We suppose some things never change: Jonah Peretti and company may know more than anybody about how people share content in the modern age, and may have hit—for the moment, at least—on an effective means of sidestepping the penny-ante marketplace for display ads.

And yet, BuzzFeed's search traffic is being driven by the same sex-0bsessed, semi-literate, craft-loving hordes that have always populated the Internet.

A brief tour through the website's most popular search terms, listed by referral share:

1. buzzfeed: 9.55 percent
2. nudes: 1.14 percent
3. nude ballroom dancing: .86 percent

(NFSW)

4. www.buzzfeed.com: .67 percent
5. katrina smirnoff playboy: .55 percent
6. penis size chart: .46 percent

7. creative science fair ideas: .46 percent

"Sorry, had to cover the print, to prevent further plagiarizing." (Photo: Flickr, OakleyOriginals)

It's worth noting that, per Compete, Google accounted for a little more than 6 percent of BuzzFeed's traffic in December. Meanwhile, we'll spare you the full list, but suffice it to note, 20 of the top 50 referral terms were people looking for nude pics.

Some of our other favorites:

9. 20 year old that dont age: .4 percent
10. taylor swift nude pics: .39 percent
11. amuture women on face book photos: .39 percent
12. pictures of animals: .39 percent

(Photo: Flickr, robandstephanielevy)

18. watch wwe smackdown 12 28 12: .3 percent
19. nicki minaj ass: .29 percent
20. muslim letter to santa: .29 percent
21. kate upton scissors full: .29 percent

Also:

32. grilled cheese sandwich recipes: .24 percent
40. "common additional colors are pink, purple, yellow, orange,": .21 percent
46. sexual arousal video: .19 percent
57: nasty nasty blackheads that are so huge they need popping: .18 percent

Ladies and gentleman, we give you the "next great media company!"

Update (12:53) p.m.: BuzzFeed press director Ashley McCollum emails Betabeat the following:

Hey Patrick -

On the record.

Apparently you and a few perverted Google searchers are the only people looking at this content.  86% of our traffic is social, the search results you are highlighting are mostly user posts from a previous era of BuzzFeed, and the salacious nature of many Google searches is not a surprise to anyone with familiarity with search behavior. For example, the #1 keyword sending traffic to Betabeat.com is "xxx!" Source: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/betabeat.com#keywords

Thanks!

Ashley

Thanks, Ashley! May those perverted Google searchers fade quietly into BuzzFeed's past. (Not to split hairs, but "xxx" ranks fourth in our search terms.)

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.

BuzzFeed also Instagrammed a photo of Mr. Peretti donning said shirt and drinking what appears to be a beer. YOLO, we suppose.

(Photo: Instagram)

New Year, New Guilt On January 2, even as many attempted to turn over various new leaves for 2013, Anil Dash had to go and remind us all that despite our best Code Academy-inspired intentions, barely anyone actually learned to code last year. He tweeted, "So did anybody learn how to program after signing up for New Year's resolution lessons last year?" Judging by the @replies, there are quite a few people no closer to Javascript mastery than they were 12 months ago.

If you're looking for some other promises to break this year, Get Instinct and Greatist will want to teach you how to be healthier and play guitar.

Jammin' The improvisational warhorses of Phish played several shows at Madison Square Garden this week, including New Year's Eve--and it seems several local techies turned out. Among the attendees: Aviary cofounder Michael Galpert, IA Ventures' Ben Siscovick, and GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci, who found this appropriately psychedelic photo on his camera the next day:

Trippy!

Missing in action was CrowdTap marketing director Ben Kessler, who took to Twitter to lament his absence: "Wish I caught Phish this run but I’m sooo tired. Maybe we’ll get some Hampton shows?" Nothing like being sunburnt and baked.

International Relations When last we checked in with Art.sy, a high-brow Pandora for fine art, the well-capitalized startup was hosting a beachside barbecue at Art Basel attended by Lenny Kravitz and a rompered, dancing Demi Moore. Things took a much darker tone today, however, when the company announced that it had permanently moved its URL from art.sy to artsy.net to avoid potential outages related to the civil war in Syria.

