Tue
Aug
24

On Philly’s “blog tax”

By now you’ve probably heard the reports that the City of Philadelphia is charging bloggers $300 to operate a website.

The story has been republished in the Washington Post, Mashable and other outlets after first being reported by my old employer, the Philadelphia Citypaper (though local message board Philadelphia Speaks wrote about this before anyone else). Many of these sources are asserting that the city is targeting bloggers with a new tax.

This is untrue. The city created no new tax and any publication saying otherwise is doing some terrible reporting and any outrage about the anti-blogging attitude of the city is a knee-jerk reaction to some poor research.

Technically Philly, in fact, has paid $300 to the City of Philadelphia. However, this was not for any “blog tax,” it was for the business privilege license, a one-time $300 fee required of all businesses in the city. The purpose of the Citypaper story was to point out that the city was considering blogs claimed in tax returns as “businesses” that need to pay for the license.

It’s certainly a horrible waste of resources to pursue blogs with revenue in the hundreds when some companies and individuals owe the city millions in back taxes, forcing the city to do things like offer a tax amnesty to the dead beats.

To be clear: there is no “blog tax” in Philadelphia. None.

Admittedly, the city doesn’t help its public perception when city council threatens to sue Twitter and Facebook over the flash mobs or when the city’s Twitter account vomits Facebook links and often posts in all caps.

However, while these slip-ups over social media may be easy fodder for the Internet savvy to make fun of, there is a much larger issue revealing itself here: the city’s tax structure which can be crippling to entrepreneurial activity and innovation.

As I interview local entrepreneurs every day for Technically Philly, I see a common thread: any business located in the city boundaries of Philadelphia is here despite the city government and not because of it (see the 15 steps one businesswoman had to take). The ridiculous city business privilege tax (which is different than the license) and the wage tax which far outpaces other cities of comparable size are just a few examples of the hurdles many businesses face by choosing to do work in Philadelphia.

When applied to bloggers, the economic impact of the city’s awful tax policy is small while its impact on the web is inflated due the “victims” of the tax. However, when applied to small and mid-sized businesses the impact is, well, cities like King of Prussia and Cherry Hill that are located just outside of the city’s borders. These cities offer a more favorable environment for businesses looking to flee taxes such as the business privilege tax and other fees. The only reason Comcast is headquartered here is because the city created tax breaks just for them.

While the outrage over asking a hobbyist to pay $300 for a blog is understandable, it pales in comparison to the scores of companies that chose to set up shop outside city limits to avoid paying city taxes. While it won’t get headlines on Mashable, those lamenting about the blogger tax ought to direct their energy to urge the city to reconsider the taxes that keep companies, and jobs, outside city limits.

And those looking to do cheap, drive-by digs at Philadelphia should know that they look foolish and out of touch. Don’t believe me? Come visit.

Posted in Technically Philly | 22 Comments
Wed
Jul
21

No, I didn’t see that story on Romenesko

Ever since I marked “journalism” on my college application I have been a frequent reader of the journalism media – the blogs and columns that cover the issues that surround journalism and the media. In fact, my first “real” job out of college made me one of those people who primarily cover the media.

My morning routine often had me firing up Google Reader and reading through 96 RSS subscriptions to be up on the latest juicy news. Most often it was some “huge” mistake that some legacy news organization made that proved they didn’t “get it.” Sometimes it was a Clay Shirky or David Carr column that had everyone fawning. But almost always it was like watching the same movie over and over again but with different characters.

Sound like you? I have one word of advice: Stop.

Stop caring about what the New York Times is doing. Stop taking part in arguments that have no end and stop wondering about nebulous concepts like “Will [insert company X] save [your industry]?”

Instead, worry about you.

Have your own site, your own application, your own initiative or your own event. Whatever it is, make it yours. Once you have something that’s yours you’ll find that it opens all kinds of doors.

I’ll be the first one to roll my eyes at a Steve Jobs quote, but a few months ago Valleywag’s Ryan Tate got into an email fight with Jobs. In the back and forth, Jobs wrote one line that haunts me to this day:

“By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or do you just criticizes others work and belittle their motivations?”

Don’t just talk about what other people are doing. Make something. Experiment. Collaborate. But whatever you do, don’t just talk about it.

Posted in Personal | 11 Comments
Thu
Jun
10

Taking the leap: working on Technically Philly full time

At our presentation at BarCamp NewsInnovation this year, Technically Philly stood in front of the room and declared that it was the company’s goal to have one of the three co-founders work on the business full time.

As of last week, we can check that one off of our todo list.

Starting at the end of this month I will be leaving my position as editor at Vital Business Media to begin working full time on Technically Philly, the news site I co-founded with Brian James Kirk and Chris Wink in February 2009 to cover tech news in Philadelphia. More appropriately, I will be working full-time at its parent company which includes our work on News Inkubator and Technically Media.

Why?

The business has grown beyond our initial aspirations, and the exhaustion is beginning to affect our growth. However, thanks to that work, we’ve amassed enough of a runway to make a serious go at a journalism startup, something that’s been a personal dream of mine since I was in high school.

It’s also a chance to address the incredible frustration that builds up when you can see the path you need to walk but don’t have the time or resources to do so. I would often attend journalism conferences or read about innovative media entrepreneurs and become overwhelmed with a feeling that Technically Philly could have a deeper impact on Philadelphia if, damnit, we just had more time.

I feel that Technically Philly sits at a crossroads of a growing technology community and a rapidly changing journalism ecosystem here in Philadelphia, an amazing opportunity if we are able play our cards right. I’m tired of seeing wonderful things happen here in Philadelphia with not much coverage from larger or national media outlets. The community here deserves to have a louder voice, something we hope to do a better job at moving forward.

Vital

I also want to take the time to thank everyone over at Vital Business Media. I had a blast working there and I’ve learned a great deal about startups and the media world through our work at emediavitals.com. Covering the media industry while working for a startup gave me a unique perspective on both worlds and I will surely apply the things I’ve learned as we build Technically Philly to be a more sustainable media company. As I’ve told them many times, it felt like getting an MBA.

If you’d like to work for those guys (and you really should) they’re hiring.

Also, I’m putting this out in the open so I force myself to hold to it: I want to blog here at least once every other week with an update of the things we’re trying and how they are working out. I hope you follow along.

Posted in Personal, Technically Philly | 15 Comments
Mon
May
17

The future of local media according to Technically Philly

I’ve been busy the past few months. Honest.

Brian James Kirk, Christopher Wink and I have been hard at work trying to do our part in making our ideas and best guesses about local media into a reality (with different rates of success, I’ll add).

I figured I’d shed a little bit of light about what we’ve been thinking and what we’ve been up to. Here is a very broad idea of where we see this whole local media thing heading. I welcome your thoughts and criticisms.

A citywide advertising network

The first generation of news startups are largely by people with an editorial background. It is only after a few months of working for free that most people begin to consider revenue streams.

However, just like newsrooms saw cuts during the recent recession, so did many sales staffs across the business world. Technically Philly thinks that the two sides can come together to help editorially minded news sites pull in some income that is sold by a sales staff with preexisting contacts in the local business world.

We think that an advertising network of high-quality blogs and news websites can offer an appealing option for large of national clients to purchase across an entire city, while the individual verticals can better chase advertisements that are relative to their niche. For example, our buds at Geekadelphia and Technically Philly have very similar audiences so, within our Philly network, we could have a tech vertical.

By neighborhood and by niche

Blogs that cover a neighborhood are nothing new, and monetization efforts expand all the time. Mainstream publications are also increasingly looking to these neighborhood sites to cover the nitty-gritty subject areas to free larger papers up to cover more broad topics. For example consider my good friend Shannon McDonald’s partnership with the Philadelphia Metro’s northeast edition. I worry, however, that traditionally underserved communities will remain underserved as tech savvy areas make the most sense for neighborhood news websites.

We also think that there’s room for local niche sites like Technically Philly that cover a certain vertical refined to a local area. This enables more revenue to be made from events as 95 percent of your readers are within a 20 miles radius and in the same industry. Making connections and building sources are also much easier when refined to one city. We also think that if you own an industry locally, national advertisers and vendors will begin looking your way.

Sharing back end services

It simply doesn’t make sense for each site to have their own lawyer, salespeople, accountants etc. We proposed a solution to this problem with News Inkubator. We didn’t win the Knight News Challenge, but we still think it will be absolutely crucial to build a sustainable local news ecosystem. We need to enable content creators to do what they do best, while pooling our collective knowledge to help flush out best business practices.

J-Lab surmised as much in its report about Philadelphia:

Any Networked Journalism collaboration must respect the fierce independence of these startups while validating their strengths and shoring up their weakness with a business support system, which could include business plans, legal help, tech support, even employee benefits.

Business services

News websites are great at building authentic communities but not so great at working on business models. Large businesses are great at making money but are struggling to build communities on the web. There is a natural overlap here.

Breaking silos

I swear I wrote this before Ryan Sholin’s excellent piece on skills media folks should have to be valuable (a must read on its own). But the silos I refer to are the silos within your town and your community. Local online news can be a meeting ground for people that naturally self-segregate. With Technically Philly we’ve seen the startup community, the video game community, the venture capital community (to name a few) all show up to low key meetups we’ve hosted. We think there’s room to grow, but its a good example of people that could benefit being in the same room, but may often need an extra nudge to make it happen.

Local media can be that nudge.

Partnerships with traditional outlets

Like Shannon’s partnership with the Metro, TP has partnerships with Philadelphia Magazine, Philly.com and several local blogs. Several newspapers have taken to building content networks with local blogs and maybe are exploring ways of sharing advertising revenue. These relationships will mature and evolve as the parties try different models.

A short road map, but I hope you can see where we are going here. Local media needs to be part of a larger ecosystem of other businesses, publications and its readers. I’d love to hear your thoughts about our plan.

Posted in Technically Philly | 2 Comments
Mon
May
03

My thoughts on BCNI (and Philadelphia)

This started out as a post about BarCamp NewsInnovation.

But then C.W. Anderson helped me realize that BCNI Philly, the event I helped organize at Temple last Saturday, was just a (very) small piece of an evolving Philadelphia puzzle. Last week, after months of investigation, J-Lab released its recommendations to the William Penn Foundation. Then, shortly after BCNI, the local owners of the Philadelphia Inquirer lost their bid to keep ownership of the newspaper, surrendering to the lenders.

It’s a new era in Philadelphia.

Anybody that knows me know I’m annoyingly biased towards Philadelphia. But there is a reason I love this city so much. Professionally, I believe no other city offers a better chance to help shape the future of media and the events of the last week have deepened my resolve to be a part of the conversation (which might mean – ahem – blogging more) and find a place where I can have the most immediate impact.

Which brings up back to BCNI. I was extremely happy to hear the feedback from attendees. Most said it was unlike other conferences and that it was good to be surrounded by passion and optimism. Jack Lail even called us “edgelings“. Much like Philadelphia will be a leading indicator about the future of metropolitan media ecosystems, BCNI was meant to be a starting point for bold ideas, presentations and projects. I think we’re on our way, but I think BCNI can be much bigger and more influential.

We’re only in year two, but I’m excited to see where we can take BCNI (and Philadelphia) in the future.

See you next year.

Oh, and if you want a more nuts and bolts recap of the event, head on over to bcniphilly.com.

Posted in BCNIPhilly | 1 Comment