Friday Tech Links: Philly tax criticism, Webby awards and more

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.
Philadelphians are the highest taxed people in the United States. So says eminent Philadelphia Daily News legacy columnist John Baer.
That’s enough to crack any red-blooded American’s Liberty Bell.
In a column, Baer was railing against Mayor Nutter’s calls to Harrisburg for legislative authority to hike the city’s sales tax from seven to eight percent. The story actually has a good dialogue in the comments section, too — a rarity for Philly.com.
The topic came up elsewhere this week.
Joe Distefano, the Inquirer’s top bearded business columnist, wrote an absolute must read on Nutter’s stalling of and his administration’s subsequent rethinking of continuing the move to “eradicating”the city’s two-pronged business privilege tax.
By no account should you think this is strictly a Philly problem these days.
Fast Eddie Rendell said this past week that if he was forced to push for a hike in the state’s income tax, he would vie for it to return to its normal state three years later, according to reporting from foxy Inquirer state capital correspondent Angela “It’s Greek” Couloumbis.
After the jump, why ET is with a Philly cop above, why 600 people paid $500 to be in Delaware and more than five other itches you need scratched, including our best read story of the week.
In order of importance for your ease.

• Our friends at Keystone Edge report on the honoree distinction two Pennsylvania tourism sites won at last week’s Webby Awards. Don’t forget bluecadet, which one a people’s award.
• Philly Tech News reports that three regional firms were named to CIO.com’s recent CIO 100, which honors companies that are creating business through technology innovation. Not one of the three are based within Philly’s 135 square miles. PTN keeps the good times rolling by reporting that the Milken Institute, which recently called Philadelphia the second best life sciences region in the country, ranked the Illadelph 11th in its High Tech Rankings, though there’s some question to that meaning.
• The Inquirer had a front page story on First Tuesday in November, a small Galloway, N.J.-based voter-tracking company that offers real-time Election Day updates. Dude in their photo is wearing a Yankees hat, though.
• You may have heard a collective yelp of excitement from their readers when Geekadelphia reported that Kevin Werbach, an assistant professor over at the University of Pennsylvania, will be giving a talk entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in World of Warcraft at tomorrow’s Philly Pecha Kucha event Geekadelphia also reports this week on a young woman who, well, they interview a young woman who goes around Philadelphia and takes photos of herself wearing an ET mask. That’s her standing with some confident Philadelphia police officer in the above photo. And, really, these are the stories that would be lost if newspapers went bankrupt and we didn’t have the Geekadelphia crew.
• Inqy columnist Distefano also reports that 600 hundred guests are said to have paid nearly $500 to attend Early Stage East 2009, a venture capital conference this week. It happened in Wilmington, Del. where happiness is made. [Full Disclosure: Sean Blanda loves Delaware.] That ain’t the only exclusive tech event afoot. The Business Journal reports that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will be the keynote speaker at the “client summit” to be held in King of Prussia later this month by e-commerce and interactive marketing services provider GSI Commerce.
• Contentinople reports on Philly.com’s move to use Brightcove to manage its video produced for the site. The move could come with an increase in video content, which reportedly could be a move toward the site’s still publicly undetailed plan for an online content model, which — though Contentinople didn’t make note — we first reported.

• Our Most Trafficked Story of the Week: Shop Talk: Obama Girl’s Leah Kauffman on Phrequency.com redesign

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