In a press release, Art.sy said, "The move comes following an outage with our art.sy domain, which was down for a period of 36 hours this week due to an issue with DNS servers in Syria." As has been widely reported, the authoritarian Syrian government is behind recurring Internet blackouts in an attempt to suppress activists.

In response to questions from Betabeat, a representative said all of Art.sy's servers were in the U.S., but added, “We also did not want a domain that could be construed in any way as supporting the Syrian government.” Why not the more logical Artsy.com? The site “was not available,” said the company spokesperson. Whoever is sitting on the domain must be asking a pretty penny, if  investment* from the likes of Wendi Deng, Eric Schmidt, and Jack Dorsey wasn’t enough to tempt them.

Art.sy also announced that it was "simplifying" its name to Artsy. Perhaps startup names with a dot.suffix are going the way of CamelCase as well?

Chapel Check-In It’s not just your high school friends updating their Facebook statuses to “Engaged" lately. Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley proposed on a dark stretch of beach to his longtime girlfriend Chelsa Skees this week. “She said yes!” he tweeted. And check out that rock:

(Photo: Business Insider)

*Disclosure

BuzzFeed raises $20M to build Snackadium.

BuzzFeed, the Internet's biggest time suck, announced in a press release today that it has raised $20 million in a series D round led by NEA Ventures, bringing its total raised to $46.3. In addition to churning out more image-heavy listicles and starting spats with fellow popular Internet properties like Gawker and The Oatmeal, BuzzFeed intends to use the money to "build the next great media company."

A year ago, BuzzFeed hired its editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, away from Politico in an attempt to broaden the depth of serious news coverage on the platform. It worked, kind of: the site's election coverage was impressive, and there has been more emphasis on longform narrative, but it can be difficult to reconcile serious political news and contemplative pieces with goofy native ads like "10 Easy Steps to Building the Ultimate Snack Stadium"--even if the latter finances the former.

"We think BuzzFeed will be one of the great media companies of the next decade," said NEA investor Patrick Kerins in a statement.

Indeed, look bald-faced into the future of a new new new media company: according to BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, it is "socially native, tech enabled, with massive scale." Perhaps, it's a new iteration of the "mullet strategy" he's talked so much about. Top posts (currently including ScarJo looking like Christopher Walken and "How I Lost My Virginity, In GIFs) lure in readers for more thoughtful fare.

Financing and running a sustainable media company in this day and age is no small feat, and BuzzFeed has the added hurdle of attempting to establish itself as a reliable news organization while also churning out sillier content. This new raise will undoubtedly put more pressure on the company to bulk up its credibility.

Nonetheless, we eagerly await the BuzzFeed post, 10 Reasons We Raised $20M to Write More Things Like "Pretty Japanese Girls React to Drinking Poop Wine." We'd definitely click on it.

LONGREADS

Ultra-Orthodox Jews Take a Hard Line on the Internet at Rally of 40,000 Men (And Me) In which our intrepid reporter sneaks into Citi Field in drag. 

Faith, Hope, and Singularity: Entering the Matrix with New York’s Futurist Set It's the end of the world as we know it, and they feel fine.

The Battle Over Revenge Porn: Can Hunter Moore, the Web’s Vilest Entrepreneur, Be Stopped? Victims and hackers are on the case.

Meet Betabeat's 2012 Tech Insurgents Ambiable agitator Anil Dash, Tumblr's Mad Man Rick Webb, and the merry pranksters of OkFocus.

Jonah Peretti’s Meme Streak Making viral happen inside the factory at BuzzFeed.

THE YEAR IN HEADLINES

Uber Bulldozes Its Way into New York City's Taxi Market Before all the bureaucratic setbacks, CEO Travis Kalanick revealed his grand plan.

