existing broadcast clips that other users have created and syndicate those clips in the same way.
–Jim
Jim McCusker on September 11th, 2007 at 6:14 am - Permalink
Sorry, Rand — I’ve got no excuse, since I even got your card in my stack from the event.
Jackson West on September 11th, 2007 at 6:14 am - Permalink
Actually, Rand Richards has a nice ring to it ;)
drew olanoff on September 11th, 2007 at 6:42 am - Permalink
Thanks for the shout out, Jackson. It was great to hang with you in Philly, glad you could come feel the exciting vibe that the community is creating here in town.
Mark Schoneveld on September 11th, 2007 at 8:31 am - Permalink
[...] videos first, cut deals to legitimately get access to them later? How 2006! RedLasso, which Jackson first covered after he met the company at PodCamp Philly, is starting to publicize its plans to allow users to [...]
RedLasso: Cool News Vid Tools, but No Content Deals on Which to Use Them « NewTeeVee on November 20th, 2007 at 12:08 pm - Permalink