10 Most Popular Betabeat Posts of 2011

Adrianne Jeffries — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:55:11 -0400

Also known as, 10 Most Popular Betabeat Posts of All Time (exempting slideshows). Betabeat launched in March of 2011, just after South By Southwest Interactive as a New York City-based tech blog nested in the belly of the iconic salmon-colored paper of literary, irreverent record, The New York Observer. "Nothing sacred but the truth," is The Observer's credo, and Betabeat has tried to do the same for tech news (see here, here and here), peeking behind the scenes of major deals, spotting trends early, watchdogging your venture dollars and talking about the scary and sad things as well as the good news and the happy fun things. We've also tried to write the narrative of Silicon Alley's culture with bigger trend pieces (as in this, this, this, this, this and this, and oh, you get the idea). And let's not forget the multi-part saga of Jerry Guo.

Yep, Betabeat has had a good 3/4 year. We created a web series, launched a newsletter, started a Tumblr, punked a panel and brought on two killer bloggers, the illustrious @weareyourfek and the too-clever-for-her-own-good @nitashatiku, breaking New York tech news all along the way. (But we're always trying to improve! Keep sending us your feedback, thoughts, and of course news tips.) Check out the top 10 stories of 2011, as determined by your clicks.

Atmosphere==
Observer Media Group Launches BETABEAT==
TheThompson LES, NYC==
April 4, 2011==
©Patrick McMullan==
Photo – WILL RAGOZZINO/PatrickMcMullan.com==
==

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bar.jpg?w=200" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bar.jpg?w=575" width="100" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bar.jpg?w=100" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="bar" /> Atmosphere==
Observer Media Group Launches BETABEAT==
TheThompson LES, NYC==
April 4, 2011==
©Patrick McMullan==
Photo – WILL RAGOZZINO/PatrickMcMullan.com==
==

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bar-shot.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bar-shot.jpg?w=575" width="150" height="99" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bar-shot.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="bar shot" /> What unemployment? New York’s tech recruiters are on the hunt. Googleplex East, beware. “I love it! It’s the age of the recruiter,” Mr. Carvajal said. “In New York City the only thing hotter than tech people are tech recruiters.” (Illustration: Oliver Munday)

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/tech-recruiters.png?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/tech-recruiters.png?w=647" width="150" height="136" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/tech-recruiters.png?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="10. Raiders of the Last Nerd" /> Brony, short for “bro pony,” refers to an unusual audience demographic of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, a cartoon that began airing on the new cable network the Hub in October of last year. The show, based on the seminal 1980s toy franchise, was created for Hasbro by Lauren Faust, a former writer and director on The Powerpuff Girls. While it is marketed to children, it has quickly amassed a legion of fanboys between the ages of 18 and 35 who obsess over characters with names like Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie Pie. (Illustration: Walter Newton)

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/web_bronyfinal_walter_newton.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/web_bronyfinal_walter_newton.jpg?w=1024" width="150" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/web_bronyfinal_walter_newton.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="9. Pony Up, Haters: How 4chan Gave Birth to the Bronies" /> Pay up, or we’ll spam your newsfeed! “There is this concept of ‘birds of a feather flock together,’” said Ken Lin, CEO of the San Francisco-based credit scoring startup Credit Karma. “If you are a profitable customer for a bank, it suggests that a lot of your friends are going to be the same credit profile. So they’ll look through the social network and see if they can identify your friends online and then maybe they send more marketing to them. That definitely exists today.”

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/wonderful-life1.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/wonderful-life1.jpg?w=460" width="150" height="97" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/wonderful-life1.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="8. As Banks Start Nosing Around Facebook and Twitter, the Wrong Friends Might Just Sink Your Credit" /> This is a guest post from the pseudonymous Edward Case, a Brooklyn-based freelance developer, which was adapted from an email to Betabeat. Mr. “Case” preferred to remain anonymous, as clients pay his bills. “Every time I tell a suit about an idea of mine and they ask ‘what’s your exit?’ the answer is ‘death,’ because my goal is to make software that is useful and makes users happy and that’s all I need.”

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/orostheavenger.jpg?w=219" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/orostheavenger.jpg?w=234" width="109" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/orostheavenger.jpg?w=109" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="7. Why 80 Percent of Web Projects Are Total Bullshit: A Freelancer’s Rant" /> A 4chan-engendered prank aimed at male users of online dating sites such as OKCupid and PlentyOfFish.com brought out the best and the worst of the internet tonight, when the e-forces of good and evil clashed by a set of payphones at 46th and Broadway in Times Square.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/forever-alone-blue-shirt.jpg?w=224" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/forever-alone-blue-shirt.jpg?w=764" width="112" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/forever-alone-blue-shirt.jpg?w=112" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="6. Forever Alone 4chan Prank Brings Out the Best and Worst of the Internet" /> The price of Bitcoin continues to drop by about a dollar every week to ten days, currently settling at about $2.80 USD, and Bitcoin enthusiasts are starting to get worried.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bitcoin-comic.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bitcoin-comic.jpg?w=400" width="150" height="112" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/bitcoin-comic.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="5. Price of Bitcoin Still Dropping, Falls Below the Price of Mining" /> Alternate headline: Productivity Plague as Turntable.fm Sucks in Startup After Startup. StickyBits is now Turntable.fm, and while we bet that makes some investors very, very happy–namely First Round Capital, Polaris Ventures, and Mitch Kapor, who gave the company at least $1.9 million–others must be smiling through their teeth. “Biggest threat to productivity today: turntable.fm,” tweeted FastSociety’s Andy Thompson. Foursquare’s Tristan Walker called it “WAY too dangerous.”

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/turntable-gorilla.png?w=290" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/turntable-gorilla.png?w=290" width="150" height="127" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/turntable-gorilla.png?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="4. What Is This Magical Turntable.fm Everyone’s Talking About?" /> What most users don’t know is that the new features being introduced are all centered around increasing the value of Facebook to advertisers, to the point where Facebook representatives have been selling the idea that Timeline is actually about re-conceptualizing users around their consumer preferences, or as they put it, “brands are now an essential part of people’s identities.”

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/fbslide1.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/fbslide1.jpg?w=600" width="150" height="113" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/fbslide1.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="3. Exclusive: Leaked Details of How Facebook Plans To Sell Your Timeline to Advertisers" /> The other day I bought the newest, fanciest flagship Android phone for my mother and it was an unmitigated disaster. She has an iPhone now, which she loves, and when I read that 30-40 percent of Android devices are being returned, I honestly wasn’t surprised.

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/unhappy-android-300x300.png?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/unhappy-android-300x300.png?w=300" width="150" height="150" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/unhappy-android-300x300.png?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="2. Why My Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone" /> Two months ago, a thief stole a Macbook Air from Mark Bao, the 18-year old serial entrepreneur (he’s CEO of at least six companies), creator of the viral threewords.me site, and weekend New Yorker. On Friday, he discovered he could remotely access the browser history on the machine. Lulz ensue! “Wow. The first thing that MacBook thieves do REALLY IS take pictures on Photo Booth. I didn’t think they were that dumb!” he tweeted. Turns out the thief did more than take pictures–he took a video of himself dancing to a version of Tyga’s “Make It Rain.”

" data-medium-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/thief.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/thief.jpg?w=431" width="150" height="128" src="http://nyobetabeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/thief.jpg?w=150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="1. Don’t Steal Computers From People Who Know How to Use Computers [VIDEO]" />

Betabeat » 10 Most Popular Betabeat Posts of 2011

10 Most Popular Betabeat Posts of 2011