You think he ever worries about the symbolism? (Photo: Getty Images/D Dipasupil)

Not to be outdone by Yeezus, Jay-Z announced last night--via a three-minute commercial midway through the NBA finals game--that he's dropping his own new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, next month.

Midway through the rambling ad, Jay-Z waxes philosophical, all Paul Graham-like: "That's why the Internet is like the wild west, the wild wild west. We need to write the new rules." Apparently, that means cutting a hugely lucrative deal with Samsung to give away a million copies of the album.

Guess someone's figured out the right way to run this "information wants to be free" racket.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung has shelled out $5 million--a million copies at $5 a pop--to distribute the album for free to its own customers, 72 hours before the official release. (Guess there was something to the rumors, though it's not quite the "eight-figure" contract the New York Post reported.)

If you own a Galaxy S III, a Galaxy S4, or a Galaxy Note II and you download the app that'll debut in the Google Play store later this month, you can get the album on July 4th.

Worth noting: This is pretty much the diametric opposite of Kanye West's attitude in the run-up to the release of Yeezus: "I have this new strategy. It's called no strategy," Mr. West said, according to Mashable. "This album is all about giving. This whole process is all about giving no f*cks at all." Smells like conflict in the upper echelons of the Illuminati to us!

Now, what tech gadget do I have to buy to get T.I.'s latest for free?

Maybe "hacked" is too strong of a word, but it seemed like this troubled celebrity had somehow mastered Twitter in a way that tech reporters hadn't.

It happened like this: BuzzFeed writer Louis Peitzman noticed that when you scrolled down to the first tweet on Amanda Bynes' Twitter profile, something bizarre happened. Love her or hate her or have no opinion about her whatsoever, Ms. Bynes' Twitter made it appear as if you--or whoever's Twitter account you were logged into--had tweeted some extremely complimentary things about her.

Def did not tweet this.

The whole thing reminded us of that old AIM trick, where you'd plug %n into your away message and it would automatically replace it with the username of whoever was viewing your profile.

As it turns out, Amanda Bynes wasn't the only celebrity whose profile made it appear as if the user had tweeted nice things about them. In fact, the Twitter profiles of Kanye West and Chris Brown were both displaying the same bug.

Twitter released a statement soon after BuzzFeed pointed out the problem, saying that it had resolved the issue. "While scrolling through another user’s profile, it falsely appeared to the viewer that the user had retweeted a Tweet that the viewer hadn’t actually sent," read the statement.

This all strikes us as mildly bizarre, though: for one, why was it only happening to celebrities? It wasn't relegated solely to verified accounts, as Ms. Bynes' account wasn't yet verified. And it also didn't appear to have to do with follower counts, as lesser-known Twitter personalities with big followings but little name cache didn't appear to have the bug.

Whatever the case, we're happy to have all history of our prior faux adoration of Amanda Bynes wiped from the Twitter archives.

Mr. Vinh. (Photo: Tumblr.com)

Shopping Site Goes Shopping Back in 2011, Khoi Vinh, the former design director for The New York Times’s website, attempted to launch an iPad collage maker called Mixel that even Taylor Swift would love. The interface was kind of clunky, and the company soon pivoted to a smoother iPhone product, which became fairly successful. And now Mixel has been acquired by the custom product giant Etsy.

No, you won't be creating any collages of your twee collectables any time soon. According to AllThingsD, The Mixel team is being acquired for its stellar mobile talents. Mr. Vinh and his cofounder Scott Ostler, along with employees Akiva Leffert and Roy Stanfield, will all make the move to Etsy's Brooklyn offices. Mixel will be shutting down the social side of its app, but will leave up its collage-making tool. In an email to Betabeat, Etsy CTO Kellan Elliot-McCrea explains, “We expect our mobile traffic to surpass desktop traffic by the end of 2014." 

Not Even Punking You Kanye West's favorite Pinterest-like site, The Fancy, just expanded its subscription box service, originally a monthly plan that gives you $60 of curated goods for $30. Now everyone, not just the minds at Fancy, can choose a bunch of items to send out to their adoring fans. Fancy gets to split the profits with you, of course. The first partner is Ashton Kutcher with his A+ Box, which includes brain-shaped ice cubes and mustache-shaped Band-Aids.

Iowa Now Trendiest State Dwolla, the fast-growing money transfer app, reached a pretty big milestone this week. The company announced its partnership with the Iowa state government to help modernize the state's tax system. Starting soon, businesses will be able to use Dwolla to pay the cigarette stamp tax, which accounts for about $100 million of Iowa's revenue each year. In a blog post, the company seems to be looking to the future already: "And while you may not be able to pay your taxes using Dwolla today, you are going to start seeing our logo pop up here and there as the state looks to modernize the payment experiences and do better business for the 21st century taxpayer and economy (e.g. mobile payments, low-cost transfers, and real-time notifications, etc.)."

Norman Mailer Badge Foursquare recently partnered up with Voice Media Group, the company that was spun off from Village Voice Media, now without the icky Backpage.com. The Voice's Places event data will now be syndicated on Foursquare and the company's highly popular "Best Of" will be integrated into the service as well.

Let's All Go to the Lobby: Dogfish Accelerator, the first accelerator program for film producers, launched this week. Started by a former TechStars associate, James Belfer, the accelerator puts film teams in a three-month intensive training and networking program and gives them $18,000 in seed funding, along with free office space. But why wouldn't you just try a Kickstarter and go to Sundance?

Award Tour See.Me, the social network for artists, is currently running a bunch of contests for its 600,000 users. There's $125,000 in grants and awards up for grabs. The site has just announced that founding Tribe Called Quest member Q-Tip is going to serve as a judge for its music competition. In a press release sent to Betabeat, William Etundi, founder and CEO of See.Me, said, "Our simple goal is support creative people with recognition, shows and grants and we are super excited to bring Q-Tip into that process.”

Fund My Relationship Coming Soon If you've ever wanted your neighbors to pick your next significant other, then you should try ChainDate. The site is billing itself as the world's first site that uses crowdsourcing to find you a match. Every user gets "Wingpeople," users who like the same type of person that you do. The site matches you up with people that these similar-minded users thought were cute too. Sounds a bit competitive.

Nothing Really Matters The mobile analytics firm Adeven claims that over 435,000 new apps will be added to the iOS app store in 2013. That's too many apps to fit on your tiny phone, but don't worry, you won't even notice most of them. The firm also reports that 60 perecent of apps are "zombie apps," or apps that go completely undiscovered by iPhone users. A Zombie App Survival Guide is surely forthcoming.

Stuff Michelle Obama Likes  Whole Kids Foundation, PACT and Indiegogo are teaming up to help build urban sustainable gardens across the country. Leaders raise $2,500 on Indiegogo pages and Whole Kids Foundation will provide additional help like gardening materials. Crowdfunding kind of saves the day again.

Help Out, Y'all LuckyAnt, the crowfunding platform for small businesses, is hosting a very large crowdfunding campaign for 9 South Street Seaport businesses to help them out in the enduring disaster of hurricane Sandy. There's 19 days left in the project to rebuild historic Front Street and over $10,000 has already been raised.

Wake Up, Loser If waking up to the blaring sound of beeping or shocking radio static isn't for you, then you should download Mood O'Clock. It's the first emotional alarm app for Android, which lets you choose what kind of mood you want to wake up to. Depending on what you choose, the app will play you a corresponding morning soundtrack. We need a setting to help us wake up feeling like a brogrammer for those special Saturdays.

New York City-based startup The Fancy* is trying a different approach. In September, the commerce-minded photo-sharing network--which lets users post pics of products and in theory purchase the items directly from the site--went the Birchbox route with a monthly subscription service. The idea being luring in users with small-scale affordable versions of the pricey, aspirational goods The Fancy tends to attract.