Flash Dance! Luxury Flash Sales Sites Regroup After Layoffs Can Gilt Groupe cross the IPO finish line without scuffing the lacquer on its Louboutins?

How to Avoid Being Pushed Out of the Company You Founded Insiders dish on Naveen Selvadurai's defoundering.

Records Point to Credit Card Fraud by Silicon Swindler Shirley Hornstein She used her friend's credit card to buy a plane ticket in her name. Twice. 

Investors Wonder About the Future of TechStars New York Will TechStars New York maintain its prominence?

OP-EDS

We Need to Make Tech Uncool Again A call to arms for the idealistic nerd in us all.

Friends Investing in Friends: When It Comes to Startups, Is the Fix Already In? Is Startupland an insider’s game?

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Why We’re Definitely in a Bubble The social media bubble is real, and it's spectacular.   

Social Media Companies Have Absolutely No Idea How to Handle the Gaza Conflict War in the time of social graphs.

Area Blogger Worried People Will Think Reality Show Is Real A little perspective on Bravo's version of Silicon Valley.

TINY GEMS

Diary of Two Snapchat Addicts We just can't help ourselves.

Google Says ‘Gchat’ Is Not a Word Ubiquitous noun/verb is totally unofficial.

What Y Combinator Startups Actually Do, Based on Their (Unpronounceable) Names Zapier: Birchbox for swords?

Tortoise & Blonde Thought ‘We Want To Sit On Your Face’ Was a Good Idea for a Slogan "This was a family decision."

In Which We Went to Bravo’s Casting Call for the Real Wantrepreneurs of Silicon Alley The first tech party where someone tried to yank up our skirt! 

Meme-tastic! (Photo: Politicker)

If your week was as hellish hectic as ours, you must be in need of a stiff drink. Pour yourself a cocktail and get comfy: here comes this week's rumor roundup.

Step Away from the Crackberry! In case you missed all the Instagrams, Mayor Bloomberg performed some titillating acts of Startup Theatre on the stage at Gracie Mansion Tuesday night. The crème of tech society, including MakerBot's Bre Pettis, General Assembly's Adam Brimer, Yipit founder Vinny Vacanti, Google trends & insights editor Caroline McCarthy, Sailthru's Aubrey Sabala, chief digital officer Rachel Sterne Haot and her husband, LiveStream founder Max Haot, gathered on the lawn for canapés and cocktails to celebrate NYC Connects 2012.

To enhance his usual Silicon Alley cheerleading, Mr. Bloomberg opted for props on the podium, like an array of Warby Parker sunglasses and a Seamless delivery guy, who shlepped takeout up on stage. The spotlight was enough to lure Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky out of Twitter hiding. Besides one of the guests complaining about a scripted "Hello world" joke that fell short, everyone seemed to eat up the promotional opportunities.

While Mr. Bloomberg and his girlfriend Diana Taylor eagerly examined the new MakerBot Replicator 2 on display, however, another executive was also milling about: Google chairman Eric Schmidt, pecking at his BlackBerry rather than tapping at an Android device. Mr. Schmidt! Haven't you been warned about this before?

Snoop No More? Earlier this week, we wondered how the $15 million Andreessen Horowitz just ploughed into Rap Genius would affect the startup's street cred. Marc Andreessen, you see, also happens to have donated (a small fraction) of his billions to Mitt Romney--along with fellow Republicans like race-baiting Scott Brown and the Tea Party's only hope for the White House, Paul Ryan. And if our Yeezy history lessons and Nikki Minaj's recent brush with satire have taught us anything, it's that rappers and Mitt don't mix.

Signs of a potential rift in-the-making surfaced via Snoop Dog's Instagram today when he republished Twitter personality @DragonflyJonez's reasons not to vote for Mitt. Good thing for the site's founders--who appear to have some habits in common with Snoop--that the rapper has a verified account on Rap Genius, but hasn't actually contributed anything.

