He's all set! (Photo: SB Nation comments)

Now that Jay-Z is starting a sports talent agency, it looks like he might have to offload his stake in the Brooklyn Nets if he wants to rep NBA players. HOVA no doubt has plenty of interested buyers knocking on his door, but the most public enthusiast is a familiar face from the New York tech scene: Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian.

SB Nation reports that the would-be President of the Internet expressed his interest in a recent TV appearance:

"'You're a big Nets fan,' noted Bolton. 'Jay-Z has to sell off his stake which is pretty small. Would you buy it?'"

'Absolutely,' answered Ohanian. 'In fact, I have tried to make as many public and private overtures as I can to let HOVA know that I would absolutely be honored to buy those shares.'"

It wasn't Mr. Ohanian's first mention of the notion; he tweeted about the possibility last week. A Brooklyn native, he already holds season tickets. And as you can see from the picture above, which he uploaded to the SB Nation discussion thread, he's already got the gear. (/r/NBA has already gathered around the digital water cooler to discuss, naturally.)

Sounds like Steve Ballmer's got a little competition for the crown of tech's top NBA fan.

Bye bye. (Photo: Microsoft)

If you were hoping to get rich off of being one of the first to build apps for Google Glass, think again: Google has prohibited developers from using ads or charging for apps. We're betting Google wants to keep  that potential ad revenue all to itself. [The Verge]

Sources tell Bloomberg Twitter is seeking a deal with Viacom and Comcast that would allow it to host clips (as well as ads alongside those clips) on the site. Can't you at least verify @Jack's parents first? [Bloomberg]

Binge-watching shows is about to get a whole lot easier: Netflix is finally ditching Microsoft Silverlight in favor of HTML5 video. [The Verge]

IBM execs are headed to Washington to try to convince politicians to pass CISPA. Paging Alexis Ohanian! [Hillicon Valley]

Cory Booker's Waywire startup has finally launched in beta. [PandoDaily]

(Photo: Kleiner Perkins)

Kleiner Perkins partner Ellen Pao, who made headlines last year for suing the company in a widely publicized gender discrimination suit, is gainfully employed once more. After reportedly being fired from KPCB in October 2012, she has now taken a gig at community site Reddit, where she'll be "helping us build strategic partnerships that benefit the community."

Reddit announced the hiring in a blog post published to its site by CEO Yishan Wong. In the post, Mr. Wong states that Ms. Pao has been a "formal and informal advisor to reddit for more than a year." Reddit's general manager Erik Martin said that though Ms. Pao was an advisor, she did not formally invest in Reddit through Kleiner Perkins.

When last we heard from Ms. Pao, she wrote on the question and answer site Quora that she had been fired from KPCB:

“I have been terminated from my job at KPCB. On Monday afternoon, senior management told me to clean out my office, leave, and not come back.

Thank you, Quora community, for your support.”

It's interesting to note that Ms. Pao, who is embroiled in a gender discrimination suit, has opted to work for a community whose relationship to women is rather hostile, but Mr. Martin said Ms. Pao's current legal matters had no bearing either way on the company's decision to hire her. "Ellen is extremely qualified," he told Betabeat.

For its part, Reddit's small team employs a fair amount of women, including Jena Donlin, its senior manager of business operations, and community manager Alex Angel. Mr. Martin said that nine out of 25 of the staff are women.

Mr. Ohanian (Photo: Twitter)

Yesterday afternoon--after the controversy had already begun to cool down--Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian decided to chime in on the vicious online response to Adria Richards, who publicly called out two developers for what she perceived as sexist jokes at a Python conference.

In a blog post titled, "Dear Fellow Geeks: WTF?" he takes his fellows to task for the invectives and threats hurled at Ms. Richards.

"Aren’t we better than this?" he asks:

"I'm talking about how many (otherwise reasonable-seeming) people I saw who were comfortable and self-righteous in calling a woman a bitch/cunt/etc from their Twitter, Hacker News, or, yes, reddit account."

