Colin Hodge. (Photo: Valleywag)

Meet Colin Hodge, the 28-year-old CEBro behind Bang with Friends, the "sex positive brogrammer in search of a viral loop."  [Valleywag]

Digg's CEO described its upcoming Google Reader replacement as "very clean, very simple, and very fast." It's expected to be released at the end of June. [Fast Company]

Nobody knows what’s going on with the acquisition of Waze. It’s now rumored that Google is interested in purchasing the Israeli company. Betabeat might buy it too, who knows. [TechCrunch]

Lyft, the on-demand ridesharing app for normals, raised $60 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. [Business Insider]

A "bookless library" is set to open in Texas offering 100 e-readers for loan if you needed another reason not to move to San Antonio. [Salon]

2 soon 2 say goodbye

It liiives! Digg says a beta version of its Reader replacement will debut in June. The timing makes sense, as Google plans to pull the plug on the original RSS product July 1. The clock is ticking, here. 

Today the team released the results of a second batch of surveys, designed to suss out users' preferences when it comes to features. Almost half of those surveyed said they'd never used Reader's social features (cut in 2011), so don't expect much at launch. But "ultimately we believe that social features which foster connections between readers will be an important part of the Digg experience."

The bad news: It's probably not going to be free. (Come on, you're willing to cough up for Instapaper). From the post:

"Free products on the Internet don’t have a great track record. They tend to disappear, leaving users in a lurch. We need to build a product that people can rely on and trust will always be there for them. We’re not sure how pricing might work, but we do know that we’d like our users to be our customers, not our product. So when we asked survey participants whether or not they would be willing to pay, we were pleased to see that over 40% said yes."

BRB, making a little room in the Betabeat budget.

Mr. Parker. (Photo: Flickr/Le Web)

NYC-based non-incubator Betaworks has acquired a majority stake in the article-bookmarking service Instapaper. Creator Marco Arment wrote on his blog that he will slide into an advising role "indefinitely" as Betaworks oversees operations and expands Instapaper's staff. [PC Mag]

CISPA, the controversial Internet bill, is (probably?) dead. An anonymous source said that "there is no possible plan" to bring it up in the Democratic-controlled Senate because it faces little support from the party. [Daily Dot]

Some big names, like Sean Parker, Steve Ballmer, and Bill Gates, are joining Mark Zuckerberg's political action committee, FWD.us. We would love to be on those brunch-planning emails. [AllThingsD]

Yahoo's Marissa Mayer has joined the board of Jawbone, the hardware maker behind those groovy wireless headsets and speakers. [AllThingsD]

A study of Bitcoin exchanges revealed that 45 percent of them fail, often taking peoples’ money with them. And the exchanges that don't shutter are more likely to be the target of cyber attacks. [Wired]

DON'T GO

As part of its quest to build the perfect Google Reader replacement, Digg is surveying 17,000 people about how they used the service. With 8,000 responses already in, Digg has released some insight into what they've found.

The numbers don't do much to contradict the idea that people who really care are overworked bloggers.

For starters: 40 percent of respondents subscribed to more than 100 feeds, which makes sense. Readers are designed to deal with the proverbial fire hose of news, not a garden hose. 80 percent of respondents check the feed several times a day. (Refresh, refresh, gimme some news!) Digg concludes:

"There is no doubt about it — this is a product for power users, and we’ll need to make sure we have some serious infrastructure in place to support that kind of usage for launch."

Still, there's a chance for Digg to build something of more widespread appeal. More than 75 percent of respondents said they use their Reader for work and play. Work-life balance, achieved. And nearly 20 percent said they use it exclusively for play! (Those folks should probably reconsider how they use their leisure hours.)

In terms of features, Digg promises keyboard shortcuts, but won’t commit to a search button at launch, since 25 percent said they never used it. So far, Feedly is winning the Reader-replacement stakes, bumping up against 40 percent of respondents. Another 40 percent or so still haven't moved to another platform, which Digg interprets as an opportunity.

Until then: There's always Twitter lists.