Weissman, Party of One After a long week of product launches, Reddit k-holes, and funding news, there is nothing Betabeat likes so much as a 90s Netflix marathon. It looks like Union Square Ventures partner Andy Weissman had the same idea:

Thinking about dipping into Party of Five this weekend, see if it holds up after all these years

— Andrew Weissman (@aweissman) October 5, 2012

Dr. Jack Shephard before he ever crashed into that damn island? Jennifer Love Hewitt before she was relegated to a John Mayer punchline? We're getting nostalgic already.

Here Comes Baby Ex-Googler and newly minted Yodeler Marissa Mayer gave birth to a baby boy on Sunday, September 30th. "Baby boy Bogue born last night. Mom (@marissamayer) and baby are doing great--we couldn't be more excited!" tweeted her husband Zachary Bogue. But it turns out the baby doesn't have a name, and instead the Mayer/Brogue couple is doing what any young techie couple would: they're crowdsourcing for names.

According to an email sent out by the couple, published by Forbes:

Hi All -

Zack and I welcomed BBB (Baby Boy Bogue) into our family last night.

He arrived exactly one week ahead of schedule at 22:22 p.m. on 9/30/12, weighing 8 lbs 14 oz and is 21″ tall.  He is now officially BBBB – Big Baby Boy Bogue!  We are all very happy and excited.  Name TBD – suggestions welcome!

With love and happiness,

Marissa & Zack

We're guessing "Larry" is completely out of the question.

Stalking 2.0 When Vox Media director of marketing Callie Schweitzer asked Onswipe cofounder Jason Baptiste if his stalker was still around, our ears immediately perked up. Turns out a stranger had been checking into Mr. Baptiste's apartment and Onswipe HQ on Foursquare and it was starting to get creepy. Luckily, Mr. Baptiste assured us it was "nothing serious." Besides, Foursquare stalkers are so 2010. The real people to worry about are the creeps who like every single one of your pictures on Instagram. Photos of artisanal meals aren't that inspiring.

Media Mogul Melee BuzzFeed cofounder Jonah Peretti and Gawker publisher Nick Denton took the kid gloves off this week and engaged in a rather amusing sparring session on Twitter. When Mr. Peretti disingenuously congratulated Mr. Denton on Gawker landing at #101 on Business Insider's Digital 100 List, Mr. Denton replied with his trademark brand of British-tinged snark: "We've always been asked: in your quest for traffic, what would you not do? Buzzfeed has provided the answer. Thanks, @peretti"

Somebody make some popcorn.

Bizzy Dev It looks like one of Betabeat's "poachables" has gone and gotten herself poached! On her Tumblr, Andrea Hong, a senior manager of business development at AOL, announced that she'll be joining NewsCred, a New York City startup that wants to reinvent "how and where content is sourced, distributed, published, and paid for," as the company's director of content. We hope she enjoys NewsCred's snazzy new office!

Beef by the Book Just this week we got an official update on the progress of Sheryl Sandberg's work-in-progress Lean In, which is proceeding apace on its path toward becoming the women-in-tech equivalent of Bossypants. 

But it seems Ms. Sandberg may have a rival in the long-form arena. Intellectual gadfly Evgeny Morozov (whom we last saw stirring the pot with the audacious suggestion that the Internet isn't always a wondrous freedom-granting elixer, as well as trash-talking TED) is finishing up his own tome, and just recently he hinted arcanely that Facebook's COO might be in for a very academic diss: 

Am I going a bit overboard in this new book using Bernard Williams to bash Sheryl Sandberg? Well, yes. But at least it's FUN.

— Evgeny Morozov (@evgenymorozov) September 30, 2012

We simply can't wait to learn how the British moralist relates to Ms. Sandberg, and we long for the arrival of the inevitable New York Review of Books essay hashing all this out.

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

Mr. Williams, Mr. Peretti and Mr. Miller.

The elevators to the BuzzFeed office are magnificently slow. Each fits about six people comfortably, and they trundle and groan up to the 11th floor, where the company's ops, tech and marketing people sit. "Considering how fast the company moves, it's amazing how slow its elevators are," quipped one dapperly dressed man as we all awkwardly waited for the doors to open.

