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Kelly Faircloth

By The Editors 5/24 4:09pm

shameless rumormongering

Screen Shot 2013-05-24 at 3.38.23 PM

Rumor Roundup: An Uber Blunder, Tickets to Dick Costolo’s Gun Show, and David Karp Is Having the Best Week Ever

The Gun Show This week, Twitter launched a shiny new client-friendly

Music Class Are you excited for the new Daft Punk album? Well, we’ll tell you who’s really excited, and that’s Square CEO Jack Dorsey and VC Fred Wilson. “The new Daft Punk album is a knockout. Pure joy,” Mr. Dorsey said in a micro-review of the album on Twitter. Mr. Wilson responded: “yup. I’ve had it in heavy rotation all week. It was even on in the coffeeshop today.” Just an FYI in case, for some reason, you get stuck in a car with both of them sometime this summer. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/24 11:30am

Reality Bites

Really, though?

Show Biz Isn’t Done With You Yet, Startups: Here Comes Not-a-Reality-Show ‘Alley Girls’

The entertainment business has gotten wind of this whole startup thing and now there’s no getting rid of them. The latest attempt to cash in: a work-in-progress called “Alley Girls,” which is ”a new series about women working and building companies in Silicon Alley.” Valleywag reports the project is currently seeking interviewees for a sizzle reel in the making, shooting next Thursday at the offices of Inc. and Fast Company.

But the creators (including Left Brain/Right Brain Productions) insist this isn’t anything like that Bravo travesty which shall remain nameless. No, they’d have us believe this is really more of a documentary project.  Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/24 9:51am

Space the Final Frontier

Hey there, travel buddy! (Photo: Flickr, Craig Grobler)

Some Lucky Jerk Gets to Go to Space With Leonardo DiCaprio

Somebody check on the president of the Leonardo DiCaprio fan club, because we’ve got some bad news. E! reports that someone–it’s not clear who–has paid $1.5 million for a ticket to outer space sitting next to Mr. DiCaprio.

Can you imagine a better chance to finally make your move than a turbulent ride through the upper atmosphere, followed by at awe-inspiring gander at the curve of the Earth? Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/23 11:17am

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

Awkward! (Photo: Flickr, Rev Stan)

NYPD Cop Accused of Hacking Many, Many of His Colleagues’ Emails

Well, here’s some not-particularly-reassuring news about one of New York’s finest: An NYPD detective named Edwin Vargas has been arrested for “computer hacking crimes.”

The feds say Mr. Vargas shelled out $4,000 to an email hacking service to get log-in credentials for at least 43 email accounts belonging to at least 30 different people (21 of them affiliated with the NYPD). He’s also alleged to have accessed the National Crime Information Center database. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/23 8:04am

Linkages

Ambitious!

Booting Up: Jeff Bezos Builds a Biodome

Amazon is planning a big biodome at the foot of its new HQ, because Jeff Bezos. [Gizmodo]

More people are using their tablets on planes. Someone actually paid to conduct this study. [USA Today]

Square has expanded to Japan. [The Next Web]

Kim Dotcom says he invented two-factor authentication and Google, Twitter and others are engaging in “massive IP infringement.” [The Verge]

Foursquare now offers more specific search and filter capabilities. [TechCrunch]

By Hugh Bassett 5/22 3:22pm

startup rundown

(Photo: Flickr)

Startup News: BitPay Raises Real Money from Founders Fund and eBay Wants You to Come Hang Out

Peter Gabriel to Sledgehammer music industry Cuesongs, Peter Gabriels’ song rights company, is planning on the “genesis” of a new way of legal music listening by a partnership with Audiosocket, a music licensing and technology business here in the US. The Brit’s company, which includes music from Dido, Groove Armada and Ziggy Marley, plans to license its artists to Audiosocket, whose customers include systems like Vimeo. They hope that it will give legitimate access to music fans while simultaneously paying artists. Here’s hoping it will bring the stop-motion awesomeness of his 1987 video back into fashion. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/22 11:30am

Twitter Fights

Rumble!

PrivCo Responds to Criticisms of Its Tumblr Report By Slinging Twitter Insults at Fred Wilson, Everyone Else [UPDATED]

Yesterday, Crain’s reported on some eye-popping Tumblr numbers from PrivCo, suggesting VCs reaped huge rewards, including a 5,000 percent return of $253 million for Union Square Ventures, $154 million for Spark Capital, and $77 million for Spark partner Bijan Sabet.

Almost immediately, Bijan Sabet and Fred Wilson fired back, calling the report “garbage” and refuting the specifics (without coughing up what they actually made). Dan Primack (who’s tangled with PrivCo before) calls the report “a load of Yahoo.” He says USV and Spark actually put $13 million each into the company ($350,000 of it seed funding) and got around $192 million each. Not too shabby, but not the jackpot PrivCo alleges, either.

Well, this morning PrivCo responded to the critics, on Twitter, with all the rancor appropriate to the medium. Read More