Mr. Costolo (Photo: About.me)

Last week, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo reportedly quit as director of the company's U.K. arm. The news comes just days after government regulators forced TweetDeck to dissolve following accounting issues. [Sky News]

Bloomberg is apologizing to its clients after allegations that reporters snooped on client terminals to see their Seamless orders or whatever. [CNN Money]

JackThreads' recent push into international waters, like Australia and the U.K., is doing well for the company's bottom line as sales overseas now make up 10 percent of its business. [AllThingsD]

Facebook Home is missing features that Android users love (widgets, docks, oh my!) because all of the developers use iPhones. The lack of "droidfooding" is causing them to scramble to add those features to turn around Home's slow downloads. [TechCrunch]

Here's a groovy map that shows you where in the world Wikipedia is being edited right now. [Ars Technica]

Elon Musk and David Sacks have left Mark Zuckerberg's political action group over growing concerns over the support of certain politicians. [AllThingsD]

Hey, they never promised you a rose garden, design-wise. (Photo: Jared Keller, Twitter)

Guess the guys on Wall Street were feeling a little left out: Earlier this week, the S.E.C. signed off on official company announcements via social media (as long as shareholders are warned in advance where to look). And now, Bloomberg L.P. has announced that it will integrate tweets into the stream of information pulsing through the terminals that grace desks all over the financial industry.

Like everything else on the Bloomberg terminals, the tweets look butt-ugly.

Don't get too excited, though: The service will be pulling in updates from "corporations, executives, government officials, economists, commentators, media outlets and other voices that can influence the financial markets." So you probably can't use it to monitor Amanda Bynes's antics. (That's what your smartphone is for, obviously.)

Jean-Paul Zammitt, head of sales and product development for the Bloomberg Professional service, said in an announcement:

"When important news is shared on Twitter, traders and investors need to be able to access it, and validate its importance in order to incorporate that information into their decision making process."

Just remember: In times of panic, it's best to assume everything on social media is a damn lie.

The whole crew's here!

Guess Mayor Bloomberg isn't going to close out his third term partying in swinging London, after all. Today in the hipper-than-thou surroundings of the BuzzFeed offices (BTW? sad lack of actual cats), he announced a new all-out, city-backed push officially expanding the "Made in NY" branding (created for the entertainment industry) to the tech business.

"We're spreading the word, hopefully drawing even more tech companies to the five boroughs by taking a couple of steps today," said Mayor Bloomberg.

Companies with at least 75 percent of their production in the city now includes tech firms can apply to be "Made in NY" certified, meaning they can display that spiffy little logo (or as it was described in the announcement, the "mark of distinction") on their site. Everybody's getting stickers, in other words!

There was quite the crowd crammed into a central atrium in the BuzzFeed offices, including New York Tech Meetup's Jessica Lawrence, omnipresent Chief Digital Officer Rachel Haot, Songza's Elias Roman, LearnVest's Alexa von Tobel, and BuzzFeed's Jon Steinberg. Before we could get into the details, we were treated to a somewhat makeshift slideshow of "5 Animals Who Are Not Disappointed in Mayor Bloomberg."

The city is launching a website aggregating various resources for entrepreneurs (from permitting how-tos to free public Wifi hotspots), as well as information for people thinking of taking up residence in Startupland, including the Mapped in NY roundup of companies hiring (900 looking to fill 3,000 jobs, at last count) and where to take coding classes.

"Since I'm going to be unemployed in 315 days I'm starting to pay more attention to this now," Mayor Bloomberg noted.

But of course, why simply roll out a website when you can create an enormous marketing campaign? And so, you can expect to see this video everywhere you turn online, with print equivalents splashed onto buses passing you by on the street. Finally, something you can point out that'll impress your Nana, even if she still has no idea what your adtech company does! Companies can also create their own Made in NY videos, like so.

"Our true hope is that perhaps a young child is riding on the subway, sees that image on the subway and says, 'Maybe I'll consider taking an extra math course or an exta science course and entering that field,' and perhaps another engineer joins the company and helps to take it to the next level here in New York City," Ms. Haot explained the campaign.

She also put a cheerful gloss on the lengthy list of readily available startup jobs: "It's good to know if that gig doesn't work out or if that startup doesn't work out, there are literally thousands of other opportunities that are available to you here in New York City." Consider us reassured.

It seems BuzzFeed also provided more than a venue and the opportunity to show a picture of the mayor with a zebra. "We worked closely with the mayor's office to create the social content ad campaign for We are Made in NY," said President and COO Jon Steinberg. The site even made up one of its listicles, "11 Reasons To Start A Company In New York City," complete with GIF of the mayor high-fiving Mr. Met.

Everyone will also doubtless be fascinated to know that Mayor Bloomberg has made the switch to an iPad Mini, which makes his distracted fiddling during other speakers' comments slightly less noticeable. Now that's innovation.

Here's the ad you'll soon be seeing everywhere:

Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Dorsey. (Photo: nycgov.tumblr.com)

A fair bit of Mike Bloomberg's third and final term has been devoted to improving New York City's educational offerings in the practical hard sciences. Besides the creation of Cornell Tech, he also helped broker city support for beefed-up programs at NYU and Columbia.

But there's one science-focused school that has clearly has the mayor's heart, and it's in Baltimore, of all places: His alma mater, Johns Hopkins, where he got his engineering degree. He's showered the university with cash for years, and the New York Times reports that his latest gift (a cool $350 million, the largest individual gift in the school's history) brings the total to $1.1 billion. 

In a piece about his latest donation, Mayor Bloomberg complained to the Times, “In our society, we are defunding education.” But not the man whose Scrooge McDuck-scale fortune have been shaping the school for years:

“The modern story of Hopkins is inextricably linked to him,” said Ronald J. Daniels, the university’s president, as he walked around the campus recently. “When you look at these great investments that have transformed American higher education, it’s Rockefeller, it’s Carnegie, it’s Mellon, it’s Stanford — and it’s Bloomberg.”

That cash has bought everything from a new physics building to 20 percent of the need-based scholarships the school grants annually. You'd almost think he wanted to disrupt the liberal arts!

Of course, as Quartz points out, former C student Mayor Bloomberg probably wouldn't get into Johns Hopkins today. His odds for admission to Cornell look iffy, too, and forget about the "elite" program here in the city. Maybe he can do a little something for the late bloomers with the billions he plans to give away?

Mr. Bloomberg. (Twitter)

Time Warner Still Sucks On Friday, Mayor Bloomberg made a big move toward ing promise to expand broadband in New York. He launched ConnectNYC, a contest for small businesses that will award free fiber cable wiring (overall value of up to $12 million) to 240 local businesses across the five boroughs over the next two years. But will it make slow cashiers go faster?

All Your Dwollas Belong To Us Dwolla, the way to pay people via smartphone, just rolled out a cool feature called MassPay. It allows you to pay up to 2,000 people at once, which is great for business owners or degenerate gamblers who have a lot of friends. Payments under 10 dollars are free, while anything higher than that requires a small fee of 25 cents per transaction. Parking Panda, VHX and Major League Gaming have all pledged to start using the service immediately.

Finna FinTech Startup Weekend is teaming up with the FinTech Innovation Lab and the NYC FinTech Startups meetup to put on the first ever FinTech Startup Weekend. It's set to take place on November 2 to 4 at Alley NYC. Throughout the weekend, there will be mentors, including VCs, lawyers and designers, stopping by to give teams advice on what they're doing.

Nick Gavronsky, an OpenFin employee who helps run Startup Weekend with Frank Denbow, spoke to Betabeat and said that he was surprised by the response the event is getting. "We've noticed over the last year or so that FinTech is growing and there's a need for engagement and bringing that community together--as well as around enterprise in general," Mr. Gavronsky said.

FinTech weekend, he said, is "not really like a hackathon, it’s more for first-time people” who want to start building something.

Costumes for a Cause! WeWork is organizing a Halloween party this coming Monday, October 29th benefiting Charity: Water that cofounder Matt Shampine promises will be a "crazy" good time, including "a lot of surprises and five hours of open bar." Better yet, you can feel good while throwing them back: WeWork will be matching everyone's donations to the event. WeWork generously offered Betabeat readers a 15 percent discount off the ticket price, which starts at a $35 donation. Just enter the discount code "betabeat" when you RSVP. While you figure out your binders of women vs. bayonets costume choice, here's a video WeWork put together to get you in the party mood.

Sexy Canadians Songza, the music streaming app that has a playlist for every mood, just reached 1 million users in Canada. To celebrate, we're going to listen to the "cold" playlist. The Songza team used its data and found that Canadians and Americans both chose "Mellow" more than any other mood. Americans' next most popular category was "Happy," while Canadians' second choice was "Sexual." The sexual playlist only works correctly if you're sleeping with Canada's finest export, Ryan Gosling.

