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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s been a little over five months since BarCamp NewsInnovation, and that has given us plenty of time to mull over the event’s successes and failures. BCNI Godfather Jason Kristufek has already weighted in, and I have a similar question to ask the BCNI community: what should change from last year’s event?

Last year’s BarCamp in Philly was wonderful from a networking and the “Hey, I know you on Twitter!” angle. It was also fascinating to give attention to members of our community who don’t normally get to occupy center stage. CoPress presented to university chairs. Punks like me got to ask the Web Ninjas at the Washington Post questions about their new projects.

Industry giants like The Philadelphia Inquirer opened up their workflow to the world while startups like Publish2 gave us a peak at what they were up to.

BarCamp also fell short on several fronts. The conference was perhaps too open, and I did a poor job of explaining to people how the event worked. But BCNI’s biggest failure was the lack of a product. Some thing to point to and say “Hey, that came out of BCNI!”

So as next April creeps up and wheels are set in motion for next round of BCNI events, we are mulling over some changes and I’d like the feedback of attendees and the community. First, the proposed big changes:

• We need a hack day. I bemoaned the lack of a product, and we are considering making part or all of the event a hack day-like event where a challenge is given to team to come up with a specific product. And the end of the day we all present our ideas and awards are given out. For inspiration, check out what the Guardian did. There are, or course, a few hurdles here. Largely, that a Hack Day should really consist of a 24-hour period. Secondly, I would guess that less than five percent of last year’s attendees were computer programmers. Most hacks may be a bunch of similar looking mashups using tools like Google Maps that don’t require extensive programming knowledge.
• The pre-event board. Someone, and apologies for not remembering whom, suggested that we crowdsource the creation of the schedule before the event. That is, we have a period of time where people can submit topics they’d like to hear about and then a period of time where people volunteer to speak about that topic. We would still leave blocks of “free time” where people can sign up for a presentation the day of the event, but this might help better build buzz and attract some people that were scared by the “unconference” format while still preserving the openness.

Minor changes:

• List of attendees before the event. Last year we didnt reveal who was attending. This was a mistake and stopped some important pre-event networking from happening.
• A Shorter event. The day was about two hours too long. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. would have made more sense.

This is just a small subset of my ideas, but really I’d like to hear what you guys think. Did you attend last year? Did you want to? Are you interested in another event?

Please, comment below or weigh in on Twitter using #bcni.

Its high time I explain what I have been up to. I, along with Rob O’Regan and the rest of Vital Business Media, have been busy launching the first editorial product of the company: eMedia Vitals.

In short, eMedia Vitals is a site dedicated to helping online publishers and I think most of readers of this blog will find something of value there. The idea is not to cover layoffs or daily media gossip. Instead we aim to aggregate and report on the topics that can make your media product better and more profitable.

Less chatter about what to do in this ever changing media landscape, and more about who is doing it and how.

A brief tour:

Feature Stories:

At least twice a week we post multi-source feature stories. Thus far I have written stories on the Las Vegas Sun’s 702.tv, how to design a better article page, audience development tools for Twitter and so on.

Blog Posts:

I’ve begun a project tentatively titled “The Revenue Department” where I find all of the non-tradition (read: not advertising) ways publishers can make money from content. I then write up a case study of sorts if I can find a subject.

Daily Buzz:

Every morning the Vital team filters 100 + feeds to give you the “must read” news of the day. Nothing about layoffs or furloughs, but news you can actually use to make your media product better.

Best of the Web:

My personal favorite, these are links that the team comes across every day that have timeless appeal to help you in your media business. If were writing a textbook on the new media landscape, I would cite these articles as sources. You can print these out, hang them up, and they would be useful for years.

So please, head on over to eMedia Vitals and let me know your thoughts.

One, TechnicallyPhilly is doing as well as any of us could hope when it comes to traffic and community response, so we are making our first moves towards monetization with the slow rollout of our advertising infrastructure. This has been both an exciting and frightening prospect as it is now time to see if we are all as smart as we hope we are. Of course, as we surmised at BCNI, ads are just the first and easiest baby step, and there are many more ideas in the pipeline that I will be certain to share here once we release them.

