Representatives from Shindig, Skillcrush and Appguppy answer questions about their products.

Crowded into NYU’s Skirball center, the New York tech world got one step closer to developing Skynet Tuesday night at the monthly New York Tech Meetup, just one day after NYTM reached the 25,000 member mark.

“What I fell in love with was the community. I had not really had any tech in my background at all, and yet felt totally at home here,” gushed Jessica Lawrence, the managing director of NYTM, as she announced their membership accomplishments to cheers from the boisterous crowd.

Perhaps of more relevance to the future of our society—Jonathan Gottfried, a developer evangelist at Twilio, did a live demonstration of the TwilioBot 3000, a possible predecessor of assassin cyborgs. Mr. Gottfried was able to control the TwilioBot with his phone, sending it commands by typing numbers on his keypad … until he accidentally hung up on the TwilioBot.

But the robot didn’t drive off the stage, and Mr. Gottfried was able to answer a few questions about the bot, including a dreaded revenue inquiry. “I feel like I won’t need venture capital once my robot minions have taken over the world,” he responded, eliciting laughter from the tech savvy audience.

Vook and Appguppy Mobile also demoed during the evening, two platforms that allow you to respectively create your own ebook or your own mobile app in a matter of minutes.

Appguppy, founded by Anu Nadkarni, Raj Dandage and Ash Nadkarni, lets you make an app about your favorite topic: yourself! The service lets you integrate your personal webpage and social media presence--say tweets about a concert date if you're a singer. Watch out Apple, because Appguppy bypasses app stores and allows users to sell their all-about-me app to iPhone and Android-using friends directly through Facebook and Twitter. “Now your friends can be obsessed with you on your phones,” Ms. Nadkarni said.

In the same DIY spirit, Vook simplifies the process of designing and marketing an eBook, a process that Matthew Cavnar, the vice president of business development for Vook, insisted was unnecessarily painful.  Using the platform, you can quickly move and resize images (something that could usually take days according to Mr. Cavnar) and even insert those big, swirly letters that start chapters in all the important books. Once completed, users can sell their eBooks through iBook, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Vook’s website, and violá, you have self-published your no doubt fascinating memoir.  (Warning: don't bother trying to pretend you wrote The Bell Jar; Vook does have a quick screening process for the eBooks.)

Other notable presenters included Dashlane, Consmr and Instinct. Dashlane makes it much easier to spend your entire trust fund on Amazon by saving website passwords, emails, address and credit card information in a central location. So, instead of having to spend 15 minutes filling in the same information at every online checkout, the platform will automatically input your card number and billing information into online forms. For all you conspiracy theorists, the saved information is encrypted and can only be unencrypted with a special master password, a feature that pleased the many perpetually paranoid NYTM attendees. Dashlane does not keep any database of these passwords, only the users know them, so even if authorities subpoena the company, they would only have access to encrypted data. Dashlane: 1, Evil Government Masterminds: 0.

Consmr, which actually previously demoed at the NYTM about a year and a half ago as a website, is a smartphone app that also simplifies shopping, though in actual stores, by allowing users to scan barcodes and then see reviews of the product and alternative suggestions. Users can also look up top-rated products in certain fields, such as hair products for curly-hair.

Though Ryan Charles, the CEO of Consmr, struggled a bit with scanning the barcode on a box of Triscuits, the app does feature over 100,000 reviews. The platform will also soon be including nutrition information about food products. To underscore the brilliance of the design, Mr. Charles showed the crowd the page for a box of Trojan condoms. The top review: “Well, she didn’t get pregnant.”

Instinct, a real-life Guitar Hero-type app that teaches you to play the instrument, was a crowd favorite. Co-founder Brian Stoner practiced playing riffs as the audience clapped along. The website uses the computer’s microphone to detect the notes being played and indicate to the user whether they are hitting the correct notes. At the end of the lesson, users can show off their skills to a panel of three avatar judges. Mr. Stoner received a six, nine and seven from the judges for his lovely performance.

Shindig, a Skype-like platform that allows for more users and more complex interactions, Skillcrush, a tech education blog for anyone who has ever wondered what the hell an API or python is, Social Bycicles, which is pretty much a bicycle with a computer in it and Jirafe, a marketing tool, also demoed during the evening.

Ms. Perdomo (via meetup.com)

Password management app Dashlane is now ready for prime time, emerging from an invite-only beta phase preceded by super-secret stealth mode. And they’d like to pitch you on a solution for your no-good, very bad password practices.

