Bright lights, big city. (flickr.com/ugod)

As Mayor Bloomberg nears the mile marker for his exit, the rest of the city is starting to chatter about what we're supposed to do now. In December, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer released a report asking what the tech boom has done for New York's working class. But the suits are getting in on the act, too: Today the Partnership for NYC released the NYC Jobs Blueprint, a report chock full of recs for the next mayor.

Most relevant to the tech biz: The Partnership Fund, the organization's investment arm, is willing to pony up $20 million for an urban tech campus providing "flexible, affordable live-work spaces for the next generation of young professionals."

The engineers of the future will never get to leave their desks!

The Partnership is a nonprofit "representing leaders of New York City’s corporate, investment and entrepreneurial businesses." The board includes the familiar face of Kevin Ryan, but co-chairs include Terry Lundgren, CEO of Macy's and Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock. So it's a relatively corporate bunch, but the report shows startups love.

One of the big concerns outlined: The struggle to scale. The report points out, "Although the city is a hotbed of digital startups, few young companies are scaling up to more than 30 or 40 jobs in the city." Unsurprisingly for an organization run by business types, the report cites the costs associated with starting a business--1.5 times the national average, with rent and electricity twice the national average. And so:

"Of the 220,000 businesses in the city, 195,000 or 88%, have fewer than 20 employees.90 Between 2003 and 2010, New York City experienced a 9% increase in the number of firms with one to four employees, but no net increase in the number of firms with 50 or more employees."

Those are some disheartening numbers, though it's probably too early to account for the current boom. But in the meantime, the organization is willing to put its money where its mouth is:

"The Partnership Fund is prepared to invest $20 million in the commercial component of a campus for entrepreneurs and tech startups. A good model is Las Vegas, where Zappos is leading development of a campus on the grounds of the old City Hall. The project will be anchored by the Zappos’ company headquarters and will include work-life integration with housing, education, and technology incubation."

The ideal campus would "include vertical live-work communities and “flex” work space for the growing creative, tech, health and advanced manufacturing sectors." The report recommends expanding the concept of "inclusionary zoning" to " incentivize development of commercial and industrial space in mixed use zones that is affordable to growing companies."

That sounds appealing until you start thinking about living near "industrial space." $20 million doesn't go very far, either, when you consider the potential costs of such a project, but it's something, we suppose. Suggested sites include Downtown Brooklyn, as well as the Sunset Park and LIC waterfronts, the north shore of State Island and Port Morris and Eastchester in the Bronx. (No casinos required, apparently.)

The report also outlines a long-term threat, and that's the erosion of middle-class jobs: "This is partly due to the rising cost of living—driven by the cost of housing—and partly to advances in globalization and automation that allow companies to either eliminate or easily move business support and other mid-level functions to lower cost locations. The consequences of this trend, if it accelerates, could be the destabilization of neighborhoods, weakening of the city’s labor pool, and further narrowing of the tax base."

If that happens and the city hits the skids, those airy Soho lofts won't be so appealing. Note the mention of automation, too--maybe give that a ponder the next time you look at an industry and think of all the ways you can disrupt it with robots and software.

Other recommendations include:

·       Create new public-private investment vehicles to finance necessary infrastructure improvements;
·       Found a permanent innovation advocacy organization comprised of the heads of leading universities, research institutions and innovation industries to drive policies and programs that advance New York’s status in the knowledge economy;
·       Establish industry-labor partnerships, along the lines of NYC & Co., to promote the growth of good jobs in key sectors;
·       Support key programs and policies that nurture the growth of startups into major, scalable employers and reverse the loss of middle class jobs.

The report also calls on the city to support the development of additional affordable lab space for the life-sciences sector and "champion diversity in the tech sector."

Ms. Vogelaar.

The Manufacturing Maven

When 3D-printing startup Shapeways held a ribbon-cutting for its new “factory of the future” last month, more pols were in attendance than at a Hurricane Sandy press conference: Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and Empire State Development Corporation President Ken Adams all made the trip to the cavernous building that will house 50 3D printers, churning out as many as 5 million products every year.

In the heart of Long Island City’s formerly bustling industrial district, Shapeways is bringing manufacturing back to the five boroughs, one 3D-printed sprocket at a time. Customers submit their own designs, and Shapeways makes them into reality, using massive machines that “print” the objects, layer by layer. You name it, Shapeways can probably print it, in one of 30 materials.