Thus far, the only equity we have put into the business is sweat and dinners for our bi-weekly meetings. But as we said in our post announcing the effort to our community, we don’t want this to be a hobby or some also-ran of entrepreneurial journalism endeavors. We want this to be our part time job. Or, if we are lucky, a full time gig one day.

How I got a job

Speaking of full time gigs, I’m very happy to announce that I was hired early last month as an Editor at Vital Business Media, a startup headed by Prescott Shibles, former Penton VP of New Media. The job has me traveling to work in their New York City (aka the 67th Ward) offices twice a week, while working from Philadelphia during the rest of the work week.

I really wish I could talk more about what I have been up to, but you’ll have to wait until we launch our first editorial product.

What I can say, for everyone that just recently graduated, is how I got the job. I was put in touch with Vital and their management with someone who was a regular reader of this site. After the hiring, I was told that I was given a serious look because of the side projects I was building while freelancing to pay the rent.

The lesson? Chances are there will be not be a job waiting for most journalism grads. While we can sit around and lament the loss of the “traditional” path, it won’t do anybody any good. Take a side job and then hustle to create your own path. Gather some peers and start your own publication. Organize an event. Start a podcast. Try something. Anything.

Use your newly discovered free time as an incubator for all of the ideas you have about saving journalism and media.

At worst, you fail and you learned that idea X wasn’t valid and you don’t waste any more time. If you succeed, you can find yourself new opportunities.

Brian James Kirk, Christopher Wink and I presenting about TechnicallyPhilly.com. Picture taken by Adam Hemphill.

Before I comment at all about BCNIPhilly I’d like to thank the countless people involved. The people who manned the desk, floated around the floors, helped handle food, helped run the schedule and all of the hundred other tasks. You all rock. Thank You.

It was just as the event was closing down that I was approached by one of the participants.

“Sean, I just want to say that I’ve really enjoyed this event. And, most of this year, I have been feeling a little….” she hesitated for a beat, “f–ked.”

I nodded and began formulating a response to make her feel better when she jumped in.

“But after today … I feel a little less f–ked. There’s hope.”

And thus was BCNIPhilly.

Just like that attendee, I had an amazing time at the conference. Not only because I got to meet a ton of new people, both in the Philly community and those involved in cool journalism products all around the country, but mostly because the talk of doom-and-gloom was at a minimum. Finally, a bunch of optimistic, smart people got together and had some passionate and enlightening debates that focused positively on the future. There was no alarmism, no negativity, no people falling asleep in the sessions (that I saw, anyway). Instead, it was “What are new, cool ways we can make money?” or “This is the innovative project I have been working on to strengthen my company’s reporting.”

Real people on the ground floor were exchanging theories, ideas and concepts. The session “Journalism school in 2012″ was led by students. The kind folks at the Inquirer and Philly.com offered first-person accounts of how they manage the flow of copy in their newsroom. The Web Ninjas of the Washington Post laid out a clear blueprint for anyone who’d like to push innovative products in their newsroom and *gasp* have them make money.

So was it a success?

The final attendee count for BCNIPhilly was 126 journalists, students, educators editors, and executives. There were 12 boxes of pizza, 2 crates of water, 4 crates of juice, 15 boxes of coffee, 166 cupcakes, and a lot of donuts.  But there were also business people, interested members of the Philadelphia technology community and other people who were excited to talk media.

Before the event started I wrote down the following goals to gauge its success:

1. To trend on Twitter. Don’t ask me why, I just thought it would be cool to have a journalism conference in Philadelphia get noticed by outsiders who wouldn’t normally know about an event like this. I wanted a 35 year old in Nevada to visit Twitter and ask himself “What the heck is BCNIPhilly?”
2. To have everyone participate. I wanted the presentation board to be 80 percent full and have the sessions featuring people partaking in friendly but vigorous debate. I didn’t want it to just be a series of people talking to a bunch of blank stares.
3. To finally get together this online community that has been building around journalism innovation. I wanted the names and avatars in my Google Reader to be sitting in front of me, arguing with each other without the filter of the Web.
4. To promote Philadelphia. I love this city and did not want it to be overlooked for the conference. Once it was decided that it was here, I wanted to promote all of the great stuff Philly has to offer.
5. To have new ideas, conversations or products come out of the meeting.

