(Photo: AlanLevenson.com)

In a stunning gesture of support for EXCLUSIVE airplane journalism, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is leading a $5 million round in Business Insider, the web property helmed by Henry Blodget. The news comes following a detailed New Yorker profile of Mr. Blodget, who launched Business Insider after being banned from the securities industry for civil securities fraud.

An internal memo published on Business Insider (natch) written by Mr. Blodget says that the company is raising $5 million, with Mr. Bezos chipping in "a significant investment." The fresh capital brings Business Insider's total amount raised to $18.3 million.

"This capital will allow us to continue to invest aggressively in many areas of the business, including editorial, tech/product, sales and marketing, subscriptions, and events," Mr. Blodget wrote. "As we mentioned last night, it will also allow us to expand our office."

The raise comes at a time when the company is reportedly losing money, though Mr. Blodget has pegged its $3 million loss in 2012 as an "investment." According to Paid Content:

TBI chairman Kevin Ryan says the company will do $11 million this year (last summer someone told the WSJ the company would do $12 million in 2012); he says the site has only spent $7 million of the $13 million it has raised.

Though Comscore pegs the site’s traffic at 9 million, Blodget tells Auletta that his Google Analytics numbers are at 24 million unique monthly users, many of whom come from outside the U.S.

AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka notes that since the New Yorker profile was published on Monday, BI’s revenue projections jumped--sorry, JUMPED--from $11 million to $15 million.

Mr. Blodget has a history with Amazon. He originally rose to fame in 1998 by accurately predicting a price target of $400 in Amazon stock, which eventually led to his hiring at Merrill Lynch.

The investment will likely increase the number of stated disclosures for BI writers covering Amazon products or services, as well as Mr. Bezos' other investments. But the editorial side must be accustomed to negotiating that ethical line, as it already counts powerhouses like Marc Andreessen and Allen & Company as investors. And the writers there don't seem to mind adding another one to the list. "Do you really think I'm going to care what some billionaire thinks about my Kindle whatever review?" tweeted Silicon Alley Insider editor Steve Kovach.

YO. (Photo: TechCrunch )

File this one under 'second acts in American lives': This week, Business Insider honcho Henry Blodget gets the New Yorker treatment (subscription only, you cheap bastards), with a profile by none other than the bold-faced Ken Auletta. Sure, he's still banned for life from the securities business (for now!), but being written up by Mr. Auletta ain't too bad as a life consolation prize.

In Mr. Auletta's estimation, the media mogul comes across like a bit of huckster. Take, for example, his spiritual presence in the newsroom: “When he talks, his arms swing and his voice rises, conveying the enthusiasm of an evangelist." Early employee Peter Kafka came to a similar conclusion:  "He’s an excellent communicator," adding, "He has a great Barnum in him."

Ringmasters may bring the crowds, but you don't want to end up with a briefcase full of snake oil, either:

"A senior Wall Street executive, asked if he trusted Blodget, said, 'Of course not. This doesn't mean he can't have good ideas. But he's a promoter.'"

You don't say!

Mr. Auletta even lends his considerable powers of analysis to explain that absurd "I Rode in a Big Metal Sky Bird!" post:

"The post is consistent with a conscious decision that Blodget says he made at the outset 'to put the fun back in business' by making light of people in the news and of himself. 'If we see something is funny, we don't wait to see if the Pulitzer Committee likes it,' he said. 'We post it.'"

Mr. Auletta boils the company down to its essence: "If Bloomberg and Fleshbot had an illegitimate child, it might look something like Business Insider."

Unfortunately, all that song and dance isn't enough to turn Business Insider into a money-printing enterprise just yet, but you can't have everything. According to the piece, Business Insider lost $3 million in 2012, though Mr. Blodget later added on Twitter that the company turned a small profit in Q1. (He also insisted that $3 million was an "investment," not a loss.)

The company's chairman, the ubiquitous Kevin Ryan, blames the loss on aggressive expansion and says the company will do $11 million this year in revenue this year. Mr. Ryan admitted, though: "That's tiny. Ad rates are low. It's tough to monetize."

Still, we like to imagine William Randolph Hearst looking down with a gleam in his eye and a whisper: "Attaboy."

(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.

No fair distracting us with cattitude. (Photo: Vanity Fair)

Late last night, Twitter tongues wagged as to whether Groupon's goofy CEO Andrew Mason would actually show up for his scheduled appearance at Business Insider's Ignition conference in New York, especially after his name disappeared from the agenda.

"He has been off most relevant agendas for quite some time. The exception, of course, is the SEC watch list," Interview Circuit founder Jon Sterling quipped, referencing the beleaguered company's repeated run-ins with the commission (most recently over revenue details from its new business lines and questions about the daily deal site's financial revision this spring.)