For the hobbyist who wants the perfect model rocket part, it’s an inexpensive alternative to a $2,199 Makerbot Replicator 2. For the hustler trying to cobble together a prototype or even an entire product line (be it robot parts or geometric jewelry) on a tight turnaround, it’s a real alternative to outsourcing. The company even has a marketplace where entrepreneurial designers can create their own stores, making Shapeways the Etsy of 3D printing. It’s almost enough to make you think the company sprang into existence as the result of a mind-meld between the city’s creative types and our tech-loving mayor.

Leading the charge is co-founder Marleen Vogelaar, who oversees production in both New York City and the Netherlands. As chief operations officer, she cheerfully rides herd on the whole enterprise. “What is most important to me is that my operations team treats every one of those single objects as the personal dream of the person who bought it,” Ms. Vogelaar told The Observer. That’s rather tough when one is doing futuristic fabrication at scale, as opposed to making iterative updates to some recommendation engine. Ms. Vogelaar spends her time sourcing flexible new plastics even as she checks in every day with her teams to make sure those big machines are still running smoothly.

“We were the first ones in the U.S. building a very high-scale, personalized manufacturing facility,” she said. Hopefully, for Long Island City’s sake, they won’t be the last.

Next: Anil Dash, Activate and ThinkUp: Amiable Agitator

Back to the beginning.

The crowded presser for the factory of the future. (Photo: Shapways' Instagram)

This morning, Betabeat ventured forth to the industrial environs of Long Island City for a ribbon-cutting at what's being billed as the "factory of the future."

Naturally, quite a few tech scene regulars were in attendance, like New York City Economic Development Corporation president Seth Pinsky. But, by and large, it was mayor Michael Bloomberg's show--that, and of course Shapeways, the company that'll soon be 3D printing user-generated designs right were we were standing.

"There are plenty of good reasons we want New York City to be the epicenter of the industry, something, folks, that the factory and the research lab here at Shapeways will help make possible," he told us, before adding, for anyone missing the point: "This is the future of our city."

"We have to compete with other cities around the world, and I think we are well on our way to do it, but we certainly cannot let up."

Shapeways, which also has offices in Seattle and the Netherlands, got its start abroad but has been headquartered in New York since 2010. However, this is the company's first production facility here in the city. Once it's up and running, the factory will hold fifty industrial-scale printers, capable of producing 5 million products a year. It'll also contain a research lab, devoted to advancing the technology.

At 25,000 square feet, it'll be the biggest 3D printing facility (for individual consumers, that is) in the world.

However, when we arrived, all we saw was an enormous empty space--the kind of echoey void that makes you want to strap on a pair of 3D rollerskates. In one corner of the room, everyone had gathered around the pastries and coffee dispensers (provided by Joyride, of course); in another, someone had set up a podium, a cluster of chairs, and a table covered in 3D-printed tchotchkes. Chief Digital Officer Rachel Haot was already floating through the crowd, meeting and greeting, and we saw Queens Tech Meetup ringleader Jukay Hsu roll up with a cup of something warm in hand. A commercial on infinite loop was projected onto the far wall.

Upon sitting down, it took a moment to realize one of the objects on the table, a little tree and child's swing inside of a bird cage, was actually ticking off the time with tiny jerking movements.

"By forming a critical bridge between the tech and manufacturing centers, [Shapeways' factory]'ll give other companies the idea they need to be here," said Mayor Bloomberg. "It'll also help us bring the city's industrial sector directly into the twenty-first century and it will add to Long Island City's reputation as one of the hottest spots on the planet, where tech companies can grow."

"It is really potentially one of the great transformations in this country, in the world, of how we go from an idea to something that's useful." Though, of course, some of the products on the table veered more in the direction of decorative.

Pointing out that the facility's opening would create fifty manufacturing jobs in its first year alone, the mayor took a moment to trumpet the state of the city's employment statistics: "Today there are 3.8 million jobs in the five boroughs. It is an all-time high record. Last time we were even close to this was 43 years ago." He also noted that, while the city has less than three percent of the country's population, this year it's created nearly eight percent of the private-sector jobs in the country.

"Each of these things we announce, and each of these things you come to, really do add to what's going on in the city," he added. "It's the reason why we are growing and the rest of the country is, sadly, not."

Soon to be full of 3D printers. (Photo: Shapeways' Instagram)

Besides the ribbon-cutting, the mayor had also stopped by to launch a "next top makers" competition. New Yorkers will be able to upload pictures of something they'd like to design--electronics, home decor, whatever--and five projects will be selected by product design experts, with a sixth chosen by public vote. Those six teams will then participate in a "five month design studio" to develop their product, including working with mentors from Shapeways, Adafruit Industries, and Honeybee Robotics.

In September 2013, the most promising business will get a cash prize.

"Yes, the name of these companies--Shapeways, Adafruit Industries and Honeybee Robotics--don't have the same ring as something conventional like Bloomberg LP does, but it's a different world, you guys," he said, sounding a little like Jean-Luc Picard adjusting his cummerbund on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Next up was Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen. "So what is Shapeways? Shapeways is a platform for anyone to make, buy and sell their own personal products--things you care about." They're already making 100,000 products or more on a monthly basis, and that number is growing quickly, he said.

Several of the 50 industrial-sized 3D printers soon to inhabit the space were already at work in a room just off the main space--"We already, in true startup fashion, are driving this car whilst we're building it." Once everything's up and running, the facility will do production, post-processing (like dying and polishing) and sorting and distribution, right from the Long Island City space.

That means the company can produce between 3 and 5 million products in the space every year--faster, more affordably, and with less damage to the environment.

After the other speakers had said their part--including Queens borough president Helen Marshall, who turned around and extended a personal welcome to Mr. Weijmarshausen and his company--it was time for the actual ribbon-cutting which, like so many of the 3D printed objects on the table, was largely decorative rather than functional. Several Shapeways employees simply took a ribbon and held it up so that Mayor Bloomberg could cut it, using a pair of 3D printed scissors.

But before the crowd parted ways, a quick Q&A offered the mayor a quick chance to--as always--be booster-in-chief for New York City. Achieving utter tech sector dominance, he explained, is largely a matter of attaining critical mass. "People will say, 'Oh, we have no chance of being bigger in technology than Silicon Valley.' That's not true."

"Once you get the critical mass here, I've always thought that New York's value proposition is a better one, because here people that you want, the best and the brightest, also can partake of great cultural institutions and a very diverse community, so that they can practice their religion and have the kind of food that they want, try new things."

That, and there's a hell of a lot more nightlife.

Speak of the devil: Google just purchased Instagram challenger Snapseed. [PC Mag]

The Winklevoss twins are giving this social network thing another go, investing in SumZero, ConnectU cofounder Divya Narendra's new site for investors. We can only assume developers are being vetted very carefully. [Wall Street Journal]

The ludicrous looking Ostrich Pillow is now on Kickstarter. How long before this is yet another standard-issue startup perk? [TNW]

An Iraqi American plans to found a hackerspace in Baghdad, because he is way more hardcore than you. [Wired]

Long Island City is being overrun with "artisanal food businesses and tech start-ups." [New York Daily News]

Apparently 34 percent of people have used their iPad naked. Naughty! [VentureBeat]

"Drips" (Photo: Shapeways.com)

Shapeways, the Etsy of 3D printing, which moved to New York in after an investment from Union Square Ventures, is poised to open a "factory of the future" in Long Island City. Fresh off a $6.2 millon fundraising round led by Lux Captial, the company is eager to share some impressive new numbers.

Today, the company told Betabeat that Shapeways' marketplace now offers “6 billion product variations." Or, as they clarified, “one unique product for everyone on the planet.” To put that in perspective, Walmart only offers about 120,000 unique items in their stores. Suck it, big box bores.

Shapeways also shared this handy infographic with Betabeat, which sadly arrived by one-dimensional email:

In a statement, CEO and cofounder Peter Weijmarshausen said, "3D printing is already enabling designers to make whatever they can imagine, but we're really excited that our marketplace empowers anyone to get exactly what they want. Using just your web browser you have access to six billion product variations, ready to be made just for you or anyone in your life."

There are now 6,500 shops on Shapeways.com. One can find iPhone gramophones and mustache cufflinks, printed in fully customizable 3D perfection.

While the 3D printing boom has the potential to upend production and product design the world over, some are still confused about its value. MTV Style's Mary H.K. Choi tweeted yesterday, “Has anyone ever printed 3D food? Not like boring dessert crap.” Well yes, just this summer an NYU student created a 3D printer for burritos.

Everyone knows, the way to the future is through our stomach.

(Photo: Wikimedia)

Today Time Warner Cable announced that the company expects to invest $25 million to expand its fiber optic network in both "established and emerging" business sectors around New York City. Many of the areas highlighted in today's announcement happen to coincide with burgeoning tech hubs.