(Screenshot: Google Reader)

Fretful newshounds and anxious bloggers can stop sitting shiva. Digg, or rather Betaworks' reboot of old Digg, wants to resurrect yet another ailing online mainstay. On its blog this afternoon, the startup announced it would be building a reader to replace the "much-loved, if under-appreciated" Google Reader.

In the post, Andrew McLaughlin, the former vice president of Tumblr who joined Betaworks as an entrepreneur-in-residence last summer, said Reader's "early social features were forward-thinking and hugely useful." However, as with the revamped Digg, the new iteration won't look exactly like its predecessor:

"We hope to identify and rebuild the best of Google Reader’s features (including its API), but also advance them to fit the Internet of 2013, where networks and communities like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit and Hacker News offer powerful but often overwhelming signals as to what’s interesting. Don’t get us wrong: we don’t expect this to be a trivial undertaking. But we’re confident we can cook up a worthy successor."

He also assured fans of the revamped Digg--and the traffic it brings!--that this won't impinge on their aggregator, implying it will function separately.

Betaworks already has some skin in the reader game. It owns a piece of the real-time tech company Superfeeder, which fetches and parses RSS or Atom feeds, as well as Bloglovin', a service that lets you know when the blogs you want to follow are updated. Both startups made a plea to bereft Google Reader acolytes today. It's also worth noting that Betaworks companies do tend to collaborate--like Bitly and Chartbeat.

In cased you missed all the service journalism, there are already a myriad of alternatives--although it's hard not to watch them fall short when compared to the "800-pound gorilla in the RSS space." As a positive sign for Digg's own attempt at a better reader, the company is welcoming input from the yearning masses, struggling to blog free. Says Mr. McLaughlin:

In order to pull this off in such a small window, we’re going to need your help. We need your input on what you want to see in a reader. What problems should it solve for you? What’s useful? What isn’t? What do you wish it could do that it can’t today?

Fair warning to Digg, you're soliciting input from a pretty vociferous bunch, who could give a shit whether their problems are universal concerns.

Bloggers who have spent years painstakingly curating feeds, lovingly organizing them into folders based on urgency and topic, may have even come to think of their top-secret feed resources as the modern day counterpart to the source rolodex. Asking to see a fellow blogger's Google Reader is basically like asking them to share their sources--something that many would feel territorial about.

Though many may decry the downfall of RSS, for those who spend time sorting through large swaths of information and consuming as many news items as possible, Reader was a simplified way to sort through the noise (though that 1,000+ number was always pretty overwhelming).

The Betaworks team seems well-suited to revive RSS. In fact, they might want to make Lazarusing web 1.0 a full-time thing. Guess that would make them Internet Jesus?

That may be why the front page of Reddit has become an irresistible target for feel-good messages about brands and businesses. Despite the community's penchant for skepticism, Costco, Taco Bell (in fact, most of the Yum! Brands) and a handful of startups have all made very conspicuous appearances on Reddit in the last year--not via paid ads, but through what at first glance appear to be organic and genuine discussions by Reddit users.

But are they? Could they really be? As someone responsible for my own fair share of marketing stunts, I am suspicious and cynical—I’ll disclose that right up front. I very well may be seeing signs of undue influence where there is only rule-bending behavior, but then again, I've also begun getting requests from clients about the possibility of orchestrating Reddit machinations. So because of this, and because of what I've observed behind the scenes, I'll come out and say it: what's going on Reddit these days has media manipulation written all over it.

Naturally, some of this media manipulation is completely harmless—like brand messaging, which corporations spend billions to propagate, passing as content.

Take Costco, which made the front page of Reddit multiple times via the "Today I Learned" (TIL) subreddit. One post even featured "facts" lifted straight from the Costco corporate site. Altogether, they amassed more than 40,000 upvotes (in other words, user approval) and 3,000 comments chattering about how great Costco is. And it wasn’t the only business getting love.

Through the TIL subreddit, Subaru let everyone know about its environmental concerns. Meanwhile, McDonald’s dominated the section for weeks. Walmart, Air Jordans, Jell-O, DeLorean Motor Company, Netflix and Mountain Dew have also shared the Reddit spotlight. And Volvo owns the fourth most popular TIL post ever, alerting everyone to its good deeds and indirectly marketing its cars as safe.