But recently, the Pinterest competitor announced that any user can now curate their own monthly subscription box. The company will handle the transaction and take care of packing and shipping and you get to keep half the profits from sales. It's kicking off this off with an A+ box of "the dopest stuff on the Fancy" from its investor, Ashton Kutcher. For $45 a month, buyers will get $90 worth of Beardo hats, headphones, and stickers, by the looks of it.

Wired explains how to follow in Mr. Kutcher's monetizing footsteps:

"You can sign up by e-mailing myfancybox@thefancy.com and once they set you up, you get to pick from a list of popular products on The Fancy, or add anything else you like from the internet, so long as isn’t deemed inappropriate by the startup’s staff (think offensive t-shirts, weapons, or drugs). The Fancy says it is looking for all kinds of people to make boxes, says a company spokesperson. That might seem like a risky business decision, but the company won’t procure any of the products for a box until one sells."

Attaching bold-face names to subscription services is de rigueur. Just ask Kim Kardashian's ShoeDazzle/every other startup in L.A. But the idea of empowering users to make (some) money and share links to the Fancy is the kind of hustle one expects when Kanye West is advising you on "social, mobile, swag." Funny, though, this sounds like exactly the kind of business model that would do really well on Pinterest.

*Disclosure

(Photo: OKFocus)

The Merry Pranksters

From Old Spice’s viral “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign to the contentious Skittles spot that made One Million Moms cry bestiality, bizarre or aggressive advertising has become commonplace in our internet-addled society. To nab the attention of customers toggling between screens, advertisers frequently toe the line between inappropriate and outrageous, but few are as unabashedly controversial as the Queens-based OKFocus. Named to AdAge’s Creativity 50 in July, OKFocus is a rebel brand’s dream, equal parts design snob and attention-seeking internet troll. And as advertising moves online, OKFocus clients like Google and the Museum of Contemporary Art have taken note.

Helmed by Ryder Ripps, Jonathan Vingiano and Jules LaPlace, the boutique digital firm has implemented its fair share of next-gen, buzzy web products, including a live online dance party for Smirnoff and a game for Google Plus’s video-chat system that, using facial recognition technology, allows users to draw on the screen without using the mouse or keyboard.

The boundary-pushing agency is perhaps most notorious for its foray into pranksterism with WhoDat.Biz, a domain lookup site that purported to be the first company born of rapper Kanye West’s new startup, Donda Media. Users were shocked: did the stylish rapper just put out an ugly update of Whois.net? It took several hours before tech blogs realized that OKFocus was behind the viral prank. In one fell swoop, OKFocus called attention to the internet’s false preconceptions about Mr. West’s startup and demonstrated how dangerous the hive-mind can be when it latches onto bogus news, serving up a valuable lesson for brands and consumers alike.

What differentiates the agency’s aesthetic from others is its devotion to levity, to the idea that design can and should be fun. By mixing this philosophy with cutting-edge web technology, OKFocus creates products that stick in the minds of users long after they’ve moved onto the next big thing. As Mr. Vingiano put it in an interview with The Creator’s Project, “There’s something about this lack of humor in modern web design that is just so appalling.”

When OKFocus realized, for example, that New Yorkers frequently complain about unreliable L train service, they devised Is the L Train Fucked?, a single-serving website that flashes “yes” or “no” depending on the train’s status. By capitalizing on zeitgeist-y controversy and translating it in a humorous way, the trio behind OKFocus have established themselves as expert buzz-builders, unafraid of deploying a good stunt. As TV advertisers rush to out-weird themselves, OKFocus’s trolling instincts seem like the natural evolution of an industry obsessed with going viral.

Next: Dan Loeb, Third Point LLC: the Poison Pen

Back to the beginning

This is what we are picturing. (Photo: Morsipr.blogspot.com)

Fresh off blowing up Mitt Romney's tax scheme spot on the opening track of Cruel Summer, Kanye West must have decided it was safe to take his eye off the throne for a minute. We hear the rapper dropped by General Assembly's East campus at 902 Broadway today to meet with a startup. "He was just there. He was in the classroom," an entrepreneur stationed in the coworking space told Betabeat. "He didn't have many people with him and was just in the front. I think he was in the classroom most of the morning."