How’d we do? Well:

1. Were were #3 on Twitter behind a global, panic-inducing illness and the biggest offseason event in the country’s most popular sport.
2. The board was slightly less than 50 percent filled, so good but not great. However the level of discussions in every session I managed to peak my head in was excellent.
3. I heard the following statement several times: “Oh, your *insert name here* on Twitter!” While there were some people I wished could of made it, I was satisfied with putting names to avatars.
4. We got the GPTMC to contribute bags, rocked Phillies hats and had the afterparty in beautiful Old City. I even managed to sucker one attendee into grabbing a steak at Pats.
5. It’s too soon to tell, but something tells me the Web Ninjas presentation alone is sure to spur some new products.

All in all, I think it went swimmingly, however I could not attend every session and speak to every attendee. But before people say words like “year” and “again” and “next,” I’m interested in what those who made it to Temple think. What was awesome? What stunk? If you don’t want to comment publicly, drop me a line on my contact form.

And I’m currently sorting out my notes for anyone who would like to throw a similar event in the future. More to come!

BCNI Philly is a little over a month away and planning has been kicking into high gear. My friend and programming whiz Major Highfield has been on the look out for sponsors (know somebody? drop him a line), I’ve been all around Philadelphia passing out flyers, and the planned attendance is nearly over 100.

I thank everyone who has shown support or offered to volunteer so far, but as I have been trolling the Web I’ve come across a few names I don’t see on my registered attendees list. Below are 6 people I’d like to see attend who haven’t registered. If you know them, known someone that knows them, or saw them in the street once, drop them a line and encourage them to attend!

Jeff Jarvis

Who? Jarvis recently wrote the book “What Would Google Do” and has been a vocal media critic.

Why? Jarvis is likely to find a very receptive audience at BarCamp. The cross of media and technology focused people would allow him to skip over the basic tenants of his media theory and skip right to the good stuff. The Barcamp format would allow for an engaged debate that cable news camera does not offer. Jarvis teaches in New York, and could be in Philadelphia in a little more than an hour.

Kiyoshi Martinez

Who? Founder of AngryJournalist.net , Journalism.me

Why? A former Web editor, Kiyoshi could offer a lot with a session about his time managing a handful of community newspaper. A presentation about his experience in building a few of his side projects would be an inspiration to news people everywhere. Or, he could bring a dose of humor presenting on postings on AngryJournalist.net.

Tim O’Reilly

Who? Found of O’Reilly Media, coined “Web 2.0″

Why? O’Reilly seems deadly accurate at predicting Web and technology trends. To view his thought process through the prism of journalism would make for an excellent presentation. Where many prognosticators come from the media end, O’Reilly would offer a unique perspective of someone who has been actively involved with the Internet for over a decade. He is also an advocate the Open Source software that a large number of news startups rely on to keep costs low.

Anyone from Politico

Who? The news start up about politics that is actually making money.

Why? Read those last two words carefully. Politico is a rare example of a lean print and Web operation catering to a very specific niche that is profitable. Anything from reporting methods to business practices of this success story would be valuable to attendees.

Jim Louderback

Who? CEO of Revision 3.

Why? Revision 3 doesn’t do much in the realm of news, but the company is damn good at presenting video content in a variety of formats and is working on innovative ways to monetize that content. A presentation on building a successful Internet video podcast such as Diggnation can be applied to news in numerous regards. The company has been at the forefront in every form of video distribution from mobile to set top box downloads.

Brian Tierney

Who? CEO of Philadelphia Media Holdings.

Why? For one, his offices are up the street. But Tierney is a topic of hot debate among newspaper people. To some he is doing all he can to keep Philadelphia a two newspaper town, while other see him as a shewed businessman. Whatever your thoughts, Tierney has a large impact of the future of Journalism in the forth largest media market in the country. The recent bankruptcy of his company would make for a fascinating session, or at the very least he could present on what its like to be on the management side of the operation.