Mr. Mason's presence seemed even less likely after scoop master general Kara Swisher trotted out sources who claimed discussions were underway about "making major leadership changes" at Groupon, "including bringing in a more experienced CEO to take over for co-founder Andrew Mason."

We thought for sure that would send Mr. Mason on a flight back to Chicago, and so did Business Insider, until they got the good news:

On the contrary, we got a call from Mason's team saying, in effect, "Well, now you have an interesting first question."

We're not sure how loosely to interpret that "in effect." Perhaps it was more like: Go ahead and try to get something out of him?

Regardless, there's one particular bit from Ms. Swisher's report about the company needing its own Eric Schmidt that we hope gets addressed. Is the problem really with Mr. Mason or Groupon's meandering business model?

We'll use this as an artist's rendering. (Photo: flickr.com/lac-bac)

Silicon Alley Smackdown One of the many tech events on rain delay because of Hurricane Sandy was the Big Apple Smackdown ping pong tournament, whose guest list included an impressive number of familiar names from the New York tech scene. (Betabeat is one of the media sponsors, so we may be a little biased.) Among the techno-athletes scheduled to play was Gilt Groupe CEO--and soon-to-be Gilt Groupe chairman--Kevin Ryan. Apparently, we missed quite a show.

The tournament was scheduled for Sunday, "and I played on Friday and on Sunday just to get ready for it!" Mr. Ryan told Betabeat. Really? "Oh yeah, because I won a tournament about a month ago." That was an invitation-only affair for ping pong ringers at the Hamptons manse of ABC Carpet & Home's Ken Pilot. "You had to put $100 into the pot and the winner got two-thirds of the pot, so I was pretty excited about that," Mr. Ryan enthused.

Mad that Sandy ruined your chance to see him action? You can drown your sorrows at Appular's F#@K SANDY event this coming Thursday and throw one back for a good cause.

Make It or Break It Start-Ups: Silicon Valley glamazon Kim Taylor finally has a name for her soon-to-launch startup, and being the gymnast that she is, she's named it after a move from Yelena Shushunova’s floor routine. The former NBA dancer will launch Shonova this winter, targeting the "millennial luxury fashion market," because you can never have too many websites dedicated to selling expensive clothes to young professional women.

LOLfamous Speaking of Bravo, it appears that I Can Has Cheezburger founder Ben Huh is starstruck by himself. Following the premiere of his new Bravo show, LOLwork, Mr. Huh tweeted a link to his freshly-minted IMDB profile with the caption "So...this happened." Don't let the fame get to your head!

And the techno's so loud USV ringleader and hometown hero Fred Wilson is wheels up and L.A.-bound today. However, his wife--Gotham Gal and investor-in-her-own-right Joanne Wilson--booked the tickets, and so he's not flying his preferred airline. Instead, he's flying Virgin, which is not his preferred airline and for a very specific reason: "I find flying on Virgin like going to a nightclub because of the lighting and I avoid it as a result." We always suspected Mr. Wilson was more of an indie music club kinda guy, and this cinches it.

"Executive scent" It seems that, after several years of "sifting through the crap," Team Thrillist has finally found the platonic ideal of brochandising. Behold:

Via Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer's Instagram.

So saucy Betabeat hates to clutch her collective pearls, but my goodness! Who knew the crowd at AllThingsD were quite so naughty? (Okay, we had an inkling.) Earlier this week, ATD doyenne Kara Swisher tweeted out the link to a colleague's story, which had the headline, "Meet the Man Behind Those Hot Pink Mustache Rides." Catalyst Group CEO Nick Gould immediately gave that the side-eye, noting that he "Can't help wondering if @lizgannes is aware of the off-color meaning of the term "mustache ride." Ms. Swisher didn't miss a beat: "i mean I ASSUME she is. I am." Duly noted.

Digging up history The Computer History Museum, located in Mountain View, California, is kind of like mecca for tech geeks. Contained within its hallowed walls are artifacts that tell the history of computers and videogames. Among those artifacts, apparently, is a copy of Windows 1.0, originally owned by Digg founder Kevin Rose. "My copy of Windows 1.0 on display!" Mr. Rose wrote in a caption for the below photo. A nerd's dream come true.

(Photo: Instagram)

Map-maker, Map-maker, Build Me a Map! If Tim Cook's mea culpa wasn't enough to demonstrate how hard Apple is scrambling to fix its iOS 6 mapocalypse, then how about its last ditch recruiting techniques to find Ruby developers? Mojo Talantikite, a cluster engineer at Engine Yard in New York City, said he (and a number of his technically talented friends) have been hit up by Apple recruiters recently.

The recruiter's LinkedIn inquiry mentions "Maps" specifically:

"We are looking for a passionate Ruby coder to have a HUGE impact our Maps, Flyover, Geo and Siri teams in iOS. I've read about your work on Heroku's infrastructure. Is it a good time for you to chat?"