We first noticed the sighting via a tweet from Matthew Witheiler, principal at Flybridge Capital Partners. Alex Taub, head of biz dev at Dwolla, also tweeted about the surprise guest--and his stylish wardrobe choice. Another venture capitalist, Nikhil Kalghatgi at Softbank Ventures, used the social network to express his disbelief. Meanwhile, student developer Chevon Christie was bummed to have missed the whole thing.

Crazy world. @kanyewest currently meeting with a company at @ga.

— Matthew Witheiler (@witheiler) September 13, 2012

Okay... @kanyewest is at @ga . Was just listening to Watch The Throne one minute ago. Also- nice pants! — Alexander Taub (@ajt) September 13, 2012

@nikhilkal @kanyewest @ga black and red pants. They were really nice. I sort of want to know where they are from... — Alexander Taub (@ajt) September 13, 2012

Apparently, kanye came by my workplace, @ga, today.. #HowDidIMissThat?

— Chevon Christie (@ChevonChr) September 13, 2012

Last summer, Mr. West (along with Lady Gaga) was rumored to have invested in the music startup Turntable.fm. Unlike Elevation Partners cofounder "Bono Rockstar," Mr. West does not yet have a Crunchbase profile and the deal, as far as we know, is unconfirmed. However, he's no stranger to Silicon Alley. Mr. West was recently seen advising Joseph Einhorn, founder of The Fancy. At the time, a company rep told Betabeat, “He gave some advice to our CEO Joe Einhorn, who looks up to Kanye the way most tech folks idolize Steve Jobs." Earlier this year, Mr. West disclosed plans for "a new collective of creatives and developers" called DONDA. The startup, he said, will have 22 divisions aligned under the goal of making "products and experiences that people want and can afford."

As for today's classroom session at GA, it's unclear whether Mr. West was teaching, learning or recruiting. If you know the identity of the mystery startup, holler at your girls: tips@betabeat.com.

Startup game tight (Photo: @KanyeWest)

Earlier today, New York City startup The Fancy* emailed Betabeat to let us know that "One of our favorite users stopped by the office today :)." Oh, yes we'd noticed. And retweeted.

We've documented Kanye West's interest in The Fancy--a fast-growing startup that turns posted photos into a consumerist's dream--before. But what exactly was Yeezy doing palling around the office?

"He gave some advice to our CEO Joe Einhorn, who looks up to Kanye the way most tech folks idolize Steve Jobs," the company replied. "It's all about building the future of commerce. Social, mobile, swag." Funny, we always thought it was social, mobile, local.

Mark Zuckerberg himself is a Fancy user, but the startup's members also includes Nas (who has posted 33 photos of must-have items like a magnetic floating bed and his own album) and Rick Ross.

Makes sense, we guess. After all, this is practically Startupland's theme song:

*Disclosure

So when Gawker writer Louis Peitzman, casting around for a subject on a slow news day, inadvertently rewrote an old Jezebel post about an Etsy seamstress who embroiders Kanye West's tweets, we sympathized. We also wondered where else the Kanye West phenomenon and the world of Etsy might overlap. Many places, it turns out: a search for "Kanye" in Etsy's section for handmade goods yields 242 results. Here's the best and worst of the West. All for you, dear readers. All 10 of you.

Yeezy sold separately.

The last time we checked in with social commerce startup Fancy was back in February, around the time Kanye West tweeted out his approval for "My friend Joseph's site." The Joseph in question is ThingD founder Joe Einhorn, the wunderkind entrepreneur trying to create "the Facebook of stuff" as Ben Popper wrote in a profile of Mr. Einhorn in The Observer in 2010. (Somewhere along the way, The Fancy opted to drop the "The.")

Like Pinterest, Fancy is focused on discovering and collecting images of things. Unlike Pinterest, which relies on affiliate marketing links, anything on Fancy can be bought. You "fancy" a thing and Fancy lets brands and retailers sign up to sell that item on the site. That photo of the Eiffel Tower, for example, comes attached to a deal for hotel nights in Paris.