When Betabeat last spoke to Dashlane back in September, the Paris-born startup had just done a $5 million round led by FirstMark Capital and Rho Ventures, and they’d relocated to Silicon Alley. But mum was the word on just how they planned to address the problem of online identity management.

Now they’ve emerged with a “personal data assistant,” a solution that aims to hit the sweet spot between massive convenience of a single password with the desire to avoid a complete online identity disaster. The Dashlane app stores sensitive data from account credentials to credit card numbers behind one master password. It can then do things like auto-fill signup forms and, more importantly, generate stronger passwords.

No one--not even Dashlane--can access a user’s master password, which is what makes it so secure. But there’s a major downside for the forgetful: If you lose your password, it’s tough shit for you, because there’s no recovery process. You'll have to start all over again.

Reached for comment via email, Dashlane director of marketing Daniela Perdomo spoke at length about the company's commitment to this hands-off approach to customer data:

The traditional Silicon Valley personal data model asks users to give them all their personal data so they can make the Internet better for them. What we're saying is quite different. We tell our users, keep your data. We'll just help you organize it and use it, but you stay in complete control of it. Indeed, we can't even access your personal data! We built our technology this way and we're proud of it. We're committed to proving that this is not only a sound moral practice, but a sustainable business strategy as well.

Later, arguing that this principle is one of Dashlane's competitive advantages, she was even more pointed: "We truly believe that the way that most tech companies currently approach their users' personal data is wrong and unsustainable."

Now that the app is out there, Dashlane hopes to iterate quickly, with a new version every three weeks. They've also got iOS and Android apps in the works for "very soon."

Mr. Abehassera.

We won't attempt to spell the way Ilan Abehassera pronounces the word "entrepreneur." It's as elaborate, grand and guttural as you'd expect from a French native, but you can tell he's holding back a bit, Americanizing the consonants and clipping his vowels just slightly. It's probably unconscious; the entrepreneur has been in the U.S. for eight years, most of them in New York. "NYC Entrepreneur" is the title of his website. He is the founder and CEO of productivity suite Producteev.

It's funny, the tech industry is so obsessed with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. "I'm an entrepreneur," says Justin Timberlake in the Social Network, with a cocky half-smile, as he pulls a shirt over his head after bagging a Stanford hottie. It's a favorite descriptor in Twitter bios and LinkedIn pages. Lately, nothing is sexier than "an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative."

We forgot it was a French word, we admitted. Mr. Abehassera laughed. "I don't know why though, because you have much better entrepreneurs than in France," he said.

We reached the founder by phone this morning to chat about the French startup scene which he says is taking root in New York. Besides superstar Fabrice Grinda, the ubiquitous imp who made a name for himself by launching cookie cutter versions of U.S. startups (eBay, Craigslist) in Europe, there are a number of French entrepreneurs in the city, Mr. Abehassera said. "Not many have taken notice but NYC has indeed become de rigueur with us French tech geek entrepreneurs," he wrote in an email.

"France is not a country where they really promote entrepreneurship," he explained. "From an administrative standpoint, starting a company in France, it takes a month and a half. Here it's like 20 minutes online."

There are other barriers, he said, including high taxes, a small pool of hiring talent, and restrictive rules. "It's impossible to fire someone," he said. "If you don't get along with someone you just hired and it's often the case, there is no way you can let him go. He will tell you basically, 'I will stop working, I will leave every day at 5 p.m.,' and you can't have nothing to do. If you fire him, he will put you to court and he will win."

Employees can't be fired unless they've done something really serious or criminal, he said. It's a great country for employees, but not so great for new companies.

"It's not a country for entrepreneurs," he said. "You do have innovation, but like, just name one French startup that you know. You can't! Some of them have made it in the U.S., like Netvibes and a couple ad tech companies."

Fred Wilson has observed the same. "Entrepreneurship is a French word and modern day venture capital was invented by a Frenchman named George Doriot," he wrote in 2008. "If you don’t know about Doriot, you haven’t been reading this blog recently. But even though the French have a historical connection to entrepreneurship and venture capital, the French economy and society doesn’t seem to be particularly supportive of entrepreneurship."

And so the French are coming to New York. It's closer to France than Silicon Valley, and they like the city. "In addition to Producteev, FreshPlanet, Dashlane and Totsy are a few other examples of Paris-originals that are benefiting from the local tech community," Mr. Abehassera said in an email. "FreshPlanet’s founder relocated from Paris a few years ago, and is quickly becoming a young social gaming darling. Totsy is another example. They are a member-only private sale site for moms and kids products—and one of Forbes 2011 Most Promising Companies. Dashlane just got funding from NYC-based VC and is looking for office space to hang a shingle in NYC."

Dashlane is currently shacking up with Producteev in Chelsea, he said.

And Mr. Abehassera is doing what he can to make the newcomers feel welcome. "In the past couple of months, I've received way more inbound meeting requests from French people than ever before," he said. "One to five emails a week from people I don't know who are coming to New York and want to meet. I had way less before. Now I need to say no once in a while."

He co-hosts a weekly show about French startups in the U.S. for the tech blog French Web, and he and four other French entrepreneurs are organizing "something we call the New York French Geeks." It takes place on the first Wednesday of the month at Bubble Lounge in Tribeca with "Francophiles or French people" in the startup scene.

Managing Director Lawrence Lenihan (via firstmarkcap.com)

Guess nobody polled FirstMark Capital for that recent survey about pessimism around the venture capital market for 2012. While their peers report dwindling faith in their ability to raise funds to invest, FirstMark reported yesterday that it had closed an oversubscribed $225 million early-stage fund.

Perhaps that's why the New York-based venture capital firm opted for a subtle announcement: a blog post that, by the looks of it, has only been picked up by the New York Post and the Dow Jones Wire.

The new fund, called FirstMark V, is larger than the firm's previous $200 million fund, which boasted a big exit with Riot Games, sold to the Chinese firm Tencent this year for $400 million. Judging by some of the other promising companies in the fund like SecondMarket and Knewton, there's likely to be more good news of the way for FirstMark.

Pinterest, for example, which is hot on Tumblr's heels and already cozy with brands like Nordstrom and the Travel Channel, recently closed a $25 million round from Andreessen Horowitz at a $200 million valuation. ($200 million valuations for early stage companies seem to be something of an Andreessen Horowitz specialty.)

According to DowJones:

"The new fund will operate under the same investment thesis--it will be the first money into companies working on the application layer of the Internet, and usually companies with a New York connection. The fund will be managed by the same team, which consists of four managing directors and five venture partners."

FirstMark V has already made five investments: Greenphire (e-payments), LollyWollyDoodle (personalized kids clothing), NewsCred (a premium newswire), Dashlane (an app that improves speed and security online) and Meteor.

In the fund announcement, FirstMark waived its Silicon Alley flag high:

"We will also continue our tireless support of the NYC ecosystem. We think it's one of the best places in the world to build a company and getting stronger each day due to the efforts of many of you. This year, we co-chaired the Ingenuity conference to showcase the best companies in NYC, successfully helped launch the NYC Turing Fellows to bring more engineers to the City, taught and encouraged NYU undergrads to become entrepreneurs and join startups, invested in and mentored at TechStars, spoke and spent time at General Assembly, sponsored numerous conferences and events, and tried to make a real impact in building a vibrant local community. We will continue the mission!"

Faster than a speeding deer

Emmanuel Schalit has lived in New York, Boston, San Francisco and Paris. A software engineer by training, he left the world of development more than a decade ago to help run M&A for Vivendi Universal, spearheaded the online gaming division for Activision and held various roles at traditional media companies looking to get hip with the web. But the startup bug kept biting him, and eventually Mr. Schalit decided to try his hand at creating a product again.

His new venture, Dashlane, hopes to revolutionize the process of signing up, logging in and checking out on the web. "You would never walk into a brick and mortar store, find and item to buy, then spend fifteen minutes detailing your personal information just so you could make a purchase," Mr. Schalit told Betabeat over Skype from Paris. "We're looking to eliminate that friction online as well."

Mr. Schalit would not reveal how Dashlane plans to fix the problem of online identity, and its a puzzle that big names like Facebook and Google are working hard to solve themselves. But when it comes to issues of geography, the man clearly has the right idea.

Dashlane just announced a $5 million round from FirstMark Capital and Rho Ventures, but its not just raising money in New York, the company is also moving its headquarters to Silicon Alley. "I've spent time in all the American tech hubs, and New York is clearly catching up with Silicon Valley very fast," said Mr. Schalit. "In fact I think, if you're looking to build a consumer internet company, New York is the better bet. You have access to all the same resources, but you're not competing with giants like Facebook and Twitter for engineering talent."