KeyPulp Launches Today

The Key to the City!

Hey Phillyist Fans! Have no fear, we have a bigger, better, enhanced replacement. Launching their beta today is KeyPulp, the effort by Phillyist editors to filter the Interwebz and this crazy, crazy world with Ben Franklin’s sensibilities. KeyPulp editors were lovely enough to answer a few questions for me. Here’s the interview:

What is KeyPulp?

KeyPulp is an arts and lifestyle blog covering events and entertainment, music, food and drink, celebrity gossip, and hot topics. From casting rumors, to interviews with bands, to theatre reviews, we cover all culture that is, or might someday be, pop.

What’s KeyPulp’s mission?

Based in Philadelphia but focused widely, KeyPulp takes inspiration from its headquarter-city’s most famous late denizen, Benjamin Franklin. An independent publisher himself, Franklin’s “key” wasn’t just an object—used in his most famous experiment—but also an ethos: Franklin did not merely present the news, but unlocked the details.

How did KeyPulp come about? What happened with Phillyist?

We did an interview with Technically Philly when Phillyist announced its closing (http://technicallyphilly.com/2011/01/25/gothamist-to-put-phillyist-blog-on-extended-hiatus-as-of-jan-31) that pretty much explained what happened with the site.  The short answer is that Phillyist’s publisher had established certain posting quotas that we, as an unpaid staff of writers and editors with other full-time jobs, were no longer able to meet.  So we made the very difficult decision to suggest Phillyist be put on hiatus indefinitely—until it was possible to fund a full-time editor who could make the site what it should be.  In the meanwhile, we Phillyist editors, and much of the staff, decided that we wanted to start a new project that would enable us to cover much of the content we covered on the old site, but that wouldn’t be geographically limited.  Sometimes, there’s stuff outside Philly that’s worth posting about!

Is KeyPulp going to be written by the same people who wrote for Phillyist? Who works at KeyPulp and where can we find them?

All five of the Phillyist editors and associate editors have worked together to start up KeyPulp.  And several of our old writers have decided to join our party.  That said, nobody “works at” KeyPulp.  This is something we’re doing for fun, on our own time.  So if you want to find us, your best bet is to send a note to our tips page (http://keypulp.com/tips/) and we’ll make sure that the message goes to the right person.

Do you have any corporate sponsorship?

We do not have any corporate sponsorship; we’re certainly not opposed to it, nor are we actively seeking any at this point.

Where do you see KeyPulp fitting in the Philly blog scene?

Even though we’re based in Philly, we don’t really see ourselves as a Philly blog.  So we’ll fit into the scene because we’re based here, we have friends who are local bloggers, but we’ll be casting our net more widely.  It doesn’t mean that you won’t see us out covering local events—but you’ll also see KeyPulp writers covering stories in New York, LA, DC … we even have a writer submitting stories from Israel!

Are you a competitor with UwishUnu, Geekadelphia, Technically Philly, NewsworksWHYY and others?

We’re not a competitor with anyone but ourselves.

What does your target audience look like? What are they interested in?

Our target readers are citizens of the world—a total cliche, but it’s apt.  Our audience is people who read, watch movies, go to plays, museums, dance performances.  They have a sense of humor but are able to be thoughtful.  They’re interested in celebrity gossip but also think-pieces on the nature of net neutrality.  They aren’t afraid to be at a five-star restaurant on Saturday night and a tailgate Sunday morning.

Are you looking for crowd participation? Is there a place users can submit photos, articles?

We have a tips page (http://keypulp.com/tips/) where people can submit ideas and pitches.  We’re also on Facebook (http://facebook.com/KeyPulp) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/keypulp) and will be tweaking our other social media and interactive presences.  And we’re always looking for new writers: anyone interested can email editors@keypulp.com for more information.

What can the Philly community do to help KeyPulp succeed?

Read the site!  Spread the word!

And most importantly: Are you bringing back ProofReading Philly? I loved that.

Jill’s love of good grammar knows no bounds, including geographic ones.  So we won’t be bringing back Proofreading Philly, but we’ll absolutely be pointing out egregious errors we come across in Philadelphia and beyond.

_____

There you have it! The whole skinny on the phat, phat world of KeyPulp. It’s Philly+. Go check it out!