From the people who brought you Gay Yelp...

The surging startup Fab is spending some of the $40 million in funding it just booked. Today Fab announced that it's acquiring New York based startup Fashion Stake as it looks to expand its focus on its best selling category, clothing. FashionStake’s co-founders Vivian Weng and Daniel Gulati will join Fab, but beyond that terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"They are super well respected with the kind of independent designers we want to feature on Fab, so having their industry connections will be a great help," said Fab CEO Jason Goldberg. The Fashion Stake site will fold and become part of Fab.com. But Mr. Goldberg said that they may look to incoporate elements of the company, like their crowdsourced model for voting on items to see which goes on sale.

While Fab declared that it was cash flow positive after just one month of sales, that is no longer the case. Since its big raise Fab has switched into growth mode and is not focused on profit. "We are looking at how to become a $100 million company, a $300 million company, how far we want to go on a roadmap to 2014," said Mr. Goldberg.

Good, just not as good as you promised

Depending on where you read the coverage of Hulu's revenue numbers, the picture of the company looks very different. Read Write Web declares that the company turned in a "pretty big year," growing 60 percent and "raking" in $420 million in revenue. But as Peter Kafka points out at All Things D, that falls short of the $500 million Hulu CEO Jason Kilar predicted the company would make in several blog posts.

Mr. Kafka attributes the miss to rumors of soft ad sales which have been percolating for a while. Hulu also was on the chopping block for a while, then off again, then back on. And several of its partners, most notably Fox, either took away next day rights for programming or discussed the idea. All that volatility is sure to make it tough for Hulu to sell ads. 

2011 promises to be a fascinating year in web TV, with Google poised to launch its professional "channels" and Netflix its original web series. Hulu's parents, the major TV networks, have made it impossible for the service to expand to platforms like Boxee and Google TV. Even Apple TV, normally a safe space for corporate greed, has apparently been held up for political reasons.

After basically trying to get himself fired in a Jerry Macguire style blog post about the future of TV, CEO Jason Kilar seems to have calmed down. He is no longer firing off bombs about how, "“History has shown that incumbents tend to fight trends that challenge established ways and, in the process, lose focus on what matters most: customers.” Hulu has a nice mix of revenue streams from its premium subscribers and its high end digital advertising. After watching Google TV flop in its first year and Netflix take a nosedive with it Qwikster fiasco, Mr. Kilar may feel like Hulu and its 60 percent growth is a pretty good place to be. So good in fact, that despite not making $500 million this year, he's going to spend that much on content in 2012.

Alex Rainert, Head of Product, foursquare: The explore feature on mobile was really about helping users discover what was going on right around them right now. The desktop interface is way better for mapping things out and making plans when you're hoping to travel somewhere. We also think it gives a unique perspective into a place, because you don't have to search just for a certain kind of restaurent or venue. You can look for any word or term and Explore will scan through our huge library of tips for a match. (Betabeat recommends searching "sweaty" and "bonkers" when looking for the best dance party in Brooklyn)

explore for web

- - The Press Release
Foursquare is all about making the real world easier to use by helping you discover interesting places and friends nearby. Today, we’re beginning to roll out something that makes it even easier to find interesting things not just nearby, but all over the world: a web-based version of Explore, our personalized recommendation engine.

When you do a local search on many other services, you get a ‘one-size fits all’ set of results. But with foursquare Explore, we’re using your check-ins and your friends’ check-ins, along with the more than 1.5 billion check-ins from the rest of the foursquare community, to personalize recommendations for you. And every time you check in, foursquare gets better at finding places you’ll like.

It’s personalized search for the real world!
Find the perfect spot at any time: Search for a great sushi place near your office for a lunch meeting, or find the perfect spot for a date on Saturday night.
Plan your next trip: Scheduling a weekend getaway in an unfamiliar city? Put together a foursquare List of interesting things to see and do while you’re there, based on the types of things you normally like to do.
Discover interesting things to do anywhere in the world: Trying to choose between a few vacation destinations? See what would be interesting to you in each city instead of just checking out the most popular tourist attractions in a guidebook.
Also, because Explore is powered by check-ins and foursquare Tips, it’s not just personalized, it’s specific. Search for ‘pool table,’ or ‘guacamole’; ‘deep dish,’ or ‘thin crust.’ Not all bars, Mexican restaurants, or pizza joints are created equal, and we want to make sure you find exactly what you’re craving.

image via CB insights

Some fresh data out this morning from CB Insights shows New York slipped backed behind Beantown in terms of overall venture capital. But that is largely due to the deals in biotech and medical companies that Boston did. When it comes to tech, and more specifically the web companies Betabeat covers most, New York is still second only to Silicon Valley.

It's a trend that will likely continue, as CB notes, "California and NY account for 59% of internet VC deals and 66% of funding. Internet investments took over 1/3 of venture dollars in 2011 and Massachusetts fell to a five quarter low on internet deal share."

The total number of deals and capital invested reached its highest level in a decade, topping even the peaks of the pre-credit crisis 2007-2008. The folks from CB are prediciting a crunch at the series B and C stage, as an ever greater numbe of young companies vie for funding and the funnel narrows to those who can show serious traction. While seed stage reached new highs and series A saw an uptick, later rounds declined.

Fab, Outbrain and Knewton were the big deals in New York over the last quarter, with Imagen Biotech, which works on cures for blindness, rounded out the pack of top funding. Given that Fab has only been working its current company for seven months, it's astonishing to see the company it's keeping.

Another interesting note, while Manhattan had the most activity with 61 deals, Brooklyn nabbed five investments worth $7 million in total. Not suprisingly with the explosion of tablets and smartphones, the share of venture going into mobile deals rose compared to more traditional web companies.

You want to know what I'm watching

If you don't have to make a conscious decision to share something, shouldn't it be called something else? The effort to share something is what separates it from daily life and lets your network know its worth their time. Otherwise its just sort of exhibitionist spam.

In any case, Boxee is joining the party, adding its name along Spotify and The Washington Post as part of Facebook's new "frictionless sharing" initiative. Watch an episode of The Colbert Report and without even the click of a button this info is shared with your Facebook network.

The new feature is opt-in, which should save Boxee the inevitable headache of users who suddenly find their taste exposed. But we're going to wager that folks who turn this on will quickly forget about it, that is until a drunken late night viewing spews something to their public feed they wish grandma hadn't seen.

A lot of people also use Boxee for watching content they downloaded illegally from pirate sites. It's unclear whether Boxee will share information about whatever it is that users are watching, or just when it finds a clearly identifiable piece of content from an approved source.

Below is a short video Boxee released on their blog giving users a sense of how the new feature will work. It does integrate with Boxee's latest release, a dongle that allows users to watch live TV.

Boxee Facebook Live TV Integration from boxee on Vimeo.

It's not a competition, we're just saying

During interviews with Betabeat Coursekit's Joseph Cohen has always played down Blackboard, which currently owns 80 percent of the market for educational software. “Our business model is not to compete with Blackboard by selling software,” Mr. Cohen told Betabeat. “It’s to create large audiences of students and teachers that we can then leverage for all sorts of things.”

They may not see themselves as competitors, but that doesn't mean Coursekit can't leverage all the ill will towards Blackboard out there. Today the company launched an ad campaign, #eraseblackboard, featuring testimonals from students who had been screwed by Blackboard. "Brian's Chem final didn't go as planned, so he emailed the professor to fight the grade," reads one. "Or so he thought. Instead he sent the message to the entire class. Now everyone thinks he's a brown-nose, and he still has a C."

We're a little suspicious of these students. The fourth one is about a student named "Vinny" who looks strikingly like Jesse Lamb of Dispatch, a classmate of Coursekit at TechStars NY.

Update: But there is a source for the statistic that "93 percent of people hate Blackboard", making it the #2 most disliked software in America behind Microsoft (Damn you Clippy!).

But the best part of the campaign is a running feed of Twitter complaints that sit at the bottom where users express their frustration with Blackboard. There is nothing manufacture or tongue in cheek about the litany of complaints that flow by in 140 characters or less. And by creating a clever hashtag, Coursekit is channelling that anger into exposure for their product.

"@coursekit 5 out of my 6 professors have already made comments about hating Blackboard in the first 3 days of class. #EraseBlackboard" tweeted Ryan Delk from the University of Florida. That's the kind of marketing you can't buy, and the perfect entry point for Coursekit, which hopes to dodge the loathsome IT purchase cycle and sell straight to teachers and students.

Tech Wiz, Poach Perfect

The news broke today that Paul Berry, the longtime CTO of Huffington Post credited with their legendary SEO and early adoption of social networking tools, was leaving the company. Betabeat has learned that Mr. Berry will be reuniting with the old gang, Ken Lerer and Jonah Peretti, as he builds out a startup called Rebel Mouse and a new incubator focused on viral and social startups. 

"I can't say too much right now, but Rebel Mouse will be a social platform and I'm working with Lerer Ventures, Kenny and Eric, very closely on that," Mr. Berry told Betabeat by phone.

The other half will be a incubator at 560 Broadway, the old home of the Huffington Post, and current home of  Lerer Ventures. Thrillist was formerly housed there and is now just down the street at 568 Broadway.

"That is going to be space where we can just throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks," Mr. Berry explained. "It will be focused on social and viral, experimenting to see what kind of business can really scale."

Along with Lerer Ventures, former HuffPosters and current BuzzFeed crew Jonah Peretti and Greg Coleman will be part of the new incubator. Thrillist CFO Eric Ashman was another name Mr. Berry mentioned as being part of the project. All very fitting for a guy who's Twitter handle is @teamreboot.

Not to pat ourselves on the back but we did put Mr. Berry on our list of most poachable tech folks. Not sure if this exactly counts (he poached himself?) but clearly he has moved on, so we'll score one for the list on that front. All of it has to be frustrating for AOL, which is watching a talent exodus from a company it recently paid $315 million for.