It’s possible that these positive messages have been posted by legitimate users and fans. Or they could have been posted directly by the self-promoting brands themselves, or perhaps given an extra push by upvoting rings or paid votes. It’s hard to say until someone is caught blatantly violating the rules.

But as a marketer, I find it fascinating that such humblebragging--which clearly benefits these businesses—passes so freely as “facts.” (To be fair: the self-described skeptics at Reddit have identified some embarrassing attempts and tagged them with the “Hail Corporate” tag, but this is comparatively uncommon). Regardless of who generated them, these brand-friendly threads propagate marketing messages for brands, telling their story as “content,” and it's all the more potent because it doesn’t feel like that’s what’s happening.

So whether Redditors know it or not, there is a now a big "deceive me" sign on their back. And marketers are going to try to take advantage of it.

Why would marketers want to target Reddit? It's simple.

All these brands are after the elusive Reddit karma--the goodwill and sheer volume of a community that has the power to make stars (Neil deGrasse Tyson), re-energize careers (Louis C.K.) or stand in as the world's stage (the Obama AMA). They want what Andre Johnson got when a photo of his smiling face and receipts for $19,000 in toys for a children's charity made it to the front page (only, you know, they don't want to actually do their own good deed). Brands have noticed that as soon as the picture started getting votes, it was picked up by smaller blogs, then Deadspin, then USA Today, and on up the media chain. On Reddit alone, the photo got nearly one million views.

Reddit is like any democratic form of government—unless carefully guarded by its leaders and members, its trusts and privileges can be and often are abused. The temptation is so great and the upside is so high.

Reddit understands this, as its general manager Erik Martin told me: “We are always actively looking to uncover brands or anyone else attempting to game Reddit or any form of manipulation. If we catch someone, we will ban them and make it public, as we have done in the past.”

It’s ultimately an arms race between the two interests. With the high stakes, it should come as no surprise that marketers aren’t content to leave pageviews to chance. They aren’t just hoping their efforts make their way onto Reddit. They are creating stunts to take advantage of Reddit’s lack of defenses or, in my view, its gullible proclivities toward viral content.

One trend recently has been designing ads around Reddit’s most popular memes. You can only shake your head at how easily Oreo was able to follow up its recent domination of the front page with an interpretation of the Actual Advice Mallard meme by posting a picture on Instagram that said “Post Your Oreo Marketing Promotion To Reddit: For Foolproof Business Success.” The result: over 600,000 views and 600 comments on Reddit alone. Audi, Cheez-Its and others soon followed suit. More will surely come.

Part of the problem may be that, because it is self-moderated and made up of so many smaller communities, Reddit underestimates the value and attractiveness of the entire community. In a world where these boring (and often genuinely evil) brands have to buy their own Facebook fans, hold enormous sweepstakes or expensive events to get people to interact with them (see: bribes), or spend billions of dollars a year to co-opt popular culture, Reddit threads on which people are actually "learning," or hanging out or chatting are priceless. It's real people doing real things.

And with the barrier to entry being so low--where anyone can post a message--how could the brands not begin to meddle?

I never thought I'd say this about Redditors, who are enamored with their own ability to call bullshit, but they may just not be jaded enough to fully guard against this onslaught.

Because the only response to some of these threads is, c'mon.

This post by JackThreads made its way to the front page with over 2,000 total votes, while only gathering 20 comments. That ratio is a giveaway that something may be off. This post from an account an hour old, posting the title “MY BRAND,” still managed to score over 300,000 views for 1-800-Contacts. Cost? $0. This fairly basic photo blatantly advertising Domino's delivery gathered over 200 comments wondering how it appeared on the front page.

Pretty much none of those posts survive the old "Cui bono?" test. But since no one seems eager to apply it, brands are getting increasingly lazy and brazen.

Like this Bic ad. Is it really from an art student or did the pen company just ask someone with an established account to post it for them? If I was working at Bic, that’s what I would have tried. Why not? The image racked up more than 40,000 upvotes and 1.5 million views.