He goes on to chide his less enlightened brethren:

The comments (and support for them) I’ve seen over the past few days have really disappointed me and I really hope this is a chance for us to reflect on how we use these tools to foster the tech community. This isn't "political correctness," this is you having the courage to use your words to create an environment that promotes an open exchange of ideas -- not alienate people and certainly not terrorize them.

It's a welcome stance against sexism and harrassment. But was it really news to Mr. Ohanian that there’s a deep sexist streak poisoning the tech community? Does the Reddit cofounder even browse his own site?

Mr. Ohanian reminds "not-poor straight white" geeks that they're no longer the perennial underdog, but not without a tinge of self-congratulations:

"Holy shit, the rest of the world is finally realizing how awesome we are. The geek has inherited the earth. And now that we’re the powerful ones, we need to remember: with great power comes great responsibility. It's irresponsible to continue to act as though we are victims."

The Adria Richards case was an easy one. It’s a no-brainer to call threatening to rape and murder an outspoken woman (or any woman!) unacceptable. But what about when the trolling is coming from inside Mr. Ohanian’s own house? The infamous Mens' Rights subreddit in particular seemed to have it out for Ms. Richards. And sure would have been nice to hear him take this kind of stand during the /r/creepshots debacle, for example.

For Y Combinator's "Ambassador to the East," the Hacker News headline on this might as well be: Tend your own garden.

(Photo: Amazon)

Front Page Printed Pages of the Internet Just before taking stage at SXSW to talk his crowdfunded Internet 2012 tour, Alexis Ohanian emailed out a link to his new book, Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed.

Since you asked, Mr. Ohanian, we dig the cover, but "without their permission," sounds a little iffy in the context of Reddit's Creepshot scandal, no?

Last week, we wondered when Mr. Ohanian was running for office already. “Alas no,” he emailed back. “I'm not going to rule anything out but right now I'm having too much fun (and impact) from my place in the private sector.” However, as the Young Entrepreneur Council founder Scott Gerber pointed out, Mr. Ohanian does happen to own the domain name ohanian2013.com.

Just checking in 525,600 minutes. How do you measure a year in the life of a (defoundered) man? Earlier this week, on the anniversary of his abrupt departure from Foursquare, cofounder Naveen Selvadurai posted a recap of the last 12 months. Don't expect to learn much about what he's been working on, though. Think more in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights and cups of coffee.

Mr. Selvadurai lost the founder 15; he traveled; he saw his family and friends; he traveled some more; he read books; he went to Disney and rode Space Mountain many times; he learned to drive stick; he went to the Olympics. "I always kept saying 'year 30' wouldn’t be such a big deal and that it’s just like any other. it turned out to be so much more and i’m grateful for that," he reflected.

Oh, but he might have picked up a bit of a gloomy streak, too:

this is how the war will start - "ohio man charged with shooting robot" singularityhub.com/2013/03/04/ohi…

— naveen (@naveen) March 6, 2013

(Photo: Instagram/Dens)

So (proto)typical Google Glasses are now just popping up everywhere, it seems. The latest sighting comes via Digg community manager Veronica De Souza: "SPOTTED: A skater bro wearing google glass in bedstuy. Who are you?" she tweeted. Betebeat welcomes any intel as to the identity of this mystery man, so we can pester him until he lets us try his specs on.

Maybe Dennis Crowley knows the guy. The Foursquare cofounder recently, "lost my Google Glass virginity."

(Photo: Instagram/Fred Benenson)

Spotted! Our friends at Quora--the erudite agoraphobe’s answer to Yahoo! Answers--never got the memo that print was dead. Thus earlier this year, the site opted to publish a 441-page hardcover book called “The Best of Quora,” featuring 131 primers. Forbes called it a “fascinating, enchanting, exasperating book,” and wondered if the inquiring minds of Quora were “too clever” for their own good.

Author Clive Thompson and Kickstarter’s Fred Benenson got to thumb through the pages and see for themselves when they spotted a copy “in the wild” at Lil Frankie’s Pizza in the East Village. Mr. Thompson said on Instagram that he received an advanced copy this week. As Bill Couch, a front-end product engineer at Twitter explained in the comments, “[Quora] issued them as gifts to the authors of those answers at the end of last year, then provided it as a PDF online.”

