In all of regions, there is a great need to envision the future of the metro newsroom, which feature smart, engaged reporters on a variety of beats able to work together to better inform other residents and keep government honest.

In a fractured media ecosystem, the newsroom of the future is coworking for independent media. Reporters and editors together — freelance, niche sites and more — sharing and pushing forward the coverage and conversation among news creators in a given market.

I submitted a Knight News Challenge grant application on that very subject. See it here or on Google Docs here.

It wasn’t accepted, so that may slow the implementation of this, but I’ll work on it regardless.

I’ve been turned down by the News Challenge before.

In 2009, my colleagues and I submitted a business services pitch that was, though well founded, too large and convoluted to carry much weight. By the time it was re-formed as News Inkubator, it included something like this new pitch. Then again in 2010, we submitted a pitch for a shared community director called Cobblestone.

The third time just gives things a more rounded edge.

For news coworking, while others have talked about the idea, no one appears to be taking on the broad collaboration conversation with it. Launching an effort like this could tie into local chapters of ONA and Hacks/Hackers, it could bring the famed Pen & Pencil Club onto a more national stage and could be a chance to tell the long-tail story of Philadelphia journalism — maybe a historic directory like this and a museum of great work.

More to come on this.

The 2012 BarCamp NewsInnovation was the first to have a paid entrance -- $5 -- which lowered RSVPs and raised attendance from 2011, which likely took on a much larger casual interest from being listed on the Philly Tech Week website. *Also, 2011 and 2012 featured hackathons, which added some attendees overall. These figures do not include them. **I added this graph to this post AFTER the last BCNI.

Later this week, I’ll help organize the fourth-annual BarCamp NewsInnovation.

It will again be, in my biased opinion, among the most meaningful media un-conferences in the country. We’ll have an open news hackathon again, ProPublica social media editor Daniel Victor will talk strategy and representatives will talk shop from legacy media powerhouses and independent news startups from throughout the eastern seaboard and beyond. That rocks.

REGISTER HERE!

Beyond all that, the biggest change in format is that, for the first time, we’ll be charging $5 for admission for the day-long event, which includes breakfast, lunch, happy hour and appetizers, in addition to concepts and conversations of note.

Though always popular, attendance has been inconsistent and erratic because, we feel, there is little buy-in for a free event. We’re experimenting with the idea that even a modest sum, like $5 — though students and others who would be deterred are welcome to come for free — there will be a higher-rate of RSVP returns.

We also think it will help us create a more valuable event, as BCNI continues to grow. It’s been interesting to see others deal with the same challenge. Developer Mark Headd, who recently joined Code for America, sent over interesting insights from others organizing free events.

“A hundred people registered to the event, and in the end around 40 hackers showed up for the event. I did not expect such a large difference, I think it’s due to the fact that the event was free of charge, a lot of people registered and never showed up later.”

“We soon decided that tickets would be €10, not to make money from it, but to make sure that people registering were people really willing to come. In the end, around 140 hackers showed up. I think our strategy worked fine.”

Painting like this on your cheekbones is more likely to throw off facial detection technology than other methods, according to a thesis from artist Adam Harvey. Image courtesy of Harvey

Facial detection can be blocked by changing the contrast of and spatial relationship between key facial features.

So, though growing a beard might throw a casual human glance off, the growing process of computerized recognition is rarely tricked, because it focuses primarily on the T made by your eyes and the bridge of your nose. You’d be better served by painting on your cheekbones like above, a discovery that was part of a masters thesis from artist and photographer Adam Harvey. Harvey does research on tricking facial detection technology.

That discovery was among the coolest lessons I took from moderating a Q&A seminar hosted by the Academy of Natural Sciences as part of the kickoff of the Philadelphia Science Festival. Called Hiding in Plain Sight, it was also one of a number of events done in partnership with the second annual Philly Tech Week, which I’m helping to organize this week.