It's obvious why this kind of attention is attractive to brands. It's also possible to get this kind of attention legitimately, as I well know. In 2009, due to a shipping mix-up, an employee of mine at American Apparel accidentally sent a crate of clothes to the blogger WhatTheBuck (instead of the intended small package of two to three items.) The result was a hysterical video that went on to do nearly 150,000 views.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. These aren’t organic accidents or real fan-to-brand interaction. It’s just fakery--there’s too much of it for that not to be the case. And what's worse, the brands that are engaging in the stunts could easily afford to pay for the ad space on those same pages. In other words, we're not talking about small creative marketing here--we're talking multibillion-dollar corporations using their enormous marketing teams to overwhelm busy volunteer moderators.

And these messages don't stay on Reddit. Reddit is their launching pad. Blogs like Betabeat, Business Insider, Huffington Post, Gawker and hundreds of others troll these sites looking for content they can republish and get traffic from. BuzzFeed, for example, is notorious for republishing content from Reddit. Meaning that one shill thread or photo on Reddit can quickly become pseudo-news and then real news across the web. And do readers understand or see the tainted origins of that content? Of course not.

It’s an obnoxious cycle. Reddit replaced the old Digg.com, which had become increasingly dominated by spam, trolls and fake news. Now it’s fighting off those same forces. With the new and improved Digg gaining traffic, despite unfriendliness to self-promoters, will Reddit find some way to purge itself of marketers? I hope so.

The site is at a crossroads about policing its sources and links. Usually Reddit makes the right choices in these positions, as it did when it banned sites like The AtlanticWire and BusinessWeek for spam and upvoting their own links.

I hope Reddit follows in its own footsteps once more. Or we’ll all be hailing our new corporate Redditors.

Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of  Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator and a PR strategist for brands and writers.

Mr. McClure

#RealTalk Dave McClure, our favorite giver of zero fucks, went on a bit of a Twitter tear the other day. It started with the admission that he'd "just had really hard tough love talk w/ startup founder. fucking sucks, but better harsh truth than bullshit 'you'll make it work' lies." He didn't stop there, adding that "what really sucks is none of other investors (incl big lead VC) have the balls 2 tell them its not going 2 fucking work & shut it down."

He concluded: "the Silicon Valley story is indeed the 1% story of Instagram $1B win, but also 99% broken dreams, shattered hopes & try, try again. sigh."

Okay, 'fess up: Who's the startup? Tips@betabeat.com if you wanna talk.

Not So Super Today, in unlikely historical connections: Wired reports that the decades-long legal battle over the ownership of Superman has been resolved... using the precedent set by the conclusion of Winklevoss vs. Facebook. To simplify a byzantine copyright nightmare: In 1938, the creators of Superman sold the rights for a mere $130. For decades, Jerry Siegel’s heirs have been attempting to rectify the move. In the latest chapter of the saga, they argued that an agreement reached in 2001 wasn’t finalized, meaning that the Siegel heirs could press for more rights and more money. Lots and lots of money. It also presented a potential legal problem for the studio with Man of Steel, which is scheduled to hit screens this summer.

In 2008, the courts sided with the Siegels. That’s been overturned, though, thanks in part to a ruling against the Winklevosses claim that an earlier settlement with Facebook hadn’t actually been binding. Warner Bros. now has the rights to make the movies free and clear--and without having to hand over more moola to Siegel's heirs. Hope the Winklevii and Mark Zuckerberg are proud of themselves for this.

It Ain’t Me, Babe Last year’s coverage of the booth babes of CES took a more circumspect, critical view. “That Mad Men bullshit doesn't represent who we are as an industry anymore, and it certainly doesn't represent what we should aspire to become. Technology is about the future, and this attitude is from the past,” Mat Honan wrote over at Gizmodo.

But Business Insider went back to business as usual this week with its slideshow ogling the antiquated, alienating marketing tactic.

glad we've moved past meta booth babe coverage and circled back to unironic booth babe galleries

— matt buchanan (@mattbuchanan) January 10, 2013

That wasn’t the only sexism on display. Skillcrush, the tech literacy startup, took a stab at “unpacking male tech privilege,” starting with the backlash that followed a petition to get more women on conference panels.