My, What Colorful Balls You Have Startup perks tend to veer toward the infantile. Between the snacks, slides, and nap pods, managers might as well try to wipe your nose when you sneeze. But newly-married Elepath founder Jakob Lodwick actually committed, procuring the ball pool of your childhood dreams for Elepath's San Francisco "studio." At least that's what we thought based on his recent Instagram offering. However, on closer inspection, an antimated gif from Elepath's blog reveals the ball pool is less Chuck E. Cheese and more kiddie pool. Things on the Internet, it seems, may be smaller than they appear.

Cussing For a Cause Last week Tech4Obama hosted an evening in New York with serial entrepreneur and current CTO for Obama for America Harper Reed. Next to the guest list--heavily studded with Silicon Alley stalwarts like Soraya Darabi, Rachel Sklar, and Betaworks' Andrew McLaughlin and investor Pedro Torres Picon--the invitation loudly warned "THIS EVENT IS CLOSED TO PRESS." Now we know why. Apparently the bearded Mr. Reed has quite the mouth on him. But doesn't he know reporters love that shit?

Colorblind We're still not really sure what Color was launched to do, but it got $40 million in funding to do it. The app subsequently became the archetypal overfunded startup representing tech's hype bubble (even inspiring a fake pitch deck!). Color treaded in the wave pool for a bit before pivoting to a new idea altogether.

Now, TechCrunch reports that Color may be experiencing an executive level shakeup, with sources saying CEO Bill Nguyen will be taking a step back from from day-to-day operations at the flailing company. In his stead, an "executive committee" has been assembled to take over his responsibilities.

Mr. Nguyen apparently hasn't shown up to the office in two months, leading sources to conjecture that he's "probably either in Tahoe or Hawaii.” (Ugh.) An ominous Quora post from January of this year wondered why Color had shuttered its Palo Alto office, but CNET journalist Casey Newton responded that the company said they'd "hung some paper up to cover its windows while they do some work inside." Hmm, engineers do have some weird working habits.

Of course, a question about why Mr. Nguyen left Color immediately cropped up on Quora and was quickly answered with a cringe-worthy response. "After the disastrous pivot from the initial (fairly brilliant, but poorly implemented) photo sharing concept, it was really only a matter of 'Nguyen, not if'."

Sigh.

Digging K-Pop Looks like Digg cofounder Kevin Rose is officially a fan of the "Gangnam Style" hype. Mr. Rose posted a photo on his Instagram of a little bobble head Psy doing the infamous horse dance, sharing a photo of his Psy laptop decal shortly after. Try to ignore the awkward comment about "open condom style," below.

(Photo: Instagram)

Business Tattler Henry Blodget proudly outed Verge's editor-in-chief today, tweeting, "Josh Topolsky reads Business Insider!" But the real question is: does he hate read it?

As always: Overheard a juicy tidbit about impending departures or imminent acquisitions? Dying to dish about startup blunders or frothy financing? Holler at your girls: tips@betabeat.com

(Photo: Top News)

Marissa Mayer is reportedly getting straight to work Googlifying Yahoo. She officially made the food in the Valley HQ free again, much to the delight of the company's starving engineers. [AllThingsD]

Speaking of Ms. Mayer, Dave McClure thinks she should focus on transforming Yahoo into a female-oriented company. Unfortunately, he called his blog post on the idea, "Pink is the new Purple." [500 Hats]

Craigslist is stifling innovation by suing PadMapper. [New York Times]

Companies actually listen to your online reviews. Rejoice, asshole Yelpers! [Wall Street Journal]

Presented without comment: "Mr. Blodget now presides over Business Insider from a makeshift standing desk in the middle of a 50-person newsroom in New York, where he barks questions ("Is it cool?" "Can we clip that video?") at his reporters." [WSJ]

The new Behance

HOP SCOTCH. New York City based Next Jump, a company that strives to better match consumers with businesses, has raised over $500,000 to bring technology into more than 750 classrooms. The campaign, which started late last year, funds projects submitted through DonorsChoose by shoppers on OO.com, Next Jump's discounts and deals website. The initiative has already impacted the lives of 85,000 NYC students, most of them in needy public schools.

TARGET MARKET. PeerIndex, the social influence marketing platform, has raised nearly $3 million in Series A funding led by Antrak Capital. NYC resident and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer also invested in the round. PeerIndex, whose CTO is New York tech evangelist Sanford Dickert,  seeks to identify "influential individuals" on social media and "facilitates sampling interactions between brands and these influencers." Sounds effective—but kind of creepy.

TECHATHON. "April's" New York Tech Meetup is on March 27 at NYU's Skirball Auditorium with News.me, The Birdy, SpotlessCity and HotM-FakeGirlfriend.co confirmed to demo. The event will once again be streamed to New Work City and General Assemb.ly. Get your tickets here.