In a press release to Betabeat, Time Warner said it would extend its broadband capabilities in "the World Trade Center, the Flatiron District, all areas of Midtown and throughout the Financial District," in Manhattan. In addition to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Time Warner is also upgrading fiber in the "Brooklyn Tech Triangle, the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Industry City." Long Island City in Queens, the future home to Shapeways 3D-printing factory, will also benefit from the effort.

The investment is part of a deal with the city that was still being hammered out in June when Mayor Bloomberg announced his big plan to improve broadband. At the time, Time Warner was named in the ConnectNYC facet of the mayor's plan, which focused on wiring previously underserved areas and improving connectivity in commercial and industrial buildings.

Today's announcement, for example, was made at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, home to Carnegie Mellon's tech campus initiative, where Time Warner is finishing up "a multi-million dollar investment to provide fiber-based solutions to tenants of the 300-acre business complex."

But Time Warner isn't the only company the city has partnered with, as the Wall Street Journal reports, especially when it comes to residential initiatives.

The city also has tech agreements with Verizon Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp. and AT&T Inc. Companies are laying fiber, providing wireless hot spots in parks and opening learning labs that give residents access to computers.

Time Warner itself is opening a "state-of-the-art" Learning Lab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, "located inside the massive complex and accessible to the public." Good news for the long-neglected residents of the three neighboring housing projects, we hope.

(Photo: MTA)

Can a subway line that sidesteps Union Square be the backbone of New York's burgeoning tech scene? Crain's New York Business thinks so, calling the F train a "powerful drawing card," worthy of moniker, "Silicon Subway."

Cornell and Technion have been arguing as much since pinning their hopes on Roosevelt Island--served only by the F line and the aerial tram--for the applied sciences campus. President David Skorton likes to call it the "F-train corridor," arguing that startups will spin out deeper into Queens neighborhoods like Long Island City.

Queens advocates sound less convinced. Indeed, one commercial broker told Crain's that despite office rents as low as $19/sq. ft. and better vacancy than Dumbo, founders aren't looking at LIC, although the F stop in Downtown Brooklyn might benefit. (There's also the fact that the F stop in LIC gets out in Queensbridge Housing projects, which inspired enough hip-hop lyrics to fill an entire album.)

Rather, it all seems to depend on where startup-types make their home:

Talented tech workers are pitching their tents in Brooklyn bedroom communities like Kensington and Carroll Gardens, and in the morning rolling up the rails to their jobs in Dumbo and Manhattan's Flatiron district.

In fact, lower residential rents at the end of the line seem to be Crain's best argument for tying the F train to the tech scene at all:

That's the case in Brooklyn neighborhoods as far out as Gravesend, where creative folks are drawn by larger apartments that rent far below Manhattan norms. Rents rise 10%, 20% and 30% as the F train tracks head toward Manhattan, and Brooklyn landlords are generally more inclined than their Manhattan peers to successfully cope with renters who, yes, have a low base pay, but just may have a higher capacity for racking up overtime or landing stock options.

These landlords know if stock options are worth anything, chances are you won't keep living in Gravesend, right?

Represent. (Photo: flickr.com/edogisgod)

Hot on the heels of launching the borough's own tech meetup and the announcement of new tech classes launching in the fall, the Daily News reports that the Coalition for Queens is partnering with a Long Island City packaging company in an attempt to create a new tech incubator.

All that talk of Brooklyn must've lit a fire under someone.

The coalition and the company Plaxall (which sounds like the corporate villain in a Ridley Scott flick) have submitted a project proposal to the local Regional Economic Development Council for an Anable Basin Tech Incubator. But before anyone packs up to move, we should note that the plan will have to compete with many, many other proposals for state funding.

The likely home would be one of Plaxall's warehouses, near the riverfront and right off Vernon Boulevard--and right across the water from CornellNYC:

“Our goal is to turn western Queens into a tech hub for New York City,” said Plaxall President Andrew Kirby. “It could help to attract the best and brightest of young innovators to the city to live and work and create exciting new businesses.”

But, of course, this wouldn't be a New York tech story without some element of whimsy:

Plaxall and the Coalition are also exploring turning an old ferry boat into a floating beer garden, Kirby said. They are also look to host weekend markets on a parking lot nearby.

Anything to keep people from noticing that sketchy strip under Queensboro Plaza, a mere 15-minute walk away. We can't see startup folk frequenting the gentlemen's club Scandals (please note that proper pronunciation requires a husky whisper).

Reinventing design and manufacturing for the 3D-printing age sounds more capital-intensive than your run-of-the-mill social networking app. Thus to fund its growth, Shapeways, a Dutch company now headquartered in New York, just announced $6.2 million in financing led by Lux Capital, which the company says is an add-on to the $5.1 million series B round raised from Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures last November.

