(Photo: Tumblr)

Faux Doxx Not long after it launched, Snapchat’s self-destruct feature and popularity with teenagers earned it a bad reputation as "that sexting app." (The kind of bad rep that makes you popular very quickly.)

And yet, a number of tech blogs, including BuzzFeed, Gizmodo, Gawker and Betabeat have pointed out reasons why Snapchat isn’t safe for sexting, including an exploit that lets you save videos without the sender knowing. Early this month, we argued that Snapchat’s real genius is its ephemerality, and that in the age of personal brand curation, teenagers (and even those us not born in the ’90s) want an anti-Instagram. PandoDaily later concurred.

Into all this adult squabbling over a teenage craze wades TechCrunch, wagging its finger at a manufactured sexting scare. Who is to blame? The media, of course. With a Perry Mason-ish flourish, TechCrunch reporter Jordan Crook points the finger at a number of bloggers in a section of her post dubbed (dun dun dun da) “The Conspiracy.”

“I learned,” says Ms. Crook, “that the former group is predominantly chatting with each other.” This leads our esteemed detective to two conclusions:

The first is that the same folks who serve you a round of tech news with your morning coffee and bagel are also in a Snapchat sexting ring. The second option is that the very same people who have repeatedly assumed that Snapchat is for sexting, and propagated that myth, don’t use Snapchat for sexting at all.

I.e., unless tech reporters own up to sexting each other all day every day, there’s no evidence of sexting. BuzzFeed’s Katie Notopoulos either admits to sending dick pics to Gizmodo’s Sam Biddle, or her conclusions are invalid. (Nick Bilton is written off as allegedly barely using the service.)

Unfortunately, TechCrunch made precious little effort to verify basic facts, assuming unverified handles were associated with individual reporters (did we learn nothing from the BuzzFeed vs. Oatmeal battle royale?). TechCrunch also doesn’t make note of the fact that your “top friends” and numbers of Snapchats exchanged are only based on recent activity. Ignore someone for a while and they fall off your list. Besides, there are so few adult normals on the service, who else is a 25-year-old tech reporter supposed to talk to?

In Ms. Crook’s case, she might have underestimated their willingness to take that dare:

TECHCRUCNH JUST ACCUSED ME IN BEING A MEMBER OF A BLOG ILLUMINATI SEXTING RING, WHAT HAPPENED 2 HUMAN DECENCY

— Sam Biddle (@samfbiddle) December 27, 2012

If anyone thinks @katienotopoulos is bluffing about snapchat to advance her career, call her out. She WILL show you her dick.

— Sam Biddle (@samfbiddle) December 27, 2012

@samfbiddle when you're workin with the kind of monster hog I got, who doesn't want to show it off?

— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) December 27, 2012

Look: just because the founder (who has admitted the service was partially inspired by the sad tale of Anthony Weiner) says he didn’t design Snapchat for sexting doesn’t invalidate the use case. Using that line of reasoning, Facebook was built to bring the world together and not to cyberstalk and data-collect. Sure, nudes likely don’t account for a huge portion of the 50 million snaps per day, but if the arc of civilization has taught us anything, humans will share nude selfies by any means possible.

VC Style Though VCs may be considered more put-together than their hoodie-clad engineering counterparts, there's only so far a boring suit can take you. AHA Life, an online shop that curates "unique lifestyle products from around the world," chose its most stylish VC, and he's a New Yorker, natch.

Lawrence Lenihan, founder and managing director of FirstMark Capital, appears to be everything Tom Haverford wishes he was, right down to the swag-ass bowtie. Need a $935 smoking jacket or $5,000 Hyperion Turntable? Mr. Lenihan's got you covered.

Mile in Your Shoes Congratulations to fitness freak and Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley for hitting his goal of running 1,000 miles this year. If New York tech falls off the funding cliff, good to know he can always fall back on a career as a personal trainer.

(Photo: Instagram)

SMDH Hey, entrepreneurs, consider this a public service announcement warning you not to get cute with your title:

Just saw "artrepeneur" in a twitter bio.

— Samir Mezrahi (@samir) December 28, 2012

In seven hours, he managed to raise $5 million.

The press has focused on high-profile attendees like Deepak Chopra and Russell Simmons, as well as the turnout from the upper echelons of Wall Street. Indeed, Republicans would probably love to make stumping in front of an $18,000 piece of driftwood this season's $400 haircut. But under the radar, New York techies also showed up--and paid up!--for the Democratic cause, and the ancillary bonus of getting to watch Questlove bang on some drums.

For all their willingness to weigh in on what the federal government is doing wrong, direct party affiliation isn't something one hears that often in tech circles. (There are exceptions: TheLadders CEO Marc Cenedella planned on running for a Republican Senate seat; Chris Dixon wondered yesterday if he lived in a "left-wing bubble.") It can be hard to tell, for example, whether an anti-SOPA advocate is a Libertarian or a Democrat. Or whether a disruption-chasing venture capitalist might be a fiscal conservative who votes GOP.