This novel approach seems to be gaining traction. In the past couple months, GigaOm reports that Fancy has doubled its users to 500,000. It has also enabled 500,000 offers, as well, all the way up to a $10,000 watch. Yesterday, Fancy launched on Android mobile devices. True to its name, Fancy has already inked deals to help power social commerce on the brand sites for Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent.

(Fancy is likewise chichi in its investor roster: parent company ThingD has raised $18 million from Marc Andreessen, Allen & Co and Gucci-owner PPR. And Jack Dorsey sits on the company's board as does PPR chairman Francois-Henri Pinault, otherwise known as Salma Hayek's baby daddy.)

The only potential downside of the popularity of Fancy's "let brands come to you" approach was buried in the end of GigaOm's post: "[Fancy is] demonstrating real progress with its model and in the process showing Pinterest how to make money through social discovery." Hmm, isn't that something Mr. Einhorn would rather Pinterest not learn?

Mr. Vingiano and Mr. Ripps. (okfoc.us)

After some sleuthing, Betabeat discovered that WhoDat.biz is in fact a project of New York-based OkFocus, a full service digital agency run by Ryder Ripps and Jonathan Vingiano that's notorious for their PR stunts.

Mr. Vingiano confirmed to us over email that WhoDat.biz is "an OKFocus project."

We reached out to Small Girls PR, friends of OKFocus, and asked about the project.

"Way to punk the entire Internet, Mr. Vingiano!" we said.

"Yeah, he's very good at that," they responded. "He used to run a @Balenciaga twitter in which the L was actually an upercase i ... rihanna retweeted it."

OKFocus is also behind Is the L Train Fucked? and Dump.fm.

When we reached out to the fake Donda Media address, they originally responded with AIM slang--"a/s/l?" After some back and forth, we finally laid it on the line: "C'mon, Ryder," we wrote. "It will feel so good to be honest. And then you can get press for OkFocus while everyone still cares! This WSJ article obviously didn't do you justice."

The folks at OKFocus responded, "Hehe. Yes it's an OkFocus project." Mr. Ripps even duped his friends, posting a link to WhoDat.Biz on his Facebook page 18 hours ago, along with the following commentary:

Since everyone was fooled, we'll take it upon ourselves to dish out some grades on how long it took various sites to realize the whole thing was a hoax.

The Washington Post: F
Headline: Kanye West’s Donda Media unveils Whodat.biz, the ‘Facebook of Websites’
Time posted: 4:09 p.m. EST
Time redacted: Not yet (as of 7:03 p.m.)

Gizmodo: B
Headline: What the Hell is Kanye's Insane Tech Start Up? updated to This Can't Possibly Be Kanye's Insane Tech Start Up, Can It?
Time posted: 2:53 p.m.
Time redacted: 5:30 p.m. (That New "Donda Media" Site Is Fake As Hell (Updated))

Buzzfeed: B
Headline: Kanye's New Startup is Ridiculous
Time posted: 2pm-ish
Time redacted: 3:47pm (via a tweet and an update: Kanye's New Startup Is Ridiculous (Update: And Fake))

Betabeat: B, because it took a helpful tweet sent just after our original post to cue us in. Also, apparently everyone in New York knew; we were told we "need more Facebook friends."
Headline: Introducing Kanye West’s Bizarre New Startup, WhoDat.Biz
Time posted: 4:10 p.m. (but updated at 4:15 p.m. to Introducing Kanye West’s Possibly Fake But Definitely Bizarre New Startup, WhoDat.Biz [UPDATED])
Time redacted: 5:35 p.m. (Fake Kanye Site Punks Internet, 30 Minutes Later Internet Debunks Fake Kanye Site) and 6:13 p.m. (Meet OKFocus, the PR Stuntmen Behind Fake Kanye West Site WhoDat.biz)

PopDust: A, for being skeptical from the start.