The Amazon in the room

Here's a little interesting history  for a slow news day. We were chatting with a well respected VC about the explosion of e-commerce companies in New York. On the list of IPO hopefuls at the recent Goldman Sachs conference in Las Vegas were a number of relatively young Silicon Alley companies: Birchbox, Warby Parker and One Kings Lane. A investor we spoke with recently was kicking himself for passing on Fab.com, which has hit more than 1.5 million users and a $50 million annual revenue run rate in the span of just six months.

The social infrastructure in place on the web today means e-commerce companies can scale up very quickly. One of the big success stories that people point to is Quidsi, the parent company of diapers.com, which was acquired by Amazon for in November of last year for $545 million. But while that purchase was heralded as a big win, it's actually a cautionary tale.

"Amazon tried to buy Quidsi and got turned down," the VC told us. Quidsi's shopping network and algorithmic approach to infrastructure had them on pace to double their revenue. The founders didn't feel the need to sell their creation, they believed it could be huge on its own.

"So Amazon turned around and drastically undercut them on their big product, diapers." Amazon could afford to take a loss in certain areas of its business. It wasn't price fixing because they were not colluding with any competitors. "When Quidsi saw their sales go flat, they realized they had to sell, and that gave Amazon the upper hand in negotiating the price."

While the price tag on the Quidsi deal may seem grand, the company was actually acquired for less than two times their expected revenue, a great price for Amazon given the company's strong growth up to that point.

Hitting $10 million in revenue is still an accomplishment, but its no longer enough to guarantee exit velocity for a venture backed startup. Getting real size, like Diapers.com, is enough to lock in a buyer. But with an elephant like Amazon in the room, it's especially challenging for founders and their investors to take things much farther than that.

Looks kinda eco-friendly?

When big name publishers like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are looking to create the rich media ads for their new tablet apps, they turn to Medialets. Now the startup, which raised $8.4 million back in November, is hoping to parlay its relationships with top publishers and blue chip brands into a private marketplace that will connect the two. 

"This is really something we've been building towards since we launched the company," CEO Eric Litman told Betabeat. "Premium publishers want 100 percent control of who appears next to their content and big brands want to make absolutely sure they don't put their name next to something that doesn't fit their image."

Offline, in the world of glossy magazines and TV spots, the money being spent is enough to cover the chain of human beings who handle these relationships. But online, where fewer advertising dollars are being spent, and especially across multiple channels like the web, mobile, in-app, iOS and android, the margins get very thin.

"We're creating a private marketplace that takes the friction out of buying online, but ensures that publishers and brands only work with the kind of premium partners they feel comfortable with," explains Mr. Litman. The marketplace will offer inventory from 40 publishers. Medialets won't say exactly who, only that they come from the roster of more than 200 big names like Conde Nast and Hearst they already work with. Brands can see how much is being offered at what price and easily spread their buys over multiple platforms.

"It creates value for both advertisers and publishers by not only addressing challenges that exist in the mobile advertising ecosystem, but also resolving operational issues that still exist online," Paul Gelb, a VP of mobile at Razorfish explained.

For Medialets, this is a power play. Real time bidding is a big complicated business with massive players like Google branching out in every direction.  But if they can establish an exclusive marketplace for tier 1 advertising, away from the long tail and remnants that dominate other purchasing platforms, they can add a big revenue stream to their current business. And while they are playing matchmaker, Medialet's won't get in between existing relationships. "This is a compliment to the direct sales that is going on," Mr. Litman said, "A way to optimize across the complexity of digital media."

Extra extruder means more making

3D printing for the masses has always been the mission of Brooklyn-based Makerbot. Today the company unveiled the Makerbot Replicator, a souped up version of its original device. It lets users print way bigger items, we're talking the size of a breadloaf, instead of a cupcake. And because it comes with a dual extruder it now, "supports Dualstrusion 2-color printing" (dualstrusion, fun word to say), users can now print in multiple colors and materials, opening up all sorts of new possibilities.

The company is selling its new item as the gateway to a brighter future. "Students with access to a MakerBot have an edge in the future job market. Just like the youth of the 1980’s, who had access to computers, children with access to a MakerBot Replicator™ will become the leaders who make a better tomorrow." Bill Gates brains not included. But seriously, there is an open position for a "maker" at the NY Times R&D lab right now, and according to Vimeo founder Zach Klein, "We're going to be seeing a lot more of that job."

Makerbot also announced that Thingiverse, the web site where makers can share their 3D printed objects and designs, is being given a relaunch. Users can share their creations with the "I Made One" button and highlight their mashups with "I Made A Derivative". It's like Canv.as for the physical world!

Listen to Makerbot founder Bre Pettis talk about the "cutting edge of extrustion technology" and try not to get hot and bothered. The Replicator will run $1,999 for the dual extruder or $1,749 for a single. C'mon, that's the biggest no-brainer since you paid an extra dollar to upgrade from the medium popcorn to the jumbo bucket.