Guess the question about Betabeat didn’t make the cut.

:( Guys, we think Tumblr really hurt Shelby.tv cofounder Reece Pacheco feelings. He recently published a long, sad blog post announcing, "Tumblr I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down." Nothing says heartache like LCD Soundsystem! So what set Mr. Pacheco off? He logged into Tumblr the other day, as he does regularly, and found himself subjected to a laborious, drawn-out attempt to get him to follow more blogs. Then, he was given a few hovering tool tips--on a service he's been using for years.

He did not like this!

Thing is, I wouldn’t be so frustrated with you, Tumblr, if I didn’t love the platform so much. If you were just some other social network, I’d say “Do whatever you want. I don’t care. Your only value is your scale.”

But that’s not you, so don’t treat me like some number. You know I’m active. You know I’m a creator more than a reblogger. Treat me that way and show me some added benefit, rather than just trying to get more mindless engagement out of me.

Sorry, Reece--those revenue targets aren't gonna hit themselves.

Mmm, cake Happy birthday to GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci, who got quite the gift in celebration. There's a Vine of the festivities, but here's a teaser:

Looks like a party, alright!

High fashion Huffpo cofounder Kenny Lerer is well known around Silicon Alley as an investor. But did anyone know he is, as his son Ben Lerer put it on Twitter, "fcking fashionable"? Mr. Lerer the Elder recently appeared in a New York Times profile of Laurent DeLouya, "the amiable proprietor of a hair salon that over 50 years has amassed a following that is kind of a cultural Core Club." Papa Lerer told the Times he'd "walk over hot coals for Laurent,” and apparently Mr. DeLouya performed baby Ben's first haircut at age 3.

We yearn to someday achieve that kind of rapport with a stylist.

User #279 Your user number can be a figure of pride among the tech set. If it's low enough it signals that you're an early adopter, and makes you feel cool, which is kinda sad if you think about it cuz like, look at your life.

"I'm User No. 279," humblebragged New York Times tech writer Nick Bilton in a recent Twitter back and forth. "I got @dens drunk and [sic] Nick Denton's house and made him give me a beta account."

Whatever works.

(Photo: Tipster)

Your Name Here A Silicon Valley source had the pleasure of dining near Path cofounder Dave Morin and his wife, Brit.co founder Brit Morin recently. Mr. Morin spoke about the future of Path while Ms. Morin, a DIY enthusiast, used crayons provide by the restaurant to doodle on the paper table cloth, said the source. There were rainbows, flowers and balloons, but our favorite was a drawing of the Brit.co logo, with "Morin" written underneath and an arrow pointed towards Ms. Morin (just in case the restaurant staff didn't recognize her). That's one way to disrupt advertising, we suppose. Our tipster was kind enough to snap a pic on their way out.

Happy Internet, Mr. President Twice this week in conversation with tech types, Betabeat was asked when Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian was running for office already. The 29-year-old credited with helping to defeat SOPA/PIPA already toured the country (in a bus once leased for John McCain's  “Straight Talk Express") running for president of the Internet. But with Sheryl Sandberg hot on his heels, isn't it time to start campaigning for the real thing?

Last we heard, Mr. Ohanian was rumored to be launching his own startup reality show on MTV. However, he was recently spotted handing out awards on behalf of Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, who likes to call himself "the House GOP's chief watchdog."

We've reached out to Mr. Ohanian comment, but perhaps this lulzy tweet is response enough:

Lol RT @michaelpryor: I just realized why Alexis Ohanian's senate race hasn't yet begun. You have to be 30 years old to be a senator!

— Alexis Ohanian (@alexisohanian) March 1, 2013

(Photo: Instagram/Neil Blumenthal)

Here's Looking At You, Kid Warby Parker celebrated its third birthday last night. And what better way to mark a $41.5 million funding round and potential Google Glass partnership than champagne at Grand Central Terminal. Ain't startup life grand?