There were others — Harvey noted that he focuses on facial detection, instead of facial recognition, because the former has to happen first. Roughly 40 people listened, if only in part, to Harvey’s compelling presentation and his answers to questions from me and the audience, seated in a crowded Frankford Hall last Friday. The major kickoff event followed.

The promo graf:

Facial recognition systems aren’t science fiction. From social media to law enforcement, they’re used in Web applications and surveillance operations. Learn about the implications — positive and negative — for personal privacy, and discover what one techie is working that will allow people to hide from them.

The questions I asked:

• Is this art or practice? Do art and let the money follow, not the other way around, he said. So, while there are practical applications, he’s mostly interested in the art of this work.
• Terrify us with the most pessimistic vision of what this could mean in the future. It’s easy to think of obtrusive advertising that sells products to us wherever we are outside by detecting our faces and gaining context from social networks, he said.
• Excite us with the most optimistic vision of what this could mean in the future. There are powerful opportunities around efficiency, context, relevance and personalization.
• What about facial recognition in five years will most surprise us? The more common use of drones to offer crowd control by way of scanning.

More than 80 events celebrating technology and innovation in the Delaware Valley are taking place over the next few days as part of the second annual Philly Tech Week presented by AT&T and organized by Technically Philly.

We first introduced this second year last fall. I am enormously proud to follow the work we managed last year.

Meet Ph.ly, the local URL shortener and the curated weekly email that will make you a better Philadelphian.

Try the tool and add your email here.

Last week, we at Technically Media announced that we launched Ph.ly, which has two primary features.

1. URL shortener with a Philly focus — Try ph.ly/connect to see how domains can be shortened more beautifully and more relevantly.
2. Weekly curated email of the three biggest pieces of local journalism — If enough people add their emails to the list, we will curate the three most meaningful pieces of local news and information to allow more Philadelphians to more easily consume the best of all the region’s content creators. It’s a hope to create a common set of facts for Philadelphians. Perhaps it’s a model for other markets.

Find the nearest free wireless internet hotspot in Philadelphia by using Connect Philly, a new mapping and text message tool we at Technically Philly released last week.

The tool, which can also be reached by ph.ly/connect,

The tool, which is meant to be a part of the digital access conversation, was unveiled formally with an event in City Hall, featuring Mayor Nutter and a panel discussion I moderated on improving access and literacy online for low-income Philadelphians.

Conceived by my colleague Brian James Kirk, who was helped by developer Jim Smiley, Connect Philly followed coverage sponsored by JLab and was sponsored by the Knight Foundation, in addition to data partnerships with Freedom Rings, PlanPhilly, the Free Library and others.

The Inquirer, KYW and others covered the tool’s launch.

It should be added that I was particularly proud of my colleague Brian James Kirk, who conceived of the project, brought together a data set despite push back from multiple sources and put together the event. He’s a star, what a journalist should look like today.

The home page of SussexToday.com, a proposed hyperlocal for Sussex County, N.J. as Patch.com was being expanded by Aol in mid-2009.

For any venture or project that reaches any remote level of success, there are surely failures that surround it.

By any standard, Technically Media is no more than a very small success, but before building that small business, I’ve had more than my fair share of failures. Being no stranger to rejection, I’ve tried my best to learn something from the handful of efforts (mostly other niche sites) that I helped launch around the beginning of 2009 in the hopes of finding a media venture of success — underemployed and without many opportunities.

Below, I share seven projects I tried launching before Technically Media, why they failed and what I learned.

In no particular order:

1. Philly REsource — A blog on real estate and development in Philadelphia. Before Brownstoner came to Philly, before Hidden City, Eyes on the Street, Naked Philly and Curbed, the idea was that there was enough development, rumors and interest in real estate in Philadelphia.
• Revenue Plans: Editorial strategy for a real estate agent, as I pitched to a friend and budding developer.
• Problem: The project was always delayed.
• Lesson: Just get started.
2. MingShooters — A music site of Philadelphia hip-hop focused on a teenage audience, featuring un-seen footage.
• Revenue Plans: Concerts, PSAs and other advertising dedicated to outreach to a young demographic.
• Problem: Though I had a great partner who had access to many of the city’s most celebrated underground rappers and DJs, he had other projects and wasn’t ready to commit or always good about following through.
• Lesson: You need the right partners.
3. GrownAssMan — An informational and culture site for men, including videos and interviews about topics car maintenance, fashion, sport and the like. Think ‘The Worst Case Scenario Handbook‘ meets, well, let’s say Men’s Health.
• Revenue Plans: Merchandise, yes, merchandise, and sponsored video content.
• Problem: My partners, while interested, weren’t motivated because they had other things going on.
• Lesson: Your partners need to be as desperate as you are.
4. Sussex Today — a hyperlocal news site for my native Sussex County, filling an impressive hole in online coverage.
• Revenue Plans: advertising and partner events.
• Problem: I wasn’t living there, didn’t have a devoted partner and didn’t love the project enough to find that person.
• Lesson: You have to love it.
5. The Temple News alumni blog — A blog following news from the large alumni network of the student newspaper at Temple University.
• Revenue Plans: Developing a network of more active alumni to get involved in mentorship, jobs postings and, yes, perhaps donation, fitting into the university’s outreach effort and event outreach.
• Problem: Could not find someone to take ownership after I left.
• Lesson: Have a plan for sustainability or your work can be lost.
6. Philadelphia hostel — Amazed there was only one proper, Old City hostel and just a handful in Philadelphia overall, despite growing international visitors, and an active couchsurfing population. I found I knew a former staffer of the lone Old City hostel and had conversations both with him and a knowledgeable developer about the viability and likelihood of the project. I was excited about the opportunity to better connect Philadelphia to East Coast global travelers. Still, I never moved forward.
• Revenue Plans: Traditional low-yield beds, with perhaps limited longer-term rentals.
• Problem: I felt I lacked the knowledge of the process and the capital or connections to lead the effort.
• Lesson: Prioritize projects by your own ability to succeed on the project
7. We Don’t Speak the Language — After completing a video podcast and blog of our month in Western Europe (which I consider a great success and learning experience), Sean Blanda and I had planned to extend the life of WDSTL by posting on future trips and doing interviews with couchsurfers we’d host.
• Revenue Plans: Large sponsorship or underwriting
• Problem: We were proud of what we had already done and neither of us took the lead on it.
• Lesson: Know when to consider a project finished, and have a single person with ownership of the company.

When pitching your venture or product, send a business or technology reporter a three sentence email, explaining in super simple language (a) what your project is, (b) why it matters and (b) who you are.

That was one of the better received recommendations I made while presenting for the Lean Startup seminar held at the Venturef0rth incubator in Callowhill, Philadelphia this weekend.

See my presentation slides above or find it here. My colleague Sean Blanda has a post giving broad advice here, which includes a great list of questions to be prepated for, though I was a bit more specific to the 30 entrepreneurs in the room on starting the conversation. Details on my slide below.

1. Understand the pipeline: (1) niche news that will offer early users and support, (2) regional legacy news that will offer broader users, (3) national media that will offer scaled users and branding
2. Nobody cares about what you do as much as you do: so don’t act like anyone should and keep it simple when explaining or talking about it.
3. What is your nut?: have a short 10 words to describe your business in language that a 10-year-old can understand.
4. Design matters: Reporters first judge your project by what your website or application looks like.
5. Know the publication: take a few minutes to understand what coverage they do. Have an example of the specific type of coverage you want to have, so you know they do it.
6. Get an intro: Though it’s not necessary, an intro by a respected PR executive or someone else who has a relationship with the journalist is an enormous help.
7. Do not pun in your subject line: Don’t be cutesy, don’t try to entertain the reporter, just give information he or she would need. In truth, the subject line should be fully explanatory: “Company name: 3-5-word explanation, 3-5-word reason why it’s cool”
8. Send a three sentence email: what is it, why it matters, who are you?
9. Have a demo ready: so we can see or experience whatever you’re selling before we write about it.
10. Reporters are weird about ethics: so understand they appreciate transparency, will question the legitimacy of your claims and should challenge your assumptions.
11. What is next?: to get new coverage, have a new angle or a time hook, which is something that makes a story timely.
12. Reporters want your thing to be cool: Otherwise you’re wasting they’re time, so, in fact, reporters are mostly your friends. They want your thing to be the coolest ever, but they’re going to ask tough questions and be hard on you because their byline goes next to the story.
13. Have sweet video and photos: Your story will get a larger audience if you help the reporter with a better looking story.
14. Your press release is to inform, not acquire coverage: No longer is your press release the way to sell a reporter on a story. Instead, they’re a repository of all the relevant details. At best, it’s something to link to in your email.
15. Have product codes for readers: Try to acquire users and get as much attention out of the story.
16. Other coverage: good. Same coverage (in same market): bad: You need new market coverage, new angles to get new coverage. Same story with competitors will kill stories.
17. No, you can’t read the story before it publishes: So don’t even ask. That’s the independent, ethical streak of any good journalism outfit.
18. If your venture succeeds, they’ll come to you: Never forget that you need a good product to ultimately succeed, no matter the marketing.

There’s no shortage of conversation about the end of search engine optimization. As search gets more personalized — cache and cookies and the rest — ensuring that your business, organization or another site ranks highly when people use web search tools becomes less straightforward.

Still, it’s naturally something that I get asked about a lot — how do I get more people to find my website online?

I am not an SEO analyst. When people ask in great detail, I often point them in the direction of other respected SEO shops, like SEER Interactive in Northern Liberties. Still, when you talk about content online, its impact on search is inherent.

In truth, there are two steps in SEO.

1. The basics — Consistently create interesting content that is shared widely and includes a network of inbound and outbound links all structured with a sensible taxonomy that grows in traffic and attention. This is something I’ve been involved in — having overseen the turnover of the new CampusPhilly.org, these changes will amount to greater presence in search over time. Regardless of your goals, this is your first step.
2. The premium — When your industry is competitive in search — malpractice law or other competitive search terms — often the above first step will help but not let you dominate, particularly if you’re late in starting. There is a world of processes, site optimizations, gimmicks, tricks and more that traditional SEO firms do better than others. This is step two and why you should work with an SEP firm.
3. The spam — There is a third category that goes beyond what many reputable SEO firms, including link-baiting, strange games with meta tags and keywords, embedding phrases and such. In the ugly, competitive world of a search, partnering with giant link farms happens. I’m just not sure if I’d want my brand associated with it.

In middle school, I collected baseball cards. A lot of baseball cards.

In third grade, I tried pogs before they were outlawed in class when it was found we were effectively gambling with them. In a naive, youthful pursuit of seeing every movie ever made, I amassed piles of them on VHS and DVD. My grandparents gave me some collector coin sets, somehow I ended up with a few beanie babies and, being a recovering pack rat, I ended up with little collections of Simpsons merchandise and sports jerseys as a pre-teen, political campaign signs and pro sports team paraphernalia in high school and old books and vinyl records through college. Yes, as a kid, I’ve collected a lot — Lincoln logs, Legos and inherited stamps, too, fill my basement.

But, in truth, the largest collection I ever amassed was little pieces of printed cardboard, baseball cards, and to a lesser extent, other sports cards. In my memory, anything I didn’t save, I spent on them, starting with the occasional checkout-line pack purchase at the former Shelby’s dime store.

Of course, I’m not alone among the youth of the 1980s and 1990s. Entire books have been written about the baseball card bubble that came from an over-saturated market, so much so that many think error cards were created to fuel demand.

In love with sports and trading and playing with friends, I dove headlong into the hobby bubble. More specifically, from about the age nine in 3rd grade to about 14 in 8th grade, I likely spent less than $1,000, and, if I was able to more accurately estimate, it might likely be much less. In truth, my time was spent more on trading the cards with friends. Before high school, I had mostly set aside the indulgence, though I’d still sometimes take out that collection to marvel at my investment.

Still, my sports card collection was the first foray into business I made, and so I learned plenty. Here’s my sharing some of that.

1. Maintain liquidity — I thank my parents for a lot. They instilled in me a lot of habits and qualities that I take great pride in. In my days of sports cards, I worked for money — household chores, refereeing soccer games and other gigs — and would also get a few packs as Christmas and birthday presents. Despite all of this, I remember vividly never spending all of money on anything, even sports cards. From as early as I can remember, I had a savings account, and I would take a portion of whatever money I earned or was given and put it away. I was frugal in my card purchasing, seeking out deals and largely depending on trading to get what I wanted. I can actually remember being in 7th grade in spring 1999 at age 13, riding in the backseat of a car driven by Jordan Maslowski’s sister, whom I adored. She told me and her brother that she’d care about baseball cards when she could use them to pay for clothes at the store — at first I thought what a cool concept that would be, and my second thought was that I better keep some savings in case that didn’t come to pass. ….It didn’t.
   
2. Metrics matter — The most important part of any business is reliable analytics, the kind of information that can offer a relatively unbiased view of your industry. As has been written, the sports pricing guides were a sham. Moreover, I didn’t keep detailed track of what I purchased, so it’s hard to evaluate even my own waning interest. Know how to most accurately evaluate your investment.
3. Keep a trade simple to get it done — The real fun that followed the pack buying and trade-show hunting was gathering a group of friends and having sports card trade marathons. We’d have sleepovers or steal time during homeroom to look through each other’s cards and offer deals. I loved the occasional multi-party, many-card deals, we could bring together, but mostly, the simpler and more straightforward the deal, the more likely it was to happen. I look back with great fondness on all that I learned during the hours of trading. You need to have experience and savvy to get deals done.
4. Market-based scarcity matters — Many are rightly critical of the value of things like online advertising, but surely we can agree there is more inherent value in audience than pieces of cardboard — particularly considering in most cases, there was no sense of how many were actually ever printed. Indeed, sports cards could be made en masse, something I’ve since learned. By the time of the introduction of signed and ‘game-worn jersey’ cards, the market was likely already crumbling, so no industry-fabricated scarcity could save itself. Know why what you sell is valuable.
5. Less is More — Like most boys, I had a quantity of cards and some quality. The style among my friends was to put together a ‘special binder,’ which was your collection of best cards you’d be willing to trade. It was a great thrill to add something to that binder. Though we all now know we have too many junk cards, even in my pre-teens, I recognized this, and would often try to trade multiple mid-level cards for one great card. I’d pitch it as a way for the other person to hedge his bets on three different players, rather than one, which had some truth to it. Really, though, I recognized that while diversifying your investments is good, in each of those investments, it’s better to have fewer more valuable items, than more less valuable. The margins make for it, and, well, it keeps the basement less cluttered.
6. Don’t oversell — Some friends started refusing to trade with me. I was too overbearing, they said, though perhaps not using that word. I sold too hard — pushing a friend into a trade every time we spoke, from homeroom, to lunchtime, to passing by in the hall, to after school. I took the fun out of it for some, so, while I can still be overbearing, I’m far more sensitive than I once was to where that line is. Know your customer and treat him well, so he’ll come back.
7. Appearances matter — I can remember looking on rather dubiously as friends who took worse care of their cards would parade their collections. They weren’t organized by sport — or by anything — and their binders were dusty and they didn’t know what they were talking about. I dealt mostly with those I respected. Repeat customers come from mutual respect.
8. Product looks matter for sales — When I was in middle school, there were roughly two types of cards, in our own language: old, rare cards and new, shiny cards. All of us in my group of friends would have a few older cards — either from our fathers, or trade shows or through trading — but we all pursued the newer cards, even though they were, we know now, being far more massed produced. Still, with some exception, the prices of all sports cards went down, even the rarer, older cards. Why? Because kids mostly drove the industry and they wanted what looked good. When what looked good proved to be bogus, the whole system went down.