In the Valley, employees of major tech companies like Google and Facebook wear their building badges like a literal badge of honor. You don’t need to keep it attached to your belt while out on a Friday night, but it also doesn’t hurt your chances of landing a date. You should probably debadge when you bang though (just a thought). Read More
Jessica Brondo, Founder & CEO of Edge/Admitted.ly, is on a mission to make her company the new face of college admissions. Having raised her own SAT score 430 points, Ms. Brondo was bit by the test prep bug and went on to develop her own proprietary curriculum. The Edge is taking that curriculum online and into public schools nationwide. Ms. Brondo aims to bridge the socioeconomic gap by leveraging technology, particularly videos, to make test prep accessible and affordable for all high school students. Admitted.ly is the company’s newest product focusing on college admissions counseling. It analyzes a student’s data to determine their chances for being admitted to U.S. universities and offers recommendations based on each student’s history of how to boost their “admittability” score. Read More
The highly anticipated Silicon Valley comedy from the mind of Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge has been picked up by HBO for a full season, according to Deadline. The show doesn’t have a title yet, but we already know it opens on “the shit-brown hills of Mountainview,” and stars Martin Starr of Freaks and Geeks and Party Down fame. Read More
Rival sci fi clubs almost instigated a nerd apocalypse in the U.K. yesterday when “the force” (heh) was called to mediate a fight between the warring factions. Read More
JackThreads Gets an iPads App Purveyor of men’s clothes and accessories JackThreads is attempting to seal up its lucrative mobile market. The company, described as ‘urbo-hipster’ by TechCrunch, is currently generating about 40 percent of revenue via its iPhone app. CEO Ben Lerer revealed how he was excited to “Roll out this beast to our guys.” Not sure if “beast” correctly describes a collection of blazers and jackets, but we wish them luck. Read More
Yesterday the Department of Homeland Security shut down Bitcoin trading platform Mt. Gox’s ability to accept or send transfers using Dwolla, a mobile payment service. A representative from Dwolla told Betabeat that the DHS had sent them a “seizure warrant” for the account, but declined to provide further detail. Now, in the warrant, obtained by Ars Technica, the reason for the seizure has been revealed: DHS believes Mt. Gox is operating an “unlicensed money transmitting business.” Read More
It’s simply a part of life: sometimes, when you emerge from the depths of the Internet to refill your Star Trek mug with Stumptown coffee, you accidentally encounter a real live girl. You know, that genre of human being that has boobs and always keeps a copy of Lean In on her desk. Your heart might skip a few beats as you’re forced to pass by her, dreading having to interact with someone outside of your favorite IRC channel. A wave of relief hits you as she keeps her eyes glued to the floor and doesn’t acknowledge you: you’re safe. For now. Read More
The Webutante Ball, Internet Week’s “nerd prom” that people attend because they feel they have to, is swiftly approaching. Held at Marquee on May 23rd, the event attracts startup glitterati, media titans and various riffraff from The Scratcher. Read More
The Department of Homeland Security appears to have shut down the ability to use Dwolla, a mobile payment service, to withdraw and deposit money into Mt. Gox, a Bitcoin trading platform. A Dwolla representative confirmed the move to Betabeat. Chris Coyne, cofounder of OKCupid, posted a screenshot of an email he received from Dwolla, stating that due to recent orders from the Department of Homeland Security, Dwolla cannot complete the bank transfer to Mt. Gox. Read More
It’s been nearly seven years since YouTube first launched its “Partners Program,” a platform for YouTube creators that gives them a portion of revenue made on their videos, and nearly two years since Google invested more than $100M in YouTube content producers. Despite this financial influx, the quality of content on YouTube has stagnated somewhere between “awful” and “downright terrible.”
Call it the Jenna Marbles paradox, after the top YouTuber profiled in the New York Times earlier this year who, after more than one billion views and millions earned in ad revenue, still makes some of the most amateur videos you can imagine. As she put it, she makes “more money than I need, ever” and yet, if you had no idea who she was and watched one of her million-views-plus videos, you’d think this was the first time she’d ever turned on a video camera.
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
