Could I make this any easier for you? (via twitter/paulg)

Paul Graham's plan to give away his best billion dollar ideas? That was so last week. The man who pioneered the practice of the startup idea freebie has taken his "Don't worry about coming up with your own concept" theory to its logical extreme. Now, you don't even need an idea. At all.

On the Y Combinator blog yesterday, Mr. Graham, a partner in the prestigious incubator, let the world know about a little experiment they're trying with this the next cycle of applicants: "If the only thing holding you back from starting a startup is not having an idea for one, now nothing is holding you back. If you apply for this batch and you seem like you'd make good founders, we'll accept you with no idea and then help you come up with one."

It sounds to us like a riskier version of "fund the entrepreneur, not the idea," only without forcing them to clear the hurdle of at least being able to generate and articulate one compelling concept.

Where's the logic in that? Mr. Graham says he realized Y Combinator had already sort of sanctioned the practice:

"A lot of the startups we accept change their ideas completely, and some of those do really well. Reddit was originally going to be a way to order food on your cellphone. (This is a viable idea now, but it wasn't before smartphones.) Scribd was originally going to be a ridesharing service."

While some eager beavers thought sidestepping the "we're too early" excuse was a good thing ("No one is earlier than this," wrote @dess_e.) Others seem to imply that in these frothy times, a barrier to entry is not a bad idea.

No idea what you're doing? Apply to @ycombinator: ycombinator.com/noidea.html

— Michael Friis (@friism) March 14, 2012

And what of those who just wanna be part of the hard-work-and-world-change startup lifestyle?

They need a reality check, implied serial developer Yong Fook. Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams (who had a great idea that ended up failing) agreed.

Amen “@yongfook: If u want to "do a startup" but don't have an idea you're passionate about, you're just in love w idea of being a founder.”

— Jonathan Abrams (@abrams) March 14, 2012

That one got 39 retweets, including one from Dennis Crowley, who's managed to come up with a few concepts on his own.

The city has been pushing hard to remake itself as a rival to Silicon Valley. While the west coast has a couple decades head start, the flow of young talent and coporate dollars into the local tech sector is a great way to expand New York's digital industries.

In this case there will not be a direct equity stake, but a partnership that could lead to new media models. As Media Post notes, this follows efforts by Publicis, Interpublic, The Media Kitchen to establish some sort of venture incubator. ""We are thrilled to be working with GE as the first digital media agency to support the next generation of digital talent," said Alan Cohen, CEO of OMD USA, told Media Post. "With all the activity around media start-ups, we thought it would be a good idea for our digital people to learn from these students and vice versa."

KBS+P recently launched its own venture arm and its most recent hire, Taylor Davidson, says new investments are due to be announced in the coming months.

The next stop for Tisch was TechStars NY, which helped grow some terrific startups over the last three months. But that program, like most accelerators, doesn't address the issue of great entrepreneurial talent that might be locked up within a corporate bureaucracy, it simply avoids them.

Prehype, which bills itself as a product innovation boutique, thinks it has a formula for helping large companies foster new ideas. It plucks teams out of a big entity and works with them for 100 days crafting and iterating a new idea. Then, if the start-up gets traction, Prehype sells it back to the parent company. Giving the process over to Prehype to incubate in their "hothouse" allows the companies to offload the risk and avoid the difficult work of re-engineer their corporate culture.

So far the model has been tested with a diverse set of clients: local idea lab betaworks, the massive education company Kaplan the marketing firm Wolff Olins and the venture capital firm Sunstone Partners. Local start-ups Chartbeat and Go Try It On have also worked with Prehype.

Managing partner Henrik Werdelin says the model leverages the best of both worlds. "Because it is very inexpensive to get a web start-up or an mobile app up and running, a lot of the conversation is going to shift towards distribution, the power of big companies to connect new products with their marketing channels and business networks. Rather than trying and failing to incubate internally, they can shift that process to us, then share in the upside if the end result gains traction."

You can't borrow a stapler over the net.

Coworking is a growing trend among New York's freelancers, especially for the tech set. Instead of plugging away in their pajamas or snagging a spot at the wi-fi cafe, coworker prefer a more organized, office atmosphere.

But how much does it really save, or cost, to rent a desk in this kind of co-working space?

According to a study from Deskwanted.com, a startup that helps users find coworking and shared office space.

A dedicated desk in a coworking space with full facilities and 24/7 access costs an average of $424 a month in New York, only slightly above the national average.

Switching to business hours only cuts the cost to just $227 a month. Not bad when you consider that it costs $1312 a month it costs to maintain a workspace in traditional corporate office.

According to Deskwanted.com, there are now 18 coworking spaces in New York including New Work City in SoHo and Hive at 55 in the Financial District, with new spaces set to come online soon.

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper