Our 5 biggest stories of 2013

Could a technologist be the next mayor of Philadelphia? That was the focus of one of our biggest stories of 2013.

Below, we recap Technically Philly’s biggest stories of 2013, determined mostly by traffic but also our discretion.

DuckDuckGo’s best week ever: 2.54M direct searches Friday after PRISM news breaks

The five-year-old Paoli-based search engine that promises not to track you exploded this summer, as privacy became an even hotter commodity. Usage of the search engine grew steadily for the rest of the year: it will end the year with an average of about 3.84 million direct searches per day.

AVI Calculator: use this City of Philadelphia app to see historic, new property reassessments

Philadelphians flocked to a city-built web app that calculated their property taxes under the city’s new tax system. The city’s open data staff, led by Chief Data Officer Mark Headd, has since re-launched the city’s property data app (see the old one here) to make it able to support high volumes of traffic. The app was the most trafficked site on phila.gov, both internally and externally, said the city’s Director of Civic Technology Tim Wisniewski, adding that it was responsible for 30 percent of phila.gov’s total traffic.

How Northeast High School tripled college-eligible test scores in 6 years

We’ve covered how Philly’s schools are using technology but Northeast High School saw tangible results from its tech push.

This Drexel game developer hired himself for his required co-op internship

Greg Lobanov dismissed the traditional undergrad internship route and hired himself this summer. He’s since won the Geek Award for Indie Game of the Year and his latest game has been featured on retailer Steam’s beta testing page.

10 Philadelphia technology leaders who should run for mayor

Philly’s tech scene has risen to political prominence. A former VC is running for Pennsylvania governor. Why not a technologist inside City Hall then?