Group Talk IRL Group messaging service GroupMe just launched a new service called Experiences. It lets you meet up and plan adventures with your groups and even helps you split the bill. The first round of experiences include a brunch at one of Todd English's restaurant and a zombie survival practice on Halloween. Sounds spooky enough for us.

Chatroulette With a Purpose Onswipe held its hackathon this weekend, and the overall winner created something really awesome. BlahBlahLearning is a language learning platform that works over video chat. A pair of speakers who are each learning the other’s native tongue are given five minutes to speak in one language, then five minutes to speak in the other. Take some notes, Airtime, these guys have the right idea.

Man Starts Blog internet gadfly Rex Sorgatz has just launched a personal project called Viewsource. He's posting one YouTube video a day and sharing his thoughts about it. The site has a really pretty layout, and Mr. Sorgatz's commentary is pretty spot-on. This one about Michael Richards is a pretty good read.

You Owe Us One Foursquare is hiring a PR director. If you get this job and you first found out about it through Betabeat, then you have to give us exclusives for the entirety of your career. It's only fair.

Publicidad Jun Group, the opt-in video advertising platform, has announced that it has new capabilities to specifically target the much-coveted Hispanic audience on the web. Jun Group says that it can now prescreen users to determine if they’re Hispanic and/or native Spanish speakers. In total, the company provides ads to 10 million Hispanic or Spanish-speaking users.

Advertise More, Save the World Pontiflex, another advertising platform, just released a new tool called AdLeads that helps nonprofits advertise themselves to prospective donors. The best part about the service is that organizations only have to pay when a person actually signs up to hear from them. They never waste money on wasted clicks or impressions.

College Admissions Suck Applying to college is the worst process in the world, but luckily things just got a bit easier thanks to Unigo. The site gives a free 15-minute private consultation to set you up with a plan, and then users can subscribe to Unigo's online college counseling services. If your child's guidance counselor is a total idiot, then this looks like a good option for you.

Where's their tea? Ladies love tea. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

Things are looking better for the ladies of the tech business, but we've still got a long way to go on the computer science front. That's the conclusion the panelists of Women to Watch seem to have reached in yesterday's premiere of our industry's very own version of The View, your mom's favorite show about ladies sitting around yakkin' about stuff.

According to the Bloomberg News recap, the panelists agreed that things are looking a lot sunnier these days, with many venture capitalists happy to hand out cash and founding teams looking for a female perspective.

However: 

The dearth of women in computer science shows in the workforce. Tobaccowala runs the engineering department at SurveyMonkey, a provider of online surveys, and previously founded the website Evite Inc. Of the 26 people on her team, only one of them is female, she said.

“There’s still a pipeline problem of women in computer science and engineering, even from 10 years ago,” Tobaccowala said.

Nor will it be a simple matter to unskew those numbers: “It’s going to take a decade or more to be more representative,” added Accel partner Theresia Gouw Ranzetta.

The tide might be turning, though. A recent post at Women 2.0 pointed out that fully 41 percent of Harvard's 2013 computer science class were women. That's not parity, but it's getting close.

What Women in Tech will discuss now that they've hashed out their most obvious topic of conversation is another question entirely.

The Tipping Point Partners office. (Photo: Tipping Point)

Like cushy sign-on bonuses or drool-worthy stock options, perks are a potent recruiting tool for startups, dangled before potential hires like a treat before a ravenous animal. Expensive, Steve Jobs-approved gear and kitchens overflowing with every snack imaginable are treated like they’re the equivalent of platinum health insurance.

We get it--having a thriving, enjoyable work culture is integral to fostering a healthy work/life balance and not becoming consumed with resentment every time your shitty desk chair breaks. But is it possible that some of these perks aren’t all they’re cracked up to be?

Unlimited Vacation Days

One of the most frequently touted startup perks is the unlimited vacation day policy, under which, instead of receiving a finite amount of vacation days, employees are allowed to take however much vacation they want ... as long as they work super hard the rest of the year. It seems too good to be true: having the option to take three weeks off at a time to jet around Europe? Fabulous. And all sizes of company offer this perk: Adobe, Gilt Groupe and Tumblr are just a few that come to mind.