So it was interesting to see names like FirstMark Capital's Lawrence Lenihan (alongside AHAlife's Shauna Mei) on the host list for the dinner. Ryan Williams, a server engineer for Foursquare, checked-in on his company's app to the $1,000-a-ticket show at ABC Carpet, along with Birchbox's Dan Zeehandelaar. Others in attendance included Potential.ly founder Joel Smernoff, along with 212 Media's Jeremy Goldberg, a sizable contingent from LocalResponse, Cava Capital general partner Geoff Schneider, kbs+ Ventures senior associate Taylor Davidson and his fiance Sloane Berrent, Lippe Taylor's VP of digital, who got points for her first check-in with the POTUS. On Ms. Mei's Facebook page last week, Turntable.fm's Billy Chasen and investor Jay Levy also expressed interest in attending.

"[Obama's] personality resonates with all of us," LocalResponse CEO Nihal Mehta told Betabeat by email. "He kicked off last night's 20-minute speech by saying he has more twitter followers than Aziz Ansari."

He really said this in his speech. Unreal. “@questlove: POTUS to @AzizAnsari: I got more twitter followers than you man!”

— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) March 2, 2012

Part of the techie turnout may have been orchestrated by Mr. Mehta's girlfriend Reshma Saujani, who currently serves as deputy advocate for special initiatives for the New York City Public Advocate's office and helped organize the fundraising event. When Ms. Saujani campaigned for a Congressional seat in 2010, she ran on an innovation/entrepreneurship platform that drew supporters like Jack Dorsey, of Twitter and Square, and Facebook's Chris Hughes. Ms. Saujani, who introduced the president, was able to raise "well over $1 million," said Mr. Mehta.

So does this mean we'll be seeing more political activism from New York's tech crowd as November draws near? Maybe more like political startups. "The threat of SOPA and PIPA activated a lot of political interest in many people involved in technology and entrepreneurship," said Mr. Davidson, from kbs+ ventures (who teaches a mean Skillshare class on financial modeling). "I also believe that it created a lot of ideas for 'political tech' entrepreneurs. Many political campaigns have been very savvy in using web technology and communities to activate voters, but there is still a lot to be done beyond activation, and I think that technology entrepreneurs will build solutions to tackle many of those problems," he said, adding, "Building solutions to help people be involved and engaged in government is more important than a particular entrepreneur's political affiliation."

Mr. Mehta also mentioned SOPA/PIPA, but in the context of listing Obama policies he thought attracted tech types. "New York tech will definitely come out and support the President given his stance against SOPA/PIPA, loan forgiveness programs for entrepreneurs, and constant encouragement of innovations in every speech (e.g. American cars are the leaders globally with 55 MPG saving the average US family $8-10k/year)," said Mr. Mehta. "His numerous references to creating the next steve jobs, and the necessity to innovate, 'What Americans do.'"

Any Romney supporters care to share a differing opinion? You know what to do: tips@betabeat.com.

Managing Director Lawrence Lenihan (via firstmarkcap.com)

Guess nobody polled FirstMark Capital for that recent survey about pessimism around the venture capital market for 2012. While their peers report dwindling faith in their ability to raise funds to invest, FirstMark reported yesterday that it had closed an oversubscribed $225 million early-stage fund.

Perhaps that's why the New York-based venture capital firm opted for a subtle announcement: a blog post that, by the looks of it, has only been picked up by the New York Post and the Dow Jones Wire.

The new fund, called FirstMark V, is larger than the firm's previous $200 million fund, which boasted a big exit with Riot Games, sold to the Chinese firm Tencent this year for $400 million. Judging by some of the other promising companies in the fund like SecondMarket and Knewton, there's likely to be more good news of the way for FirstMark.

Pinterest, for example, which is hot on Tumblr's heels and already cozy with brands like Nordstrom and the Travel Channel, recently closed a $25 million round from Andreessen Horowitz at a $200 million valuation. ($200 million valuations for early stage companies seem to be something of an Andreessen Horowitz specialty.)

According to DowJones:

"The new fund will operate under the same investment thesis--it will be the first money into companies working on the application layer of the Internet, and usually companies with a New York connection. The fund will be managed by the same team, which consists of four managing directors and five venture partners."

FirstMark V has already made five investments: Greenphire (e-payments), LollyWollyDoodle (personalized kids clothing), NewsCred (a premium newswire), Dashlane (an app that improves speed and security online) and Meteor.

In the fund announcement, FirstMark waived its Silicon Alley flag high:

"We will also continue our tireless support of the NYC ecosystem. We think it's one of the best places in the world to build a company and getting stronger each day due to the efforts of many of you. This year, we co-chaired the Ingenuity conference to showcase the best companies in NYC, successfully helped launch the NYC Turing Fellows to bring more engineers to the City, taught and encouraged NYU undergrads to become entrepreneurs and join startups, invested in and mentored at TechStars, spoke and spent time at General Assembly, sponsored numerous conferences and events, and tried to make a real impact in building a vibrant local community. We will continue the mission!"