Betabeat was visiting the BuzzFeed office for the first time to attend a real-life roundtable. Hosted by Branch cofounder Josh Miller, the event included beers and mingling among some of New York's prolific tech reporters and entrepreneurs, as well as a discussion with Twitter cofounder Ev Williams and BuzzFeed's own cofounder Jonah Peretti.

Before the group settled into white plastic chairs in an event-type space outside the kitchen, Betabeat spotted several tech scene staples, like Paul Ford, Anil Dash and Rick Webb. Scrollkit's Cody Brown and Kate Ray, along with Digg CTO Michael Young, made an appearance. Reporters and writers were also out in full force: Pando Daily's Erin Griffith, The Awl's Choire Sicha and Business Insider's Alyson Shontell all nabbed seats towards the front to listen to the talk. TechCrunch coeditor Alexia Tsotsis sauntered in towards the end in a silver sparkly top.

The event was formatted like a real-life Branch, a conversation platform popular among the tech elite that seeks to "empower people to talk about the world around them." Mr. Miller, who has established himself as a prominent NYC tech entrepreneur in the year since he dropped out of Princeton, proved a confident interviewer, though it probably helped that he is close with Mr. Williams and Mr. Peretti, who both advise him on Branch. The trio sat in tall chairs, not unlike the ones you'd see scattered around a Hollywood set, with the Branch banner hanging behind them.

Soon into the talk, it became clear that Mr. Peretti and Mr. Williams--though clearly comfortable with each other--hold a handful of opposing views. Mr. Peretti is disarming and affable, while Mr. Williams is decidedly more staid, his humor held closer to the vest. It was an interesting juxtaposition to see two successful serial entrepreneurs with visibly different interviewing styles forced to come together and interact for a crowd.

Mr. Williams' new project is Medium, which is currently open to a few select users in private beta. Medium allows them to create valuable content that is categorized not by how new it is, but by how good it is.

"We want to get away from the obsession with newness," Mr. Williams said. "I think an obsession with the new overvalues its importance. Whatever you're looking at in Medium, you see the best stuff first, not the new."

Mr. Williams also argued that a person's social circle doesn't validate content or automatically make it interesting. "Valuable content can come from anyone," he emphasized.

Mr. Peretti, whose own website relies heavily on quickly spotting and posting or reframing the new, pointed out that Mr. Williams' distaste for newness is amusing given his history as the cofounder of Twitter.

"Isn't the prioritization of newness all your fault?" he joked. "You're solving a problem you created."

Mr. Williams, for his part, didn't let Mr. Peretti off the hook either.

"I'm not a big fan of aggregating content," he said a little later. The irony of him saying that while sitting in the BuzzFeed office next to Mr. Peretti was not lost on Betabeat.

To be fair, Mr. Peretti does have some rather controversial ideas. For one, he calls the reframing of someone else's scoop a “conceptual scoop,” which is sure to make journalism students bristle. "On social, nobody wants to pass around the rewrite," he argued. Instead, a lot of what BuzzFeed writers do is come up with a new way to frame an existing scoop. He gave the example of a collection of cat pictures, which doesn't mean anything given the Internet's scope of cat pictures. But when framed as "Bet You Can't Get Through This Post Without Awwing," old material becomes new.

Whether you think that counts as an actual scoop probably depends on how much you value breaking news.

Towards the end of the discussion, the topic turned to Twitter and how it serves as a vehicle--"like a railroad," Mr. Peretti emphasized--to deliver news and information. Mr. Williams agreed, but with a caveat; "Most tweets don't have links," he said, and so it's come to serve another niche. "I think it's the best standalone platform for witticisms," he added, making the audience chuckle. "That's a funny word," Mr. Peretti said, sounding ever-more like the pleasantly silly "accidental" entrepreneur he is.

