Meanwhile, in the near future... (Photo: Delicious Baby)

Journalism 101 It looks like somebody is gunning for a spot at Nick Denton's soon-to-relaunch Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag. TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Tsotsis wrote an impassioned post about why tech journalism needs another Valleywag, "a watchdog with enough independence and daring to call it as it is." Writers at blogs like her own, Ms. Tsotsis argues, are simply too embedded in the ecosystem to properly perform their jobs, unwilling to report on certain unseemly aspects of Valley business and culture for fear of having to, get this, sit next to those she's written about at a demo day.

We're still not sure if it was a cover letter or a cry for help. But while we appreciate her willingness to admit that TechCrunch is not that far off from a press-release-factory, it's still shocking that someone sat down and wrote a piece about how tech journalists can't be real journalists because of San Francisco Society . . . or something.

Meanwhile, we've never known Ms. Tsotsis to shy away from a good troll, so it's hard to say who will have the last laugh here. We'll leave it to TechCrunch's clever commenting cabal to speculate.

Your Face Here Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer got a special present for his office: a chair emblazoned with the handsome visage of actor Ryan Reynolds. There's gotta be a joke here that we're not getting.

(Photo: Instagram)

They Got Jokes SpaceX engineers took to Reddit today to answer burning questions such as, "Would you rather fight one spacecraft-sized duck or 1000 duck-sized spacecrafts?" Though writing software for rockets is a job generally reserved for the brilliant, we had no idea SpaceX was such a team of jokesters. When some mannerless Redditor asked the group what their salary is, they coyly replied, "It's astronomical!" Zing.

2 Fast 2 Furious Is there anyone in the whole wide world more excited about the premiere of the sixth movie in the Fast and the Furious franchise than Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley? It seems the trailer aired during the Super Bowl spurred his enthusiasm to new heights: "CLEARING MY CALENDAR FOR MAY 24!!" he tweeted. You and us both, Mr. Crowley. 

Super Bowl Subs Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location, Brew PR honcho Brooke Hammerling was hosting her own shindig. But her crew got excited about a slightly different commercial: "At @brooke's secret Super Bowl party, we all applauded when Jared came on the screen," tweeted the New York Times' Brian Stelter, referring to a Subway commercial featuring mascot Jared Fogle. We wonder: What sorts of snacks were available at this get-together?

Jack Dorsey Update Still picking up trash with fellow members of the Square crew. This time they hauled in 127 pounds of garbage, plus nine (nine!) syringes.

Duck Hunt You need all the security you can get when you have a multimillion dollar mansion and you're an entrepreneur who's continually hassled by the FBI for your ties to file-sharing services. So Kim Dotcom got the best possible security he could: swans and geese. "Watch out FBI," he warned on Instagram. "My specially trained counter-raid Swan & Geese will protect #Mega." What? Those beaks are sharp!

(Photo: Instagram)

Mash Note  At the end of last month, Forbes published an interview with Mashable chief operating officer, Sharon Feder, in which the magazine heralded the rise of the female COO. An anonymous tipster who "aspires to be a leader in media" took issue with the piece, emailing Betabeat to rag on Ms. Feder for following her husband—former Mashable COO Adam Hirsch—into the executive ranks:

"Reading 'Feder’s' answer to the question of “how she got her foot in the door” in Forbes you would think she’s some sort of selfmade Sheryl Sandberg (it will become clear why that’s in quotes momentarily). But what’s gone completely unreported in her ascent is that she’s actually ridden the coattails of her husband all the way to the 'c-suite' at Mashable."

What's more, the tipster complained, Ms. Feder has a reputation as a bad woman to cross. "With Feder in control of the pocketbooks and promotions, Cashmore concerned with little more than his next John Varvatos photo shoot (or CNN exit?), and a long line of “departed” employees on the outside looking in, there’s a tremendous amount of fear that going against Feder means a short career at the company."

Want to guess who wrote it?

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

A couple of months ago, while attending the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to chat with a ton of upcoming startups, and I noticed a surprisingly higher-than-usual number of enterprise-focused companies. Yesterday Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson wrote an interesting post highlighting how the consumer web might be entering a stage of maturation as the action shifts from the desktop to mobile, where it's becoming increasingly harder to reach scale. 500 Startups' Dave McClure has an excellent rebuttal post on the topic.

Another one of my favorite tech bloggers Y Combinator's Paul Graham wrote a terrific must-read essay last week on startup ideas. Quoting PG: "The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself" and "Live in the future and build what seems interesting."

In other cool news, City24/7 is turning a bunch of pay-phones across the city into touchscreen smartscreen kiosks. This is the first experiment of its kind in the country, and they'll be rolling out 250 of these in a pilot project. Down in Nolita, 3D printer startup MakerBot just opened their first MakerBot Store at 298 Mulberry where you'll be able to get your hands on the printers, filaments, pre-made items 'n more. Nice!

ERA Accelerator's Winter 2013 application deadline is this Friday (November 30).

Don't miss TechDrinkup this Thursday, where folks from Bravo will be in the house doing an open casting call for the NYC edition of their show Startups. That's right. Reality TV stardom is within your grasp!

Also a couple of Sandy fundraisers / benefits this week: Goodnik and New Work City are hosting the 'Mustache-Sandy' event on Friday, and then there is the #NYTechResponds hackathon benefit on Saturday. And coming up next week are TEDxSiliconAlley: Rise of the Machines with guest Ray Kurzweil on December 3 and the AlleyNYC Holiday Party on December 6.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Business Insider: Ignition - Future Of Digital
With Dr. Mehmet Oz (The Dr. Oz Show), Jill Abramson (The New York Times), Jeffrey Bewkes (Time Warner), Don Graham (The Washington Post Company), Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), Bradley Horowitz (Google) and more.
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 9 a.m. @ Time Warner Center, 10 on the Park, 60 W. 60th Street

Media Preview 2013
Panelists include Saul Hansell (Founder, Sii and former New York Times tech correspondent), Reed Phillips (media investment banker, DeSilva + Phillips), Emily Steele (media and advertising correspondent, Financial Times) and Lee Stimmel (head of creative agency, Columbia Records).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 6 p.m. @ Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, 488 Madison Avenue

NYC Gaming November: Demo Night
Demos by Joshua DeBonis (Meriwether), Scott Rapp (Instreamia), Greg Irwin (BigTwist), Eric Schwertzel (Garfield's Collectibles), John Nguyen (Super Bunny Breakout) and Ien Cheng (Grasshopper).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

MakeIt NYC: Secrets of Kickstarter Panel
With CW&T (creators of the Pen Type-A), Bitbanger Labs (creators of Remee, the REM-enhancing lucid dreaming mask), Hickies, Josh & Eric (creators of the Mason Shaker) and Yury & Joel (creators of the Pulse Sensor).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 7 p.m. @ University Settlement - Speyer Hall, 184 Eldridge Street

Ultra Light / NY Angels Novemberfest Showcase
A startup showcase and free beer provided by local beer entrepreneurs such as Kelso, Bronx, Rockaway, Harlem and Brooklyn Brewery.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Ave, 17th Fl.

NYU Founders Showcase
Three startups from the NYU-Poly incubators and three student startups will pitch. Judges include Peter Flint (general partner, Polaris Ventures) and Jorge Torres (VP, Silas Capital).
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ Varick Street Incubator , 137 Varick Street , 2nd Fl.

Ad Age & Food Network Present: Brand Hacks
Hacking the food category. Six finalists pitch their concepts and the grand prize winner is revealed.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ The Darby, 244 W 14th Street

Dwolla + Derby Jackpot Party!
Bet on horses. Booze on alcohol.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 7 p.m. @ Tavern on Third, 380 3rd Avenue

Is Curation an Art or a Science?
A discussion with Techmeme's Gabe Rivera.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 7 p.m. @ Outbrain HQ, 39 W. 13th Street, 3rd Fl.

MITEF: Investing in Aerospace Entrepreneurship: Air Traffic Management, Unmanned Systems
Stuart A. Auerbach (Ampersand Capital Partners), Mark Cherry (Aurora Flight Sciences), Courtney Graham (NASA), Adam Harris (SpaceX), Don Thoma (Aireon) and Laurence Vigeant-Langlois (Sikorsky Innovations).
Thursday (Nov. 29), 5:30 p.m. @ Holland & Knight, 31 W. 52nd Street

Digital Cocktails: The Investment Landscape-Seeds, Angels and Incubators

Panelists include Phin Barnes (First Round Capital), Tony Bacigalupo (New Work City), Gordon Crovitz (Former Publisher, Wall Street Journal), Micah Kotch (NYC Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy) and Jeffrey Silverman (Laconia Ventures).
Thursday (Nov. 29), 6 p.m. @ The Wix Lounge, 10 W. 18th Street

#techdrinkup - NY Tech Holiday Party
A party for NYC's brightest and savviest people in tech. Oh, and folks from Bravo will be in the house, doing an open casting call for the NYC edition of their show Startups. Yup.
Thursday (Nov. 29), 7 p.m. @ Ava Lounge @ Dream Hotel, 210 W. 55th Street.

Mashable Media Summit 2012
With David Carey (president, Hearst Magazines), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Kay Matadi (head of entertainment & media, Facebook), Jason Seikin (SVP, PBS Interactive), Bonita Stewart (VP partner business solutions, Google), Raman Kia (exec director digital strategy, Condé Nast) and others.
Friday (Nov. 30), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 W. 41st Street

GIVE GOOD Market
Organized by the New York Women Social Entrepreneurs (NYWSE). The goal of the market is to provide a highly-curated event that promotes successful women-owned businesses that produce supremely crafted sustainable fashion and goods this holiday season.
Friday (Nov. 30), 11 a.m. @ Starrett Lehigh Building, 601 W. 26th Street

Goodnik & New Work City Movember / Sandy Relief Fundraiser
Raising money for Movember and Sandy Relief Efforts. This 'Mustache-Sandy' event will include beer & wine, a shaving station, photobooth, faux mustaches for anyone who didn't grow one and maybe even a Burt Reynolds movie.
Friday (Nov. 30), 7 p.m. @ New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

Sanitation Hackathon NYC
In partnership with the World Bank's Water Practice and ICT units, mobilizing an unprecedented level of collaboration from sanitation & water experts, designers, software developers, engineers, health professionals & students to develop breakthrough innovations for improving access to sanitation for the world's poor.
Friday (Nov. 30), 7 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
TEDxSiliconAlley 2012 on Dec. 3 @ Terminal 5
Founders@Fail: The Dos & Donts of Pitching Ad Agencies on Dec. 3 @ General Assembly
December 2012 NY Tech Meetup on Dec. 4 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Vator Splash NY 2012 on Dec. 5 @ Le Poisson Rouge
Designers + Geeks on Dec. 6 @ General Assembly
Celebrate the Arts with AlleyNYC (Holiday Party!) on Dec. 6 @ AlleyNYC
FashInvest 2012 Capital Conference on Dec. 11 @ Fashion Institute of Technology
Ultra Light Startups: Investor Feedback Forum on Dec. 13 @ Microsoft

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

(Photo: Flickr.com/LeWeb3)

Yesterday, word leaked that former Mashable editor Ben Parr is launching a seed stage VC fund targeted at celebrity investors. The cofounders of Tracks.by, a platform for music artists, are also partners in Mr. Parr's fund. The tech world, as it's wont to do, erupted into a collective scoff: A star-studded investment firm helmed by a “disgraced” journalist, who was fired for blabbing about his salary, doesn't sound like the stuff of Sand Hill Road.

Unwilling to let an opportunity for backseat quarterbacking pass them by, tech bloggers immediately swooped in to offer their analysis of Mr. Parr’s newest venture.

The Wall Street Journal chimed in with a cautionary tale for Mr. Parr, penned by a journalist-turned-VC-turned-journalist-again, who quit his ink-stained day job during the first bubble to become an investor. Just because reporters write about startups, it seems, does not make us experts on the innerworkings of a business. Writes the WSJ:

When journalists give up their penny-a-line trade and think they are financiers and business executives, you are in a bubble....We wish Mr. Parr and his team of neophytes well, but he has a lot of work to prove that writing about startups in any way prepares him for the very different life as a VC.

Venture Beat writer Jolie O'Dell--a former coworker of Mr. Parr's--took a similar tact, questioning the trio's "capacity to run a credible investment outfit." She hammered that point home by making the post's URL "O Rly?"

Kernel Mag founder Milo Yiannopoulos, who himself is no stranger to blog controversy, took a more personal approach, calling Mr. Parr a "tragic figure" who got "carried away with his own celebrity:"

Since then, Parr has cut a rather tragic figure on the international conference circuit, his lanyards showing white space where the name of an employer ought to be. A year later almost to the day of his termination, however, Parr, who in a delicious slice of faint praise was described as “relentlessly nice” by waspish Valley journo Owen Thomas, is returning to the limelight with… yup, you guessed it. A venture capital firm.

And as for the "celebrity" aspect of the fund, PandoDaily pointed out that nary a celebrity is currently to be found:

First off, it’s a celebrity fund, but its grand entrance to the scene included scant actual funds and nary a celebrity. That’s a bad start. At best the oddly named group – the first financial vehicle with a hashtag as part of its name? – is a nascent concept, with a fundraising “target in the single digit millions” to quote the friendly launch article by Forbes’ Tomio Geron. The anchor investors are not celebrities themselves, but rather the business managers of Brittney Spears, Lil Wayne, and Drake. In the world of celebrity, close doesn’t count.

To be fair, as the New Yorker noted in its profile of Scooter Braun, talking to the managers of stars does seem to be the first step towards clinching that celebrity investment. As we mentioned in our profile of Rap Genius, Troy Carter, Lady Gaga's manager and an investor in Tracks.by, has been known to stop by the offices of Andreessen Horowitz.

Lucky for Mr. Parr, celebrities may be less tied to Silicon Valley tradition. Besides, if Michael Arrington is any indication, he can always get back his day job.

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Hola folks,

Batten down the hatches. Stock up on the liquor (and food). Bring out the candles and flashlights. Because Hurricane Sandy (a.k.a. #frankenstorm) is almost upon us. And now, at almost a thousand miles wide, it definitely has our attention. Hopefully by this time y'all are safely at home (and not still slumming in Zone A) with eyes glued to the twenty-four-hour news coverage, watching weathermen expound on "cones" and "surges."

As you know, the MTA has shut down all subway and buses, and pretty much every event on Monday has been cancelled or postponed including AllThingsD's Dive Into Mobile conference, Google's Android event, Facebook's engineering open house and our own Big Apple Smackdown Silicon Alley ping-pong tournament (which will be re-scheduled).

At this time, the Tuesday events (and the rest of the week) seem uncertain too. They're still listed below, but I'd highly recommend you confirm first with the event organizers. In the mean time, stay safe, keep your fingers crossed that the storm turns out to be a mild one and don't forget to check Miguel Bloombito's Twitter feed for the latest updates!

Lots of really awesome events coming up in the next few weeks ...

November 8 is the city's preeminent startup event, Ingenuity, organized by the New York Venture Capital Association (NYVCA). Who's coming? Tim Armstrong (CEO, Aol), Julius Genachowski (chairman, FCC), Mike Richter (New York Rangers), Bob Pittman (CEO, Clear Channel), Michael Barrett (Chief Revenue Officer, Yahoo) and many more.

Also on November 8 is Red Innova, an intimate event to create a better understanding of Latin American Internet market opportunities and trends. Featured speakers include Martín Varsavsky (FON), Fabrice Grinda (OLX), Andrew Mclaughlin (Betaworks) and Matías Recchia (Vostu).

On November 9 is Capital On Stage, an unconventional conference about funding where, in a twist, top-tier investors will present themselves to the world’s finest Internet startups. David Aronoff (Flybridge), David Teten (ff Ventures), Tom Wisniewski (NY Angels), Brad Svrluga (High Peaks), Lucas Nelson (DFJ Gotham), Jahan Ali (NYC Investment Fund) and others.

My friend Shaherose Charania (Founder of Women 2.0) is organizing the highly anticipated Women 2.0 Pitch conference on November 14. Keynote speakers include female founders of Match.com, Cisco, Oxygen Network, Urban Decay and talks and panels feature women entrepreneurs who've run super successful Kickstarter projects and grown massively successful companies from the ground up. Don't miss it!

The good folks at the upcoming Angelhack hackathon (on November 17) are offering a few free tickets to GarysGuide members. Just use the discount code GG.

When the theme of an event is 'Rise of the Machines' and the keynote speaker is author Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near and the recent How To Create A Mind), all I can say is--sign me up! That would be the upcoming TEDxSiliconAlley event on December 3. Other keynoters will be Bre Pettis (founder, Makerbot), Francessca Ferrando (Philosopher of Posthumanism and visiting scholar at Columbia), Jincey Lumpkin (Attorney and Huffington Post sex columnist) and Ken Segall (creative director of Apple's "Think Different" campaign).

And if you're a startup, don't forgt to check out the "Who Would You Fund" TechStartup Challenge 2012, where I'll be one of the judges. It's a contest to find the best startup pitch videos out there. Add your startup promotion video and you just might win the opportunity to make a live pitch to the ARC Angel Round Capital Fund.

And now let's see what might be going down in the Alley this week...

The {c}0dEd Costume Carousal!
A Halloween celebration of the New York coworking startup community.
Wednesday (Oct. 31), 7 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

NYC UNCUBED (Startup and Scale)
Bringing together emerging companies and talented attendees in an exciting and informative environment that showcases startup culture.
Thursday (Nov. 1), 1 p.m. @ The Altman Building, 135 W 18th Street

Food Network and Ad Age Present: Brand Hacks
Six startups will be selected to pitch partnerships, new tech and integration ideas to a panel of top Food Network execs and industry pros. The best idea receives $25,000.
Thursday (Nov 1), 6 p.m. @ Food Network Studios, Chelsea Market, 75 9th Avenue

Behind the scenes at Gawker: Publishers, Brands and Native Ads
Get the scoop on Gawker's native ad process, strategies around scaling, building effective, measurable products and more.
Thursday (Nov 1), 6 p.m. @ NewsCred, 27 West 24th Street, Ste 202

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here Part 2
With Josh Miller (founder, Branch), Ben McKean (cofounder & CEO, Savored), Vinicius Vacanti (cofounder & CEO, Yipit), Kathryn Minshew (CEO & cofounder, The Daily Muse), Kellee Khalil (founder, Lover.ly) and moderated by Rachel Sklar (Change the Ratio).
Thursday (Nov 1), 6:30 p.m. @ NYIT Auditorium, 1871 Broadway

State of the Startup: Politics
With Mattan Griffel, Harrison Weber, Alexis Ohanian, and Reshma Saujani.
Thursday (Nov 1), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Mashable Media Summit 2012
With David Carey (President, Hearst Magazines), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Kay Matadi (head of entertainment & media, Facebook), Jason Seikin (SVP, PBS Interactive), Bonita Stewart (VP Partner Business Solutions, Google), Raman Kia (Executive Director Digital Strategy, Condé Nast) and others.
Friday (Nov 2), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street

2012 NYU Entrepreneurs Festival
Rockstar speaker list including Jack Dorsey (cofounder Twitter and Square), Herb Kelleher (cofounder & former CEO, Southwest Airlines), Alexandre Douzet (cofounder & COO, TheLadders) and Rachel Sterne Haot (Chief Digital Officer NYC).
Friday (Nov 2), 12:30 p.m. @ Tisch Hall, 40 W 4th Street

NYC Startup Weekend FinTech Edition
Bringing together financial technologists with the goal of building consumer and enterprise financial applications with tools provided by several API and data partners.
Friday (Nov 2), 6 p.m. @ The Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Foursquare Hackathon
Build something amazing and you might just find yourself ringing the NASDAQ closing bell, rocking tickets to SXSW, partying with an action figure version of yourself, or wearing the infamous Foursquare hackathon TITLE BELT.
Saturday (Nov 3), 9 a.m. @ Foursquare HQ, 568 Broadway

November DemoDays
Part of the NYU Entrepreneur Week. Students take the stage to showcase what they've been working on.
Saturday (Nov 3), 5:30 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Founders@Fail: Pitching Publishers on Nov 5 @ General Assembly
Ad:Tech New York on Nov 7 @ Javits Convention Center
Daniweb Presents: Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer on Nov 7 @ Highland Park
Ingenuity 2012 on Nov 8 @ New World Stages
NYTECH Fall Networking Cocktail Reception on Nov 8 @ National Showroom
Capital On Stage on Nov 9 @ Goodwin Procter at NY Times
Hack & Jill: Hacksgiving on Nov 9 @ Etsy
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov 13 @ SNR Denton
Women 2.0 PITCH NYC 2012 Conference & Competition on Nov 14 @ Manhattan Center
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of Gary's Guide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

iPhone 5 Day is coming, and you know what that means. That's right--long lines are already starting to form outside Apple stores all over the world as folks clamber to get their hands on the all new slimmer, lighter and faster iPhone 5. A shout-out to Gary's Guide member (and founder of a new social media startup, Vibe) Hazem Sayed, who is first in line outside the iconic 5th Avenue "Big Glass Cube" Apple Store. Go Hazem!

My friend Dave Lifson (product manager at General Assembly) along with Christina Chaey (associate editor at Fast Company) will be doing a free livestream this Wednesday at 2pm EST, on product management for non-product managers. You'll learn what it takes to turn your ideas into functional products. And did I mention its free? :) Oh, and everyone who registers gets a free copy of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian's new e-book, Making Something People Love. So go sign up!

The new Cornell NYC Tech campus has started accepting admission applications for its beta class of computer science students, slated to start January 2013. Deadline is October 1.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

Startup Roundtable 17
With David Aronoff (general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners)
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 6 p.m. @ Chadbourne & Parke LLP, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 36th Fl.

PushStart + AngelCube Demo Night
10 companies from PushStart and AngelCube (two Australian-based accelerators) will exhibit their latest products. Featured startups include Adbiddr, Gimmequotes, Surfed.At, Tonight, Werdsmith and Wingman.
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
Demos by Temboo, Appreciation Engine and Bar & Club Stats.
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 7 p.m. @ Huge, Inc., 45 Main St., Brooklyn

GoGreen '12 New York
With Seth Pinsky (President, NYC EDC), Andrew Revkin (Pace University and New York Times), Cyrille du Peloux (CEO, Veolia), Pamela Gill Alabaster (L'Oreal), David Bragdon (Mayor's Office, NYC) and others.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street

Fashion Forward Conference
Bringing over 300 bloggers together for a one-day conference filled with fashion shows, style tips, informative panels hosted by industry experts, interactive stations and more.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 11 a.m. @ 404 NYC, 404 10th Avenue

Product Management for Non-Product Managers w. David Lifson (General Assembly) and Christina Chaey (Fast Company)
Based on student submissions, Dave will walk through best practices for fleshing out ideas, identifying risks, validating assumptions, and ultimately launching a minimum viable product.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 2 p.m. @ Livestream, Online

Digital Cocktails - The Power of Sound: Music Advertising and Brands
With Sharon Colombo (executive director, corporate marketing, JPMorgan Chase), Debora Koyama (VP marketing, L'Oreal), Elliot Lum (VP, Columbia Records), Eddie Martin (director of marketing excellence and CSR insights, Hershey Company), Josh Rabinowitz (SVP and director of music, Grey) and Mark Sherwood (director of strategy and head of integrated planning, Saatchi & Saatchi).
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 6 p.m. @ The Sony Club, 550 Madison Avenue

Art.sy Tech Talk
Art.sy will open their doors to the NYC engineering community for an evening of conversation around making technical choices at a startup from day one. This invitation is for software engineers/web developers only.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 7 p.m. @ Art.sy, 401 Broadway, 25th Floor

Design for Manufacturing Summit
With Ping Fu (cofounder & CEO, Geomagic), Mark Hatch (CEO, TechShop), Stephan Clambaneva (Industrial Designers Society of America), Tara Stand (ITAC), Michael Greenstein (Polytechnic Institute of NYU), Benedetta Piantella (Adjunct Professor, NYU-ITP), James Wolff (Buildatron), Xanthe Matychak (Innovation Center, Rochester Institute of Technology) and Kostika Spaho (3D Printing Artist).
Thursday (Sept. 20), 3 p.m. @ Dumbo Spot, 160 Water St, Brooklyn

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day
Presentations by the Summer 2012 class of ERA including AngelPolitics, Bizodo, CaterCow , Glossi, HealthyChic, Houdini, Jetaport, MxHero, SaleMove and VidRocket.
Friday (Sept. 21), 8:30 a.m., by invite only

Startup Weekend NYC
A global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures.
Friday (Sept. 21), 6 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 Seventh Avenue, 17th Fl.

