Mr. Zuckerberg (Facebook.com)

Like most hotly anticipated IPOs, there are plenty of people who’d like a piece of Facebook, and even all the ad-revenue-related doubts in the world aren’t going to change that. Typically, only a small slice of shares are available to mom-and-pop investors. But according to Dealbook, Facebook wants a higher percentage reserved for retail investors, perhaps even as much as 20 to 25 percent for retail investors. 

Dealbook suggests the decision is a statement of corporate values:

The company is seeking to give retail investors a bigger cut because it sees itself as a service created for, and driven by, consumers. One person briefed on the offering, who declined to be identified because of regulatory restrictions, said Facebook sees itself as “the people’s company.”

Pro-tip: If your company has a long history of privacy-related blunders, it’s best not to use any terminology reminiscent of Animal Farm.

Any retail investors who might get a shot at Facebook stock are likely to be making choices in, let’s say, an exuberant atmosphere. There’s that emotional road show video, which makes investing in Facebook feel like a West Wing episode. Lead underwriter JP Morgan is psyched as hell, hanging a massive Facebook flag outside its headquarters and going big on the swag. All that leads Henry Blodget to go ahead and label the whole thing "muppet bait":

1) At $100B, Facebook's IPO is very speculative. The stock could easily trade for half that.

— Henry Blodget (@hblodget) May 4, 2012

2) Most individuals should NEVER, EVER buy IPOs. They have no idea how little they know relative to full-time pros

— Henry Blodget (@hblodget) May 4, 2012

3) Facebook is already enormous "muppet bait". Everyone thinks it's a sure thing. JP Morgan ad will stoke those flames read.bi/JRvHSj

— Henry Blodget (@hblodget) May 4, 2012

Also worth noting: The sage of Omaha and friend to Jay-Z, Warren Buffet, plans to sit this one out.

With two Kickstarter projects breaking the $800,000 barrier in the same day, the mothership of crowdfunding sites is having its moment. We had a hunch this was coming when investors on recent panel about women in venture capital called out, unprompted, to Perry Chen, hoping he might be in the market for funding. But that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

So like any dutiful Kickstarter devotee, Hype Machine founder Anthony Volodkin did what he does best, build "apps that allow us to discover and enjoy new things." Enter Kickstumbler: a site and tool bar that lets you stumble upon projects you might have otherwise missed. "This was made over a few weekends, sometimes, truly instead of sleeping," Mr. Volodkin told Betabeat by email. It was a labor of love for what his team calls Hype Machine Labs. "It's a name we use when making something not explicitly related to the core site."

Kickstumbler fixes Kickstarter's weak spot (navigation), with a StumbleUpon-like toolbar. It also extracts those moving mission statements where creators explain their project into one continuous video channel. Fred Wilson is already a fan; Kickstarter founder Yancey Strickler tweeted out his approval as well.

So, is this plan to sell this to Kickstarter, we asked Mr. Volodkin. "The goal is to get more people finding projects they haven't seen.  I figure that can be as valuable as it is fun," he said, sidestepping the question.

Besides, he and his team, who work out of The Yard in Williamsburg/Greenpoint, are busy prepping for a big party at SXSW Music. "Think Hype Machine in real life - music blogs curate lineups at a nice venue right in the center of Austin. We call it the Hype Hotel," Mr. Volodkin explained. Participating taste-makers include Aquarium Drunkard, Gorilla vs. Bear, I Guess I am Floating, My Old Kentucky Blog, Song by Toad, No Modest Bear, Creamteam, Nialler9,  Yours Truly. "Really excited about every single one," he added. Expect a full court press on the event in a few days, but in the meantime, you can sign up for notifications here.

Think this sounds like more fun than your day job? Hype Machine is hiring.

A number of tech companies, including Hype Machine, Wanderfly, Mobile Roadie and Uber are already working out of the space, as well as a few startups still in splash page mode, like Gander TV and Spotflux. Somewhere between 60 to 70 percent of The Yard's residents are techies, although that wasn't exactly the owners' intention. "We knew there was a need in Williamsburg/Greenpoint for something like this, but we didn’t realize the tech scene was happening here and that that was the direction it was going to go," Mr. Levy told Betabeat by phone.