Duly Noted We're starting to wonder how the geniuses at Rap Genius get any work done. The beef-starting startup promptly uploaded Andrew Mason's farewell letter and started annotating. A sampling of the notes: "Seems like Andrew has too much swag for a public company, they need to find more of a “boring loser” type…" Can't imagine why this team would be so ready to defend "swag."

VC Ben Horowitz also chimed in with a more sedate contribution, saying, "Andrew does the stand up thing and claims accountability. Make no mistake though—although he’s the only one accountable, he’s certainly not the only one responsible for all the things that went wrong." Wait, was that a dig at Eric Lefkofsky?

No Micky D's Please Worth noting: Gross slideshows about how McDonald's terrible blunders of yore perform far better, numbers-wise, than flattering slideshows about a company-funded visit to HQ.

But since McDonald's paid for airfare + hotel, not such a big deal. Also, 4 kinds of mcnugget shapes! h/t @bupbin businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-four…

— Peter Kafka (@pkafka) February 28, 2013

Star Power Hey, what'd you do for the Oscars? Presumably you went over to a friend's house and had a couple of beers and fell in love with Jennifer Lawrence, like most of America. Well, AllThingsD grand dame and Vanity Fair contributor Kara Swisher was there. Like, Hollywood there. NBD! She tweeted Sunday, "Weird Oscars, now onto the party," complete with Insta. On another snap, she added, "Observation on first and only Hollywood party: Celebs are just like us (except prettier and more insecure)."

Snacks You know what's a really great diet, according to former Google employee Mike Dudas? Quitting Google to work somewhere else without that cafeteria. We've always heard free suckling pig goes straight to the hips.

(Photo: @Tolar)

Bad education? CampInteractive and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian are hosting an ed tech hackathon at General Assembly this weekend, inviting developers, students and ed tech influencers to tackle improve the classroom experience. Since gold stars are being offered for hacks that help engage students with “unusually compelling learning experiences," we'd like to suggest a K-hole of baby animal videos on YouTube—a learning experience of unknown depths.

Eternal sunshine of a spotless ... Facebook Tired of your ex and his new girlfriend/boyfriend’s endless stream of happy Facebook defaults? KillSwitch is a new app that erases fond memories of an ex-boo from your Facebook profile with a few swipes of the track pad. Scroll through your friends list, find your “target” and make them socially irrelevant as forever more (or at least until you get back together). Created by ClearHart Digital, it's perfect for all you singletons looking for a better way to spend Valentine's Day than drinking alone and meticulously un-tagging photos.

Shacking up Samsung is opening a New York City accelerator to support the development of software on their mobile devices and tablets—and perhaps in hopes that planting its flag in Chelsea is a step in overthrowing Apple claim as the hip marketer of mobile devices.

Making out at the movies Looking for a late, great V-Day idea? Moviepass says even bad movies are good for your relationship. One recent testimonial: “Even if my wife hated my guts after dragging her to Movie 43 last week, at least we were able to laugh it off afterwards. The worst films tend to bring us together more.” Nothing says romance like sitting last row in the near empty theater of a new rom-com.

Get with the TimesMachine The New York Times is launching a new advertising initiative that lets marketers incorporate articles from the Grey Lady's digital archive as a base. National Geographic is among the first advertising partner to take advantage of the plan, embedding archival articles into marketing for NatGeo's Killing Lincoln flick.

Too much information Annoyed at your friends for never having downloaded Foursquare? Let Foursquare help! Dennis Crowley's company has added a new feature that allows users to share maps, images, tips and venue locations with people who never wanted the advice in the first place. According to Foursquare's blog “When you Tweet, post to Facebook, email or text about a place with friends who don’t have Foursquare on their phones, they’ll be linked to a shiny new page showing all the most important info about it.” Grandpa will be happy to know which Lower East Side parlor your new tattoo is coming from.

Node regrets Node based platform service Nodejitsu is launching a "full expansion into the European market" with a partnership with Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica, according to a press release.

Sometimes WeWork And sometimes we do the Harlem Shake.

Sweet ride, Mr. Draper. (Photo: Screencap)

Remember how, once a year, your high school's assistant principal and algebra teacher and the starting quarterback would all gamely appear in a student-made video, usually to celebrate Homecoming?

