Blog rolling

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

By their own admission, officials at the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation haven’t been exactly in tune with the plethora of marketable events and activities of the city’s Northeast neighborhoods.
In the past, in fact, the Northeast — which comprises about one-third of the city by area and population — has been conspicuously absent from GPTMC promotions designed to draw Philadelphia’s visitors away from its iconic Center City attractions and toward its outlying neighborhoods.
But in its latest promotion, at least, the GPTMC is giving Northeast folks a chance to toot their own horn.
Meanwhile, the agency is looking to capitalize on the swelling numbers of travelers who are relying on online dialogue, rather than professional agencies, to plan their itineraries.
In January, the GPTMC officially unveiled the uwishunu (pronounced "you wish you knew") campaign to sell the city — the entire city — to those savvy vacationers.
The centerpiece of the program is uwishunu.com, a blog (Web log) featuring articles about the charming and unique aspects of Philly that locals know, love and want to spread the word about.
The project, funded for two years by a $5 million allocation from the city, also includes marketing initiatives in neighboring locales like New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Errin Cecil-Smith, project director, calls the uwishunu audience "Internet savvy urban adventurers" who like to visit new cities but would need help finding what they want to see in Philadelphia.
"Tourism blogs are a very new phenomena," Cecil-Smith said. "They come from the last presidential election when the whole idea of citizen journalism became very popular."
Like other blogs, the uwishunu.com format is based on a traditional bulletin board — where someone starts a topic and others can reply within that topic or start their own. However, blogs typically include photos and graphic elements, as well as numerous embedded links through which bloggers can seek out more extensive information about a particular subject or reference.
Blog entries are catalogued, too, so that a visitor looking for information about a specific subject, geographical area or time period may narrow down his or her search.
In uwishunu’s case, users can isolate entries for an individual neighborhood among a list of dozens or by the type of attraction they’re looking for. The site features articles about arts, dining, music, sports, nightlife, drinks, shopping and active recreation.
Those looking for reviews of the Independence Hall tour or a dialogue on the merits of Geno’s steaks vs. Pat’s need not log on, however.
"We cover unconventional Philadelphia," Cecil-Smith said. "There are plenty of ‘online Philadelphia’ products that cover conventional tourist attractions in Philadelphia."
Two people, an editor and assistant, basically run the site, while regular and not-so-regular contributors provide most of the content.
Each weekday, several new articles appear on the site, ranging in subject from the best independent movie theaters in town to the sweet confections sold by the mom-and-pop bakery down the street.
"I would call them mini-stories about places all over the city," Cecil-Smith said.
Since the site’s January debut, there have been more than 1,000 articles posted and more than 800 user comments. Meanwhile, more than 156,000 unique visitors have clicked onto the site representing 154 different countries.
Though the Northeast section is still rather slim, it has to be better than nothing for the businesses featured.
Sweet Lucy’s rib house at 7500 State Road was written up on March 26. Earlier that month, an article plugged The Mustard Jar, a new novel by local fiction writer Tom Schied.
Haegele’s Bakery, at Erdrick and Barnett streets, got some publicity for its special pre-Lenten fastnacht sale. The Grey Lodge pub, on Frankford Avenue near Levick, was one of the first Northeast spots listed in an article noting its recognition as one of the top 100 beer bars in American by Esquire magazine.
Mike Scotese, founder of The Grey Lodge, is a frequent contributor to uwishunu.com, though he didn’t pen the one about his own business.
"I guess I’m the resident Northeast blogger for them," said Scotese, known as "Scoats" to friends and acquaintances. "I’m a city resident by birth as well as by choice. We live in a world class city and it’s a pretty neat place."
Though neither he, nor the GPTMC, has a mechanism in place to measure any impact the Web site has had on sales at featured businesses, Scotese likes the feel of uwishunu.
Besides being a contributor and business owner, he’s also an avid travel blog reader.
"I’ve never used a travel agent and I’ve been around the world at this point," he said.
As for uwishunu.com, "Right now the site is authentic. It’s local businesses getting plugged by local folks," Scotese said. "It’s really a good soft-sell, which appeals to people these days because everybody has been marketed to death."
According to Cecil-Smith, the site sells no advertising and has no sponsorship, other than the city. And that’s the way they want it so they can preserve its independent voice.
"It’s interesting," she said. "We struggled for content at the beginning, but now we have plenty of content because people know uwishunu is a good site to be on."
And because of that, they hope, more and more travelers are learning that Philadelphia — including the Northeast — is a good place to come. ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com