Now that the startup syngery is under way, however, The Yard has been "planning strategic alliances" with angel investors whose portfolio companies might be interested in working there. For example, Mr. Levy said he's currently in talks with Brooklyn Bridge Ventures founder and First Round Capital alum Charlie O'Donnell, who launched a Kings County-centric seed fund last month.

And what about the name? "Um, I dunno, it’s where you work, 'I work in the Yard.' It’s a space to work, so that’s what we call it," said Mr. Levy, whose thick Brooklyn accent would not sound out of place in a Goodfellas remake.

Mr. Levy said he and Mr. Beyda got the idea to open a coworking space after looking at the possibility of working out of one of Manhattan's suddenly-ubiquitous office-sharing arrangements. The same day he crunched the numbers, Mr. Levy happened upon the location, at 33 Nassau Avenue. "Being developers, we kind of overdid it with our Internet," he said, referring to The Yard's 100 megabit-per-second pipe. "A lot of people in other places were experiencing problems with their Internet and you know if you’re an Internet business, you can’t have an outage, so we have a lot of bandwidth here."

We first heard of The Yard from from Simily and vReddit founder Brandon Root, who wrote us a tip emphasizing The Yard's  "potential to become something like Brooklyn's General Assembly."

"I certainly looked at GA when I was trying to find some office space, and certainly would consider it in the future, but I found it to be a bit...pretentious?" Mr. Root,  who works out of the space, explained by email . "Unlike its Manhattan-based cousins, I've found people at The Yard to be just as talented but far more approachable. Maybe I'm just more comfortable with the Brooklyn vibe than the highly-caffeinated Apple-everything crowd in the city."

"I don't mean to be unfair to GA, they have accomplished something incredible," he continued. "But The Yard struck me as more practical and comfortable."

Although The Yard has been hosting events, like the North Brooklyn Breakfast Club, the General Assembly comparison seems far-fetched for now. "I’m a firm believer in not trying to be anything other than what you are," said Mr. Levy. "As far as I’m concerned we’re done and the place is humming."

Hype Machine founder Anthony Volodkin actually signed up as a tenant before construction on The Yard was complete. "We were looking for space in the fall (our first office ever, in our 6 bootstrapped years!) and I happened to see the new sign while cycling through Greenpoint as it was still being built," Mr. Volodkin said by email. "Turned out it was an upcoming coworking space inside a beautiful industrial space, much of the great textures were preserved, so the place is modern while retaining bits of the old character.  Many of us live around here, and there are lots of good coffee places around."

Before The Yard, Hype Machine's seven-person team worked from home or in coffee shops with the "occasional 'office days,' where we'd all meet up in my living room in Williamsburg," he said.

Unlike the typical open floor plan, The Yard has about 100 offices to offer more privacy, although we're not sure if that takes the "co" out of coworking. The space also offers 24-hour access. Mr. Levy said he is "on the selective side" in terms of what kinds of companies or workers he allows in to The Yard, but is open to anyone who could be who would identify as creative. "Some of my competitors are like, 'If you’re not tech or a nerd, you can’t come in,'" said Mr. Levy. "We’re not that harsh."

HIRING. As activity marketplace SideTour prepares to leave the TechStars offices for greener pastures this Friday, the startup has officially started hiring for a lead engineer and "host development manager." Business Insider is looking for a biz dev intern.

FREE PIZZA. Foursquare competitor SCVNGR is still at large; the company had several holiday-themed promotions and badges. Founder Seth Priebastch launched LevelUp, a mobile payments app complementary to SCVNGR, in October. Now LevelUp is announcing its first brand partner: Villa Pizza, which will offer $10 of free pizza in Times Square New Year's Eve.