REHANCE. Behance relaunched yesterday and, boy does it look good. Now users will be greeted with a new landing page and an "explore" tab that allows users to filter their search based on medium, equipment used, creative field and location. Of course, they've also added a Facebookesque "activity feed" where other people in the Behance network can share and curate other work they like. With the goal of removing obstacles between artists and projects, the Behance platform aims to make showcasing and promoting creative work easier and more efficient. It allows for syndication and integration into ProSite, a Behance owned custom portfolio building platform.

SELL, SELL, SELL. Fab really doesn't need any more publicity—the company announced their three million member milestone at the London Web Summit—but we thought we should at least point this out: in under nine months, Fab has sold a million items. That breaks down to 2.6 sales a minute.

START 'ER UP. Business Insider's Startup 2012 Competition is coming up on May 3. Ten lucky startups will present to a VC panel for a chance to win $25,000 in cash and $50,000 in services. Applications close March 30.

CRAIN BRAIN. Do you know of a business that's over three years old with less than $100 million in the bank? If so, it's eligible for Crain's New York Business Top Entrepreneurs competition. The winner will appear in a May issue of Crain's. Enter your favorite (or your own) startup here by March 23.

DATA RESTRAINT. As a part of its Data Transparency Week, the Wall Street Journal is inviting developers to a code-a-thon to create "web tools that promote data transparency and control." Entry is free and $500 travel stipends are available, but the event is "open only to qualified participants," so if you don't know your   from your href just stay home. The event is April 13-15. For more information and to apply, click here.

TURN YOUR HEAD AND CASH. Startup accelerator Blueprint Health wants to help entrepreneurs improve the wellness industry with a three-month long startup bootcamp program and $20,000 of seed capital. Qualifying startups will have access to a shared work space, mentorship and angel and VC investors. Apply by June 8 here.

PUTTING UP WALLS. Banters, the platform devoted to saving life's quotable moments, just rolled out the site's newest feature: walls. Just like Facebook, Banters walls allow anyone to contribute but privacy controls give the user the option to approve quotes before they're made public.

ADAPTING. Mike Finnegan is the new VP of client services at social media ad company Adaptly, which handles social media for PepsiCo and News Corp. among others.

SAGE WORKS YOU. Sageworks is currently hiring for a number of positions including senior software engineer and, media relations associate, junior software developer and network engineer. Check out all the available jobs here.

An entire slide devoted to the buzzer outside the CrowdTwist office? YES OBVIOUSLY I MUST MAKE CLICKS AT THAT. Art-y close-up of a lonesome slab of reclaimed wood at Refinery 29? OH PHEW STILL 35 MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM. Due to our inability to compete, Betabeat has gotten out of the office game altogether.

Business Insider's latest offering, a near-anemic 22-slide look at LinkedIn's offices on the 25th floor of the Empire State Building is no less compelling. But as any "Office Tour" aficionado will tell you, the real pleasure is in the slideshow captions, which achieve an almost poetic quality in their extreme plain-spokeness. Take, for example: "The windows are dirty because it's difficult to clean them when you're 25 floors in the air" or our personal favorite, "This coffee machine is gigantic." Try not to give into it, we dare you.

You like my cover letter, bro? (via mmaconvert.com)

Business Insider got an oddball tip this afternoon, in the form of a cover letter for an engineering job in New York City. A firm called Open Source Staffing posted a job listing for a contract-t0-hire API engineer and, according to BI's source, OSS got the this little gem in return.

Dear Open Source Staffing & NYC PHP Meetup Group:

I'm super awesome and have incredible experience compared to this - it
includes the required experience below plus I am trained in MMA
fighting, am the mayor of multiple Chipotles, Starbucks, and locally
famous restaurants in downtown NYC, and I type really fast. You want
to hire me more than anything and you'll be disgusted at how fast and
responsive your API is when I'm done.

You'll have to pay me ridiculous amounts of money but after the job is
done you'll wish you paid me more to stick around because you'll know
whatever company hires me next will destroy yours. It will be worth
it, you'll feel like I just got ripped off every time you write me a
check. Each week you'll feel worse and worse and increase the amount
of money you are paying me until one day you realize there's no amount
of money that could add up to the value of my insanely awesome skills.
It's ok, it happens to everyone.

You're welcome,
David

Apparently all that brogramming braggadocio offended Business Insider's delicate sensibilities. "We sincerely hope [it] was an attempt at humor – and not an attempt to get a job," writes deputy editor Nicholas Carlson.

Funny, we think it's tonally spot on for a startups who like it when you call them "awesome, awesome" and think that "Are you ready for some Javascript, motherfuckers?!!" is an acceptable way to begin your product demo. As long there's some skill set to go along with that ego, we approve. Who wants to read a bunch of  would-be ninja/rockstar coders droning on about their attention to detail?