You probably won't be surprised to see a similar phenomenon in Silicon Valley. 

The team at content discovery startup Undrip has made a new music video called "Lucky Ones," which is "dedicated to the people who fight every day in the trenches of entrepreneurship." And they roped some big names into participating. Featured: Alexis Ohanian in a Hipmunk hoodie, Robert Scoble boogieing in front of a Rackspace logo and, best of all, VC Tim Draper wearing a pink polka-dotted tie and dancing in a parking lot.

He lip-syncs to the line, "Waiting for their chance to come up like a pop tart," then illustrates the point by popping out of a car door.

The video is part of a campaign to raise money for small businesses hit by Hurricane Sandy, starting with three in particular: Staten Island's Not Just Bagels, Rockaway Beach-based Bungalow Bar and Restaurant, and Jersey Shore Apparel.

Here's the video:

Mr. Ohanian (Photo: Twitter)

r/findmeaparkingspace ParkWhiz, the Chicago company that enables users to find and reserve guaranteed parking spaces before reaching their destination, today announced that it has closed a $2 million Series A round of funding led by Hyde Park Venture Partners. Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian also took place in the round along with Hyde Park Angels, Amicus Capital, and others. In a press release sent to Betabeat, the company said that since its launch in 2006, it has driven $10 million in parking revenue to parking operators and provided access to 3 million parking spaces nationwide.

Fab Goes To India Jason Goldberg, the founder and CEO of Fab, took to his personal blog yesterday to announce that his company had acquired new funding. Times Internet, the digital arm of The Times of India Group, India’s largest media company, has chosen to invest in the company. Mr. Goldberg notes in the post, "As part of this investment Fab will be working with Times Internet to explore and execute on our India market strategy in the coming years." Since launching in June 2011, Fab has raised over $150 million from investors.

Tumblr For Your Tablet Tumblr just updated its Android app to support use on tablets that run on Android. So if you've taken some cool black and white pictures of ladders next to lakes, you can now upload them straight to your Tumblr with ease. Thank the artsy lord.

Disruption Gets You On The Nice List Harold DeLucia, a 27-year-old New York City public school teacher from Astoria, Queens, and Josh Lanzera, 29, a construction foreman from the upper West Side, are the founders of NYC Trees Direct, an online Christmas tree ordering service. The two New Yorkers saw a open market and went for it, investing $6,000 of their own money into the seasonal business.

Go Back To School NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) in Downtown Brooklyn announced this week that the New York State Education Department has approved its curriculum. Now that New York believes it's a real school, the University is now accepting applications for the fall semester of 2013. CUSP's website has the application up now. Please post videos of yourselves opening your acceptance letters to YouTube.

The September App Bloglovin', the blog reader for fashion and lifestyle blogs, just launched its first iOS app. The company says that it has 1.8 million members as of this December. The company raised $1 million back in July in seed round funding from investors such as Betaworks, Lerer Ventures, RRE Ventures, Bruce Jaffe, Hank Vigil, Fritz Lanman and others. In a press release sent to Betabeat, Bloglovin' cofounder and CEO Mattias Swenson said, "Our goal with our seed-round was to build an fantastic app that would bring people an optimized and highly visual reading experience. So it’s great to finally see it in the app store!”

Bosses Are Really Happy Charley Polachi, a partner from Polachi Access Executive Search recently polled tech CEOs and found out that they all think the futures is extremely bright. 85 percent of respondents had a neutral or positive outlook for hiring in 2013, 79 percent said they had a neutral or positive outlook for hiring from 2013-2017, 84 percent had a neutral or positive outlook for expansion in 2013, and 81 percent had a neutral or positive outlook for expansion from 2013-2017.

Learn About Your New Hood Spun is a news discovery app that shows you stories based on your location. It was recently launched by the same team that made Broadcastr and Electric Literature. It could definitely be useful to fresh New York transplants. AOL gave the new version of the app a nice tour and it looks pretty cool.

School Mascot Is The Rose H. Bloom, a subscription based flower delivery service, is expanding its efforts to educate its employees. Right now they have the SEED (Startup Education and Entrepreneurial Development) Program, that shows current employees to make a big local impact. But starting this week, the company is using a new program called H.Bloom University, a six-month program that educates current employees in leadership and business.

The Customer Is Always Right Gripevine, a site where you can complain about customer service and review companies, just launched an updated version of their site. It now includes ratings and reviews. The same team also launched Resolution 1, a tool for businesses that lets them manage feedback from multiple sources at once.

Randi, Can You Hear Me?

But we hear Ms. Zuckerberg may have some competition. A source mentioned that MTV is also working on a startup reality show rumored to be produced by peripatetic Foodspotter Soraya Darabi and "a Reddit cofounder." Ms. Darabi told Betabeat she was "not involved" in the project and Reddit cofounders Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman did not immediately responded to our inquiry, so it's hard to say if that was just wishful thinking. However, an independent New York City-based casting director--not the lovely gentleman from last night!--confirmed that "There’s a bunch of networks" currently testing reality programming about startups, including MTV and possibly CNBC.

In fact, the casting director said he put together a reel of potential entrepreneurs--some in New York--for Bravo this summer, before "Start-Ups: Silicon Alley" had even aired. "Kind of like the 'Housewives' was successful, you look for more 'Housewives," he said, noting that the success of "Pawn Stars" on the History Channel begat "American Pickers" and "American Restoration."

"Tons of networks," he said, "are looking into the startup space."

"Right now, there’s a little trend going on where poeple are kind of into almost like the American dream," he explained. "You could turn on networks and could see people who are the best at what they do, celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay. But there hasn’t been a whole lot of documenting people with amazing ideas starting off." Networks want to "ride the journey," along with entrepreneurs. As for what kind of characters Bravo requested, "Every network has a demographic. You’re not going to send Bravo four 80-year-old people starting a company," he acknowledged. "We’re first looking for really great idea and then you just pray the people have personalities. You just need to be not be really shy."

Sounds like enough fodder to keep Pando Daily's coffers stocked for a week.

Live From New York, It's Makerbot Last night, at the launch of Wired's new holiday popup, Betabeat made the acquaintance of SNL stars Vanessa Bayer and Fred Armisen. Despite the fact that the room was decked out like an electronics store with gadgets galore, Ms. Bayer, in a grey and black Zara top, could not get enough of the Makerbot 3D printer Wired had on display.

When we asked what her favorite gadget there was, she told us it was "definitely the 3D printer." We suggested that perhaps she might want to check out Makerbot's new store in Nolita, where you can purchase little printed objects. "Did you know," she asked, her eyes wide, "that the 3D printer printed that set of headphones?" She gestured to a pair of red headphones in a glass case across the room. "That is so cool. I literally can't stop telling people about the 3D printer."

As we were leaving, Betabeat ran into her again, and mentioned that a friend of ours had joked that the party space looked a little too much like a Best Buy. "What kind of Best Buy has a 3D printer???" she asked, aghast.

GOOG Goes to Spam Betabeat receives a lot of press releases, and almost all of them route directly to our inboxes, leaving our spam folder for the detritus of the web. Except for one peculiar thing: almost every single email we’ve received from a PR person--or anyone with a @google.com email address, really--gets directed immediately to spam. It’s strange, considering Gmail is a product created and maintained by the company whose emails we are fielding. We’ve asked multiple Google PR reps what the deal is, but their best answer is that we should just continuing marking them as “not spam” to retrain Gmail. Ah, tech reporting is a rough gig.

Bromance Another day, another social media gem from Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer. This time, it’s a bit of Twitter back-and-forth:

Peer Pressure Congrats to Matt Langer, who as per his Twitter account just celebrated six months as a nonsmoker. What’s more interesting is the reason: He admitted to Anil Dash, human conscience of the tech scene, that “not even joking, one of the pros when i was trying to psych myself up to quit was ‘anil won't think i'm a fucking terrible person.’” We thought that seemed a little extreme, until we saw this riposte from Mr. Dash: “Ex-smokers have nothing but my appreciation. Smokers can go die slow, painful deaths.”

Excuse us while we dash out for a packet of Nicorette.