But some reports have shown that when people have unlimited vacation days, they actually end up taking less time off. Without a finite amount of days to use--think "Oh, it's December, better use my extra vacay days!"--employees are often unsure of what's the appropriate amount of time to take off.

As The Wall Street Journal wrote last year:

Some employers promote this as liberating, saying their workplaces are so flexible that old-fashioned constraints such as assigned time off aren't needed. But others say the lack of guidelines fuels a tendency to work all the time ... Americans have trouble taking time off even when they are assigned a specific number of days. Only 38% of U.S. employees use all their allotted vacation time, says a 2010 survey of 9,000 people by travel-booking company Expedia.com; the average worker took only 14 of 18 days permitted.

In 2011, Evernote--a startup based in San Francisco--began literally paying its employees to go on vacation. As soon as the company switched to an unlimited vacation day policy, "The first thing we noticed when we did it was that some people started taking less vacation," chief executive Phil Libin told Businessweek last year. In order to correct this, Evernote began giving employees $1,000 every time they took a weeklong vacation.

For many startups, encouraging employees to take the vacation they deserve often starts at the top. "It's all about creating a culture of flexibility so people feel O.K. taking advantage of it," said Kara Rota, director of editorial and partnerships at Cookstr, which boasts Tipping Point Partners as an institutional cofounder. "I think it’s the responsibility of people in executive and management positions to role model it and be very vocal about the things they have going on outside of work."

Unlimited Snacks

On a recent trip to the Vimeo offices in the soaring IAC building, Betabeat was asked upon arrival whether we'd like to indulge in some delicious snacks. The kitchen, situated right where you get off the elevator, was stocked with every kind of treat you could imagine: candy, cookies and other sweet things were tucked into one side of the island, while chips, crackers and salty items invaded the other side. It was a snacker's delight.

But there are downsides to all this food: for one, it can keep you from ever having to leave your desk for a lunch break. Even big corporations like Bloomberg LLP employ this strategy. As a Vanity Fair profile of Bloomberg pointed out, staffers there were "taken care of," but, as one employee put it, "The free junk food was great but it was there to keep us from going out for coffee."

There's also an important health aspect. Even if your startup stocks healthier snacks like fresh fruit and unsalted nuts, there's a chance that you'll eat more than you want to just because food is around.

"Your proximity to food has a huge impact on whether or not you're thinking about food," said Richard Talens, the cofounder of Fitocracy, a fitness social network. "This in turn impacts your desire to eat. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs have a scarcity mentality when it comes to food, especially free food. If they see that there's free calories lying around, they will likely prefer to go for that rather than paying for a lunch."

Mr. Talens said that in order to eradicate mindless snacking, the Fitocracy office doesn't stock snacks.

"There are no snacks per se at Fitocracy," he told Betabeat by email. "As a company, we're not big snackers, to be honest ... quite the opposite. Most people at Fitocracy try to remain within a caloric range on most days and we have the same philosophy: we'd much rather eat a few larger meals than snack constantly throughout the day."

If you can't convince your company to get rid of the M&Ms, Mr. Talens also advised how to hit the gym on the cheap. "Try to bargain with your local fitness club to see if you can get an employee discount for everyone," he suggested.

Food can be an important way to bring people together, though. "We provide a breakfast spread every Monday," Ms. Rota said. "It’s a good opportunity for people to check in at the beginning of the week and to have a good boost socially. It's important culturally and has an opportunity to let people sort of connect with each other in another way."

Working From Home

Allowing employees to work from home is a common perk, but frequently--if the office culture doesn't encourage it--it's one that can easily fall by the wayside.

"People used to do it, but then at some point it just became standard to work from the office, and now you can't really work from home unless you really need to (cable guy, doctor's appointment, whatever)," said one person employed at a well-known New York startup, who asked not to be named.

Different people work in different ways, whether it be collaborative--through activities like pair programming--or solitary. Different tasks also require various work methods. At the Cookstr offices, Ms. Rota said that there are couches and conference rooms set up for group work, while other employees prefer to work from their own private desks. She also argues that removing the emphasis from hours spent working at your desk can help employees flourish.

"A culture that is focused with how many hours you’re sitting at your desk puts the focus on the wrong place," she added. "It’s an artificial definition of what work looks like."

In the end, fostering a culture where employees feel comfortable to take advantage of the perks so many recruiters promote is key to maintaining a happy and productive office environment.

"It really is about setting a precedent to make people feel comfortable with alternative work styles," she advised. "If you’re an intern, or new, or if you’re not an executive leader, you’re not going to feel comfortable being the one person taking advantage of the work from home policy. But if there’s a real culture of that, and you trust in your coworkers that they're doing the things that they need to be doing, then there's really no concern about it."

(Photo: Amanda Peyton, Twitter)

Graffiti-like ads for Microsoft's new Surface tablet have been cropping up on the sides of buildings across New York, according to The Verge. Sadly, they do not feature the mug of $MSFT CEO Steve Ballmer splashed in pop art colors in a Che Guevara-esque pose.

Instead, they're simple, boxy renderings with the term "SURFACE" imprinted in bold. Microsoft refused to confirm or deny to The Verge whether or not the ads are actually sponsored by the company, but considering previous guerilla marketing tactics for products like MSN, we're sure they're in on it somehow. We also somehow doubt an enterprising graffiti artist has suddenly decided to chronicle his affinity for a technology company that peaked while he was in elementary school.

Wonder what Mayor Bloomberg will have to say? He's tech friendly, but surely he can't be that tech friendly.

Artist's rendering. (Image: Cornell University)

The starchitect-designed Roosevelt Island campus won't be ready 'til sometime in 2017, but that doesn't mean the embryonic staff of Cornell NYC Tech plans to sit around for the next half decade, twiddling their thumbs. A rolling stone gathers no moss! Time and tide wait for no man! Haven't you heard there's a tech talent crisis on?

Today Cornell University (with Mayor Bloomberg, naturally) announced that applications are now being accepted for the "beta class" of the school's one-year Master of Engineering in computer science program. Classes commence in January 2013, in space borrowed from Google. So if you've been kicking the tires on a graduate degree, today could very well be your moment of glory. 

Mayor Bloomberg got a little cliche in his excitement:

“There’s simply no better place to further your education and launch your career than New York City. Getting in won’t be easy, but if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”

God willing, this was followed by a rousing display of jazz hands.

However, before you say "what the hell" and submit some half-assed, tossed-off paperwork, know that Cornell has no intention of priming the pump with lax admission standards. The announcement takes pains to point out that this first class will be "small and highly selective." And a gander at the information for potential applicants suggest that a bit of Code Academy and a couple of courses at General Assembly probably aren't going to cut it:

Successful applicants to Cornell NYC Tech should have excellent academic credentials and strong entrepreneurial interests, leadership skills and a passion for community engagement.  A bachelor’s degree (BA, BS, BE) in computer science or a related technical field is required except in exceptional cases.  All applicants, regardless of their undergraduate degree, should have taken courses on programming, discrete structures, architecture and operating systems.

And judging from the remarks of Daniel Huttenlocher, Dean of the tech campus, the expectations don't stop there:

“Candidates for the beta class must be future tech leaders, with not only the highest academic credentials but also strong entrepreneurial interests, leadership skills and a passion for community engagement.”

Applications are due October 1, so anyone who wants in better start frantically emailing potential recommenders right this minute.

Too sexy for this startup?

OnSwipe's Jason Baptiste better watch his back!

As the promo reel for TechStars new reality show make clear, Bloomberg producers are trying to frame one startup as a "winner" from the inaugural New York class for the live series finale in October based on whoever picks up the most funding. "One will score a $5 miiillion dollar check!” intones the announcer moments after we see Jason Baptiste cracking his neck in preparation for Demo Day. OnSwipe, of course, already scored a $5 million "Series Awesome" round in June.

But today's announcement that CrowdTwist, a startup that uses game mechanics to encourage brand loyalty and rewards programs, picked up $6 million in funding from SoftBank Capital, Fairhaven Capital, and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (LiveNation, Sony Music, and Kelly Clarkson have used the service) may have just thrown production for a loop.

This is good news for CrowdTwist co-founder and CEO Irving Fain, who told Betabeat last week, "I guess revenue isn’t sexy enough for Bloomberg," after watching his scenes end up on the cutting room floor.

But based on a conversation @benpopper overheard at last week's premiere party in the West Village, it's possible Mr. Baptiste isn't going to give up that easily. Mr. Baptiste was talking to Bloomberg News producer Elizabeth Gould. "Six is the number to beat?" he asked, which we assume refers to CrowdTwist's $6 million. Ms. Gould affirmed. Anyone else looking to get more screen time might want to keep that number in mind.