Indeed, blockbuster tech shows tend to surface all manner of moral quandaries, apparently, such as what happened when CNET's corporate owners intercede in news coverage to their own advantage. It was enough make Sam Biddle go straight quid pro quo.

(GIF HAT TIP: @jwherrman)

Viva Las Vegas Maybe the Buzzfeed editorial team skipped CES, but that doesn't mean head honcho Jonah Peretti missed a chance to visit Sin City. Photographic evidence comes from the unlikeliest of sources: Namely News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch, who tweeted that "At CES getting many brilliant presentations. So far most fun Buzzfeed."

We'd almost be afraid to hear what secrets were discussed. Our faces might melt off, like in Raiders of the Last Ark.

WTF Consider the charmed life of Kevin Rose. Sure, Digg crashed and burned (only to be resurrected by Betaworks once it was out of his hands), but Mr. Rose landed on his feet. He's now a venture partner at Google who spends his time Instagramming things like his Hawaii vacation and also this:

The caption: "Hanging with Tim Ferriss, yes this is normal."

Here's what we'd like to know: What was Mr. Rose wearing to the party? Was this, by chance, a furry party?

Open the door and influenza Could someone check on Chris Hughes? You might find him huddled in a corner at the New Republic between two bookshelves overflowing with pamphlets from the 1950s, clutching a giant bottle of hand sanitizer. Earlier this week he tweeted a link to a New York Times piece (with an xpost to Facebook) and commented that "Flu, stomach viruses, and whooping cough are at record levels this season. Reminder: wash hands compulsively."

Okay actually now we're terrified too. If you need us, we'll be looking for Mr. Hughes' Tamiflu stockpile.

North Korea's official Twitter account only follows three, and only three, other accounts. One belongs to Jimmy Dushku, a 25-year-old investor who's been to almost 60 Coldplay concerts and counts The Fast and the Furious as his favorite movie. What? [Mother Jones]

They're not saying how they know, exactly, but U.S. officials are convinced that the cyberattacks on the consumer-facing websites of American banks are the work of the Iranian government. [NYT]

Soon you will buy prepaid iPhones at Walmart. Sounds like another season of The Wire is in order. [PRNewswire]

Not to put a timetable on anything, but Digg figures its content discovery app  is about one percent done. Which is as fine a time as any to talk about monetization. [Digg]

Brian Wong and Quora Friends (Photo: twitter.com)

Quora is the site where headsdown homebodies ask other sheltered types questions like, “What are some things I’d be shocked to learn about the outside world?” But now that Quora is over three years old, it seems as if they’re finally going into the real heavy stuff.

A question posed under the topic "Murder," asked, "What does it feel like to murder someone?" Some inmates from San Quentin State Prison opened themselves up, providing deeply personal answers that offered up something rare on Quora: a glimpse of life far, far away from the tech bubble.

Tommy Winfrey, an San Quentin inmate currently serving a sentence of 25 years to life for second degree murder with gun enhancement described his feelings about his crime:

Without a doubt this is probably the most personal question I think I could ever answer. This is a question I have been asking myself for a very long time now, and just coming to grips with the answers I have found. To say my answer is complex, and that I am going to have difficulties expressing exactly how I have felt, and still feel about murdering someone is an understatement.

I guess the beginning would be the best place to start. When I took another man’s life I was just nineteen years old. Looking back now, I can honestly say I felt immense peer pressure to go through with the murder. I felt like I would be seen as a weak punk if I let another man get over on me. I was a drug dealer, and I felt I had a reputation to uphold. I can see all this now, but at the time I could see none of this. I realize now I was in a very bad place in life back then. I was in the midst of a serious drug addiction. I felt worthless and unworthy of love, so in return I placed little value on my life or on the life of anyone else. All of these feelings combined, made feel so powerless in life, I lashed out....

Of course, inmates are not allowed to use the Internet. But a select few of the prisoners at San Quentin are enrolled in a program called The Last Mile, which trains them with the goal of eventual placement in a paid internship somewhere in Silicon Valley, and as part of the program, they've been answering questions on the Q&A site. (Earlier this year, Betabeat introduced you to Phil, one of the most popular prisoners on Quora.) The've gathered somewhat of a following--VC darling, former Digger, and the current CEO of rewards site Kiip, Brian Wong visited with the group last December (picture is above).