As BuzzFeed first reported (shocker!), Mr. Williams also suggested that a new way to measure a Twitter user's influence could be in the works. Because many Twitter followers are actually fake, perhaps your follower count isn't an accurate way to gauge your influence. Instead, he stated, "The dream metric is how many people saw your tweet."

As Twitter continues to revoke API access and court Hollywood bigwigs, we won't hold our breath: seems like the company has some more serious issues on its hands these days.

Even though both Mr. Peretti and Mr. Williams have impressive track records as serial entrepreneurs, towards the end of the discussion both expressed that running a company is still a lot of work.

"It's still hard," said Mr. Williams. "There's always new stuff to screw up."

(internetweekny.com)

Unless you've gone off the grid, you probably already know that Internet Week 2012 launches on Monday. But with a dizzying number of events to attend, it's hard to figure out which ones are worth the time, effort and subway fare. Betabeat guest blogger Gary Sharma, something of an events truffle hound, already penned his personal list of recommendations. But consider this Betabeat's official to-do list: blogger tested, Betabeat approved.

The Art of Apps Gallery Opening
Monday, May 14th, 10am-6pm
138 Sullivan St.

Expect a lot of rounded edges and pixel talk at this gallery opening, featuring the designs of tech types like Path's Dave Morin, Jon Slimak of Piictu and Matias Corea of Behance. The exhibit will feature some of the best UI designs for apps on iPhone and iPad.

NYU ITP Spring 2012 Show
Monday, May 14th, 5pm-8pm
721 Broadway, 4th Floor

We write about ITP a lot (see the Listserve, the Descriptive Camera, and Kickstriker for some recent examples), mostly because the majority of projects produced by the students at NYU's interactive telecommunications program are actually really, really cool. ITP will unveil its best projects to the public in a two-day spring show on Monday 5/14 and Tuesday 5/15, and we think it's worth attending if only for the chance to see most of the most nimble young minds in the city at work.

Choosey Netizens Choose GIF: Analyzing an Animated Cultural Lexicon
Tuesday, May 15, 12pm-12:45pm
82 Mercer St.

We are huge fans of animated GIFs. In fact, we would probably devolve into communicating entirely through tiny moving pictures, if we could. Motherboard deputy editor Sean Yeaton will discuss how the GIF became its own cultural phenomenon.

Why Being a Good CEO has Nothing to Do With Being a Woman
Tuesday, May 15, 1pm-1:45pm
82 Mercer St.

If you haven't noticed, all of the full-time staff writers here at Betabeat possess two X chromosomes, so we're never ones to turn down a good panel about our fellow XX in tech. Featuring Birchbox cofounder Hayley Barna and Nestio CEO Caren Maio, in addition to some other talented lady founders, the discussion should offer some helpful advice on leading as a woman in the tech community.

TIME Inc.’s 10 Startups to Watch
Wednesday, May 16, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Top Secret

The list of TIME's 10 startups to watch reads like a week in Betabeat posts: NYC tech scene favs Code Academy, Art.sy, Fab.com and Side Tour are among the honorees. But the event is invite-only so be sure to get on the guest list if you want to attend.

WeWorkLabs Happy Hour
Wednesday, May 16, 5pm-8pm
175 Varick St., 4th Floor

First off: there will be free beer at this event. Plus, you'll get to check out the coworking space of WeWorkLabs, a NYC tech staple that seeks to foster collaboration between up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Check out some of the pitches from WeWorkLabs members and network with other like-minded techies.

hackNY Fundraiser
Wednesday, May 16, 7pm-9pm
foursquare HQ: 568 Broadway, 10th Floor

10gen will be providing drinks for a celebration of the hackNY community, an event to help raise funds "for the future tech innovators of New York City," and keep kids off Wall Street as the slogan goes. We had a pretty great time at the last hackNY fundraiser. But if nothing else, it's a chance to peep Foursquare's sweet office digs.