Mashable Social Good Summit
Speakers include Todd Park (CTO, United States), Forest Whitaker (artist & UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador), Nick Kristof, (columnist & two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, New York Times), Rebecca Moore (Engineering Manager, Google Earth), Hans Vestberg (president & CEO, Ericsson), Deepak Chopra (bestselling author & founder, The Chopra Foundation), Wendy Harman (director, social strategy, American Red Cross), Kathy Calvin (CEO, UN Foundation) and more.
Saturday (Sept. 22), 9 a.m. @ 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd St

More events on the horizon...
Coming To America: Immigration Entrepreneurship & the Economy on Sept. 24 @ New York Law School
Enterprise Insights: Go Big (Data) Or Go Home on Sept. 25 @ Microsoft
NYTECH Presents: UX Cognitive Modeling Methods on Sept. 27 @ New York Institute of Technology
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 51 on Sept. 27 @ NYU Stern Room 2-60
Startup Grind NYC Hosts Scott Kurnit (Founder of Aboutcom / Keepcom) on Sept. 27 @ The Alley
Cleanweb Hackathon NYC on Sept. 28 @ AlleyNYC
NYTECH Presents: Content Marketing: Beyond Liking and Tweeting on Oct. 02 @ Anchin
Daniweb Presents: Advertising, Marketing and Media Mayhem! on Oct. 02 @ Slate Lounge
FOCUS100 Symposium and Pitch Bootcamp on Oct. 05 @ Ogilvy & Mather
Talk NYC Presents: 2nd Annual Tech Madison Avenue Conference on Oct. 17 @ Crosby Street Hotel
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct. 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

Mayor Bloomberg.

Bright and early this morning, we hopped aboard an F train and ventured not into Midtown, home of Betabeat, but rather deeper into Queens. Our destination: The Queens Business Solutions Center, an unassuming government building located on Jamaica Avenue and surrounded by bargain stores. Waiting, freshly printed, on every single seat: An updated copy of the city's digital roadmap, dated August 2012.

Mayor Bloomberg had shlepped out to discuss his plan to bring small businesses into the Internet Age. The means: the Small Business Toolkit, a program incorporating both in-person classes at business solutions centers across the five boroughs, and a new online library of how-to guides developed in cooperation with local tech companies Mashable, Tumblr, Google and Weebly to help neighborhood entrepreneurs figure out this whole Internet thing.

While startups in the Union Square vicinity focus on disruption, few have been addressing the many neighborhood business that aren't even online, and don't know how to get there. Perhaps the administration got the memo about that bodega tech gap?

Arrayed behind him: A small mob of people including State Senator Malcolm Smith and a lineup of tech folk. Tumblr's Mark Coatney and Mashable SVP Stacey Green were at the front of the room, while Google's William Floyd and Weebly's Nick Dellis lurked elsewhere in the crowd.

Mayor Bloomberg promised the new toolkit would "enable businesses to continue to innovate and to continue to expand and continue to create the jobs that our growing city needs."

It didn't cost the taxpayers a cent, he was careful to point out, and it's free to anyone looking to build his brand online.

Much of the content seems to have been developed by Mashable, though Google and Weebly both contributed relevant guides. Tumblr also offered free themes customized for business.

Besides the guides, however, small business owners looking to bone up on the Internet can sign up for free, in-person courses. The inaugural class will be held in the very same location as the presser, on September 20. Topics will include how to launch a website, mobile payments, and the like. Teaching the class: Chief Digital Officer Rachel Haot, née Sterne.

"She's changed her name and maybe [Ed Note: Maybe? We're pretty sure it's a done deal!] her marital status," said Mayor Bloomberg, "but she hasn't changed what she is doing. She is making a big difference in this city, helping people get jobs and companies employ them."

Said Sen. Smith: "Today, as you have heard from the Mayor, we basically have said to the small business world, 'you are very important to us.'"

Well, very important might take more than a few classes and how-to guides, but judging from the remarks of Small Business Services commish Rob Walsh, the programs are something people want: "I was out in Brighton Beach yesterday, meeting with a number of small business [owners] from the Russian community," he said. "They're building their businesses, they're building their storefronts, and they need help in terms of getting on the Internet. They need help in developing their websites."

The Mayor spun it out a little more, offering a peek into the mind of the corner store owner: "They read about it, and they have friends who have businesses, and it's working for them and they say, well what about me? And they don't even know what the questions to ask are," he said.

"Their expertise is to select merchandise or know how to market it or know how to make food," he said. "Their exerptise is not the technical side."

Jay-Z (Photo: JustJared)

Rapping mogul Jay-Z has 99 problems but an uncharged cell phone is certainly not one of them. In January, Mr. Carter signed up to be a spokesperson for Duracell's Powermat charging station, a sleek little square that charges your cell phone just by resting your phone on top of it. Now, Mashable reports that HOVA has outfitted his swank 40/40 Club with Powermats, which should satