Focus: hyperlocal information for 30 neighborhoods in the northeast corner of Philadelphia

Started: November 2008

Staff: founded by Shannon McDonald, while a student at Temple University; contributing writers

You don’t have to be an experienced writer to contribute to the site. We want active, involved residents with a passion for their neighborhood. Are you a block captain? A stay-at-home parent with active kids? Someone who loves to socialize and try new things? Do you like taking photos of things you see in your daily routine? NEast Philly is a place for people to read about and experience the real Northeast Philadelphia.

Business: started online, print magazine planned for spring 2010

Site: neastphilly.com

From About:

NEastPhilly.com is the online home of Northeast Philadelphia. Launched in November 2008, NEastPhilly is maintained by a collection of local residents who live and breathe Northeast Philadelphia. The site offers daily news, analysis, multimedia, columns and commentary on everything that interests the proud, working-class neighborhoods of The NEast. NEastPhilly.com is the only place for daily news exclusively about the Northeast.

Sample posts: “News briefs from the Lawn Crest Community Association”; “Contractor dies near Frankford workspace”; “Real NEastate: Selling to another Seller” (a Q&A about selling a home in the neighborhood); “”Diamonds stolen from Franklin Mills Mall” a linked report to the Philadelphia Inquirer; “Man killed by train identified”

Location: Philadelphia  

Focus: “Technically Philly is a site covering the community of people who use technology in Philadelphia”

Started: February 2009

Staff: Founded by Christopher Wink, Sean Blanda and Brian James Kirk, who formed the company Technically Media. Wink, Blanda and Kirk run the site, editing and contributing stories. They have one ad sales rep.

Funding: advertising, sponsorships, see their advertising rates in their online ad kit

Site: technicallyphilly.com

From About

From the small group of programmers working on the next big Web application to large businesses that employ hundreds, the Philadelphia technology community is growing. Sometimes, it’s hard to keep track of all of the start-ups, organizations, venture capitalists and businesses that are working to make Philadelphia thrive.

Technically Philly will be there to help you stay on top of all of the news that affects our technology community with a Philadelphia-first mind set, and we will let you know when the next event is happening in your neighborhood. In fact, the three editors of Technically Philly have never even set foot in Silicon Valley.

Sample posts: “TNT: The ballet wants you to take your phone out. No, really”; “Friday Q&A: Catching up with Steve Welch, candidate for congress”; “City of Philadelphia to buy municipal WiFi network from Network Acquisitions”; “Walnut Street Apple store now hiring”

Focus: news and opinion in the city, “In-Depth News, Analysis & Commentary for the Philadelphia Region”; sections include “Publius” for opinion; and “VoxPop” for first-person essays

Started: December 2009

Staff: Editor Tom Ferrick, a print newspaper veteran; web designer;  graphics designer; and 11 story contributors listed on the site launch.

Funding: non-profit — a project of the Public Media Lab

Site: phlmetropolis.com

From About Us:

Underlying the thinking behind Metropolis is that this region has an abundance of smart, engaged people who care about the area and its future, whose definition of citizenship includes more than just voting and griping about the status quo.Through their unselfish acts, through their volunteer work and their political and civic engagement, they contribute in ways that reverberate far beyond their neighborhoods. Collectively, they serve as the soul and conscience of the Philadelphia region. They are its engines of change.

This website is designed to serve these active and aware citizens, people who have a need to know what is happening in the region that affects them, their families, their neighborhoods and their communities.

Sample stories: “The Frankford Story: In a Free Fall” about a dying neighborhood, part of two-part series;  “Police pact inked”; “Special Report: Violence at South Philly High”; “Time to tax natural gas” (opinion piece); “Another ‘F’ for Philly” brief about weak education system

Focus:  news and information from 27 neighborhoods in the city; a “Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab” project by Temple University’s journalism department. Similar to University of  Southern California’s Intersections: The South Los Angeles Reporting Project.

Started: March 2009

Staff: project co-directors are Linn Washington, director of News-Editorial sequence in the Temple University journalism department, and Christopher Harper, an associate professor in the department. Journalism students contribute content. 

Funding:

Site: http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/

From About

[Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab] is the cornerstone of the Department of Journalism’s mission to better tell stories in the under-covered and under-served neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Students tell the stories that represent the diverse voices of the multicultural and multinational Philadelphia neighborhoods. Each semester MURL students concentrate their news coverage in a targeted Philadelphia neighborhood, and then service it with topical information and service news from the community–issues from the school lunch and the missing stop signs–to the people who seek to maintain a livable community. This MURL brand of news provides a form of hyper-local coverage missing from our urban communities: journalism street by street.

Stories: “Gravediggers raise money for Laurel Hill Cemetary”; “Olney: A Look at the 35th Police District”; “Feltonville: Three Children and Woman Killed”; “Fishtown: Vegan anyone?”; “Mantua: Farming Provides Locals with Fresh Produce”