Lux Capital doesn't typically fund consumer-facing startups. According to its website, the Madison Avenue venture capital firm has been more concerned with cancer therapies and petroleum replacements, which is a vote of confidence in Shapeways' potential. "We seek investment opportunities to help turn technical breakthroughs into world-changing businesses," Lux cofounder Josh Wolfe said on the company's blog.

Peter Weijmarshausen, the company's CEO, said the funds will go toward expanding its "creative commerce" model, which lets independent designers easily create products in 3D, without knowledge of modeling software, and then manufacture their products on demand. Material choices now include colored ceramics and our personal favorite, fully-flexible Elasto Plastic. Mr. Weijmarshausen also added that Lux Capital's network in New York and familiarity with commercializing emerging technologies will help with that "factory of the future" they're building out in Long Island City.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to the $6.2 million in funding as a Series C. 

Imagine the Internet is a vast hotel. (It probably looks a lot like the impossible hotel in The Shining, with hallways to nowhere and windows where they shouldn't be.) You're a guest in this Internet Hotel for the evening; you've just arrived from New York on the red-eye and you're exhausted. You need something to pep you up - perhaps some music. But you're too tired, disoriented and indecisive to pick, so you head for the concierge. "Excuse me, you look like you know your way around. Can you please just tell me what I should listen to right now?"

Songza, the Long Island City-based streaming music startup featured at Facebook's f8 developer conference in September, has been building a massive database of playlists across genres and for a range of occasions. The site has more than 100,000 searchable playlists, from "Aggressive Dubstep" to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," submitted by msuic experts and users. But if you're not sure if you want to hear something funky or something fresh, Songza's new Music Concierge feature can do that for you.

Music Concierge, which debuted today, will now be the central feature on Songza. First, give Songza some context. Are you working or studying? Still waking up? Taking the day off? Pick a genre and the site will serve up three playlists based on that, the time of day and the device you're using. If you're logged in, Songza also knows something about your tastes based on your listening habits and your friends' favorite tracks and uses that intelligence to make suggestions. You can also see what's been trending for the last three hours. Betabeat tried it this morning. "It's Monday morning," Songza said. We decided we were Feeling Confident and Looking Good, and picked the genre as "baller." We are now chair dancing to Nicki Minaj's "Starships." It's not what we thought we wanted to listen to, but it's not not what we wanted to listen to. Starships were meant to flyyyyy... You're probably right, Music Concierge.

It's Songza's move from "pull curation" to "push curation," CEO Elias Roman, who prefers energetic music, music for cardio workouts and dance pop, told Betabeat by phone last week. Later this year, Songza will make a push for a voice-activated version to be integrated into car computer systems, so you can bark your music selection the way you'd yell at the GPS. "ROAD TRIP. I SAID, ROAD. TRIP. ROAD TRIP! Dammit, Songza!"

You'll still be able to search for playlists, Mr. Roman said, but the concierge is really the main product.

Songza started out as a searchable database of streamable tunes, back in 2008 when it "rocked the college scene." But Songza today is a very different company.

A little backstory. In 2006, a group of seniors at Brown University had a pretty good idea for a website where you could buy music priced according to demand. Long Island-based Amie Street was born. Songs on Amie Street started out free and incrementally ticked up to $.99 depending on how many times they were downloaded. Even Mike Arrington loved it. Meanwhile, nearby Songza was building the Google for music; Amie Street acquired Songza in 2009. The next year, Amie Street was bought and basically shut down by Amazon, one of Amie Street's investors. Amie Street's cofounders left to focus on Songza. "We said, the new thing was going to be streaming," Mr. Roman told Betabeat.

Now, it's now the second coming of Songza. Amie Street's cofounders now call themselves Songza's cofounders. (Songza's original cofounders, Aza Raskin of Mozilla Fame and serial Chicago entrepreneur Scott Robbin, both left.) They raised an undisclosed seven-figure financing from Amazon, Deep Fork Capital and individual investors. The product relaunched in 2011. The company has nine full-time employees and 25 music experts.

Mr. Roman, who grew up in Queens, is trying to keep the company lean by working out of the affordable Long Island City. "Not yet a lot of startups out here," he said, although there are lots of small, new companies. "It's not quite Dumbo yet." Before they raised funding, the company was "five guys living in a house on Hicksville, Long Island," he said. And to think, now they've got their own concierge.