SYNERGY. Fab.com has started selling Makerbots! "Fab.com will be selling two MakerBot 'Thing-O-Matic' products at two price different price points, one being the kit and one that is already assembled." The sale is on today and tomorrow.

MEETUPS. East Village Techies on Thursday; Android developers tonight and Dumbo Tech Breakfast Friday.

THIRD PARTIES. Public service announcement: there is a new Hype Machine app from Boston."We @ Dirty Water Labs in Boston have recently released our second music application is called 'uberHype' - social music discovery app built on The Hype Machine music platform. If you like reading music blogs and discovering new artists through that medium then this app should be the one."

THE RETURN OF THE SILICON VALLEY DIASPORA CONTINUES. Qwiki comes back, back, from Cali, Cali.

STARTUP BUS. There will be 12 regions up for the Startup Bus hackathon competition this year, and only those with popular support will participate. Last we heard, New York (which tied for first place with San Francisco last year) was in 13th place for the qualifying round—just shy of making it into the competition.

His pitch: “It’s kind of like Pandora with unlimited skipping and unlimited stations.”

Except for the fact that Pandora has a mobile version, and Spotify's app is still confined to the web (for now), it's hard to imagine that Pandora, which caps users to 100 stations and eight song skips, isn't feeling threatened.

TechCrunch reports:

“We think people will love playing around,” Ek went on about the company’s streaming play. “What we’ve discovered is that we’re a lean back experience and a lean forward. Spotify historically hasn’t been very good at curating music … [And Radio] is a big use case that a lot of people are asking us for.”

And then, “I wouldn’t say that Pandora is a competitor, we want to be a music platform.” Yeah, music platform that just subsumed Pandora’s basic function.

Pandora, of course, is now a public company (one whose stock experts say "is still an expensive proposition, especially in the face of emerging competition"). But can startup founders expect to start viewing Spotify as the next Goliath after Google, Facebook, and Apple? Reminds us of a tweet from Hype Machine founder Anthony Volodkin on the day Spotify announced its app platform:

"I thought I was running a startup but turns out I am just constantly deciding whether I am really working for Facebook, Spotify or Apple."

"TuneSat provides rights holders with near-real time visibility into when and where their music is being performed on TV and the Internet. TuneSat utilizes a proprietary audio fingerprint technology and monitors hundreds of broadcasters and millions of websites across the globe.  An intuitive web interface gives its subscribers unprecedented knowledge about their audio performances, even in the noisiest of broadcast environments. Using TuneSat data, content owners can ensure that they are properly paid for licensed music while protecting themselves against its unauthorized use."

Technology like this surely prevents some artists from having their music stolen and used by others for profit. But I can't help but feel that this is innovating in the wrong direction. Music production and distribution has gotten so cheap that there is now such an abundance of music that much of it can be considered a commodity. Therefore it seems like the best way for musicians to support themselves today is by using the internet to build a loyal following of superfans who will go their shows and buy all their t-shirts, rather than trying to get paid every time a track is played. Start-ups like Hype Machine, ExFM, GrooveShark and FanBridge seem to understand this, but TuneSAT (based in New York) and efforts like it strike me as pandering to corporate interests in the music industry.

But a new wave of free music start-ups is gaining momentum as the peer-to-peer services die off: ExFM, Hype Machine and Grooveshark, streaming music start-ups that are niggling around the system by keeping files in the cloud, are just a few either based in or with significant presence in New York. Viva la résistance.

"We were working on a lot of different things at once, and with a small team that really slows you down," says Hype Machine founder Anthony Volodkin. Moving a big portion of the teams work to MongoDB really helped. "Now that these things are done, we can create new things faster." The app released today was built in just a few months.

An Android app is on the list of projects, but Volodkin says the approach will be very different. "I think for us, the Android will be more about collaborating with the developer community and having them come up with cool things to build using our API."

Apple's ecosystem is a curated experience in which users are much more likely to pay for goods and services. Android is a bit wilder, more fragmented, but with a freedom that makes it ripe for experimentation. "There are a number of challenges there, but I think it's a cool playground," says Volodkin.

The more rigid constraints of iOS were helpful, says Volodkin, for building his first mobile app. "We are used to building on the web, where there is more flexibility, so to find a good way to boil down the Hype Machine experience to its core was difficult. The iPhone really makes you prioritize."

Volodkin has found the mobile app changes the way he listens. "I found I pay more attention," he told Betabeat. "When you are using the website, it's so easy to jump to something else the moment your mind wanders, that it's easy not to leave the same amount of space in your mind for the new music. The app's flow is different, so you get more focus."

And Mom I'm going to ride on a airplane and eat peanuts on the airplane!

We're getting in trouble for our un-SEO optimized rumor roundup headlines, but perhaps we can get away with just one more. It's important because reality TV is truly descending upon start-up land! Behold:

MINI-SERIES. We heard the Makery-based start-up PR shoppe Small Girls are getting a reality show! They're at least going to have camera people following them around! We pinged to ask. "It's still pretty hush-hush," petite publicist Bianca Caampued told Betabeat by email. "We're still in the very early stages of filming our sizzle reel and our producer shopping it to networks, so we can't talk about it on internet land yet." Happily, Ms. Caampued and petite pal Mallory Blair were pretty cool about our rumormongering. "We're also actually shooting a segment for another show on Bravo next week, in my closet," Ms. Caampued said. Wee! What should they should call the show? The Mini-est Marketers? The Littlest Flacks? Prometheus?

SERIES BRAVO! A source passed this email along to Betabeat: "One of our partners just sold a TV show to Bravo, and is currently casting for a group of five women investors who are looking for cool stuff to support while running hard through NYC culture. If you're 30-40+ , in the financial industry, and interested, email [redacted]." We scrounged and scrounged and didn't turn up any clues; at the least, the show does not appear to be a product of powerhouse Ish Entertainment.

INSULT, MEET INJURY--ALSO, IT'LL COST YOU. TechCrunch Disrupt has started to send out rejection letters to start-ups that applied to pitch. "They offered us the privilege of paying them $2,000 to have a booth," one frustrated founder told Betabeat. "We are going to blow up in everyone's face and they keep dissing us. It's retarded they are capitalizing on startup fever."

YEAH! WHAT! OKAY! Betabeat got a sneak peak at the Hype Machine iPhone app, due out soon. It is not fancy--basically a bunch of variously-curated music streams. Uh, it's green. The start-up has been planning this since October 2009.

STEALTHY. There is a secret, funded start-up building a "specialized industry-specific web application" in two to three months, but oh--they need a contractor who might transition to CTO. "We are venture-funded and advised by successful and well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and angels," the anonymous company writes in a job ad. The founder has non-profit and business experience. Good luck with that!

ACTUAL STEALTHY. The new DreamIt Ventures incubator quietly announced it had chose 15 start-ups out of more than 500 applications for its summer program which starts May 15. We hear the list of companies will be out next week, as candidates are still scrambling to get their websites ready for semi-prime time. Try as we might, Betabeat could not sniff out a single one--most sources had no idea what we were talking about. "I have no idea. I've barely heard anything about DreamIt. Did they make final selections?" one well-connected investor/founder said when Betabeat asked. "I didn't hear of anyone applying. No one told me at least. I know of SeedStart applicants, ER applicants, TechStars applicants. But no DreamIt." It's a mystery!

UNINTELLIGIBLE PRESS RELEASES. You can use this pitch from BitTorrent, which wanted us to take a conference call under embargo, as a template for your next webby product launch: "Due to your coverage of technology news for BETABEAT, we wanted to give you a heads-up on key digital media Internet technology news coming down the pike from BitTorrent, Inc. that will be of great advantage to consumer tech users! It will be the Beta launch of an amazing new tool from this leading peer to peer Internet file sharing company, BitTorrent, Inc. and their more than 100mm users," is literally what this actual email said. We asked for more information and got nothing back, so whatever. The embargo lifts May 12 when we assume we'll read all about it on Twttr along with everybody else.