We look forward to Quora finding the right experts to explore other terrifying and fascinating questions that keep us up at night. Looks like they've already tackled "what it feels like to die."

(Photo: wikipedia.org)

Among the Natives David Karp put on his salesman hat this week and preached the Tumblr gospel in front of execs at an Advertising Week event. Karp pushed his company’s new approach to “native” non-intrusive marketing. He went as far as to call Tumblr the "brave new world." The site now nets 27 million visitors a month and is expected to release some sort of earnings report this week, six months after ads started running on the site.

Pass The Popcorn MoviePass, a subscription service for unlimited movie-going, launched today, but is still invite-only. The app lets you check into a movie theatre, which then unlocks your MoviePass card. You pay at the credit card ticket kiosk using your MoviePass card, like you would with an ordinary card. The service is starting out at $29.99, which makes it a steal for New Yorkers because that's a little under the price of two movies with popcorn in Manhattan.

The Most Eligible Bachelor Wendr, an app for planning a night out with your friends, won Samsung and Thrillist's "Speed Dating For Startups" competition. After submitting a 30-second video advertising their app, the team had to demo with other finalists in front of a panel of judges. The winner was picked by Thrillist founder Ben Lerer, Samsung Senior Manager Jason Redmond, and and David Tisch, former managing director of TechStars NYC. The prizes for winning the competition include a write-up on Thrillist (bro outreach!), launch services from MRPR, KinPixel and LiftFive, and a collection of Samsung Series 9 laptops. Does this mean Wendr has to plan its own startup date?

Get Checked Y'all! In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, Hologic, Inc, rang the opening bell of the NASDAQ this Monday. They also parked a mobile facility in Times Square that was filled with 3D mammogram technology called The “Tomo Coach.” Their 3D technology is locating cancer faster and better, so go get felt up for a good cause.

1 Billion Amateur Editors Can't Be Wrong Aviary, the photo editing app, announced this week that one billion photos have now been edited on their app within the first 12 months of launching. For a comparison, it took Instagram 18 months to accomplish the same feat. The company estimates that they will double that number by the end of 2012. That's a whole lot of sepia tones and stickers slapped on people's faces.

Streets Now YouTube'able StreetEasy, New York’s best way to avoid getting scammed on Craigslist, has partnered with internet travel show Sonia's Travels, to make video content that spotlights individual neighborhoods throughout the city. "Partnering with her on this type of video series was a no-brainer, especially as we build up our original content," said Michael Smith, CEO of StreetEasy.

Witness the iResurrection Digg, still making its climb out of the Internet grave, introduced a universal app for the iPhone and iPad. It's stark white, just like the new site, which looks really great on the iPad. It also has a cool feature called Reading Sync that uses iCloud to sync up articles between devices.

A British Boost Earlier this week, Rightster, a service that helps content providers maximize revenue from online video, announced a digital revenue services company, announced the hire of Robin Pembrooke as VP of Product & Solutions. He's a former Yahoo! guy, but more recently he led the online operations of Britain's biggest advertising funded TV and radio broadcasters--ITV and Global Radio. He should be able to help them out in a big way in the U.K. market.

The End of the Valley, But Not Advisory Boards Twist, the app that gives your friends your ETA, announced this morning that Yammer founder David Sacks would join Twist's advisory board. Sacks started a small firestorm after he claimed that "Silicon Valley as we know it may be coming to an end" shortly after selling his company to Microsoft. Sacks was quoted in the company's announcement as saying he uses Twist everyday and that "apps that help people manage or save time possess huge market value."

A Better Second Round Betterment, a low cost personal investing website, announced today that they've acquired $10 million in second round financing led by Menlo Ventures. The company says that since its start in 2010, they've increased customer assets under management at 500 percent per year. The company also just launched Betterment Gift, a service that allows you to gift money that you make from investments. Feel free to gift Betabeat as much as your better angels allow.