The Webutante Ball
Wednesday, May 16th, 8pm-11:55pm
Marquee

Don't pretend like you don't want to see the digerati all dolled up. The Webutante Ball is in its 4th year, and it's not really getting any cooler, but there will be lots of drinks. The "prom committee" is packed with NYC tech allstars, like Ben Lerer, Dave Tisch, plus old school fameball Julia Allison.

Walkabout NYC
Friday, May 18th, 1pm-6pm
187 Lafayette St. 6th Floor

If you're a fan of the Roger Mag, or just an interior design nut, you'll probably want to take some time to hit up Walkabout NYC, an open house of startup offices around the city. The lineup includes Betaworks, Gilt Groupe, Tumblr and Facebook, among many others.

Future of Media Panel
Friday, May 18th, 1pm-2pm
20 Cooper Sq. at 5th st. (NYU's journalism HQ)

Oh look, another panel to discuss the future of an industry about which no one has the slightest clue. Yay. But! The lineup is packed with A-list names in both media and tech, including Buzzfeed's Jonah Peretti, Thrillist's Ben Lerer and Jezebel's Jessica Coen. As long as everyone's candid about the real state of things, we think it should prove pretty entertaining.

Mr. Peretti (flickr.com/wonific)

If Arianna Huffington is the Madonna of the media industry, what does that make Jonah Peretti, cofounder of burgeoning meme factory BuzzFeed? Prince, perhaps? (In keeping with the '80s references, of course.)

Ms. Huffington, who founded The Huffington Post with the help of Mr. Peretti, was so excited to hear the nerd king's presentation, which directly followed her own, that she announced offhandedly that she was changing her schedule so that she could stay. And Mr. Peretti, whose slideshow was chock full of cute animal photos and other humorous BuzzFeed absurdities, did not disappoint. (Though it was apparently quite similar to the one he did at Ad Age Digital a few weeks ago.)

Mr. Peretti's presentation revolved around the concept of the current shift from "search" to "social." Before, people relied on search engines like Google to find information, but now they are increasingly relying on their social networks to share and receive articles. Google, he said, is concerned with connecting people with the information they want, while Facebook is about helping you express yourself and connect with your friends. But BuzzFeed is all about creating content for this new social ecosystem.

"What we’re building at BuzzFeed is treating social as the new starting point," he declared. "We’re starting with the premise that people get their news from social sources and saying, 'What does it take to create content in a social world?'"

With that, Mr. Peretti cued up a photo of two basset hounds running, their faces mangled into hilarious and oddly adorable expressions. The audience laughed heartily, with some high-pitched "awws" mixed in for good measure.

"Turns out in the social world, two basset hounds running are actually pretty good. Basset hounds have a property of having messed up faces when they run, so you laugh, so you get the 'LOL,' plus the 'Cute,' so there’s an overlap of two things," Mr. Peretti explained, with the gusto of a professor hashing out a complicated scientific theory.

"In the social world, people want to be a participant in the stories that they're reading about," he added. On the presentation screen, Mr. Peretti showed examples of BuzzFeed stories that have performed well because of this participatory element: the campaign to make People magazine name Ryan Gosling the sexiest man in the world, and a post with a list of the most powerful images of 2011.

"The biggest post we had on BuzzFeed in 2011 was the 45 most powerful images of 2011," he said. "All these epic monumental things that we all lived through in 2011--we put that into a list that people could share on Facebook, so you felt like you lived through things with your friends, but there was also the social value of reliving these experiences with your friends."

Mr. Peretti elaborated on this by explaining that the new currency in the social world is emotional intelligence, or "being able to think, 'When I share this, how does it make me look? Can I make my friends happy or inspired or more informed by sharing things with them? What’s the social dynamics of content?' I think that is sometimes more important than traditional I.Q."

"People will say, 'Oh, why don’t you just post a bunch of nude celebrities? People search for that and click on that at a tremendous rate, because no one really sees you do it," he added. "Social raises the bar to what people are proud of and what makes people more human."

Read our earlier coverage of the Guardian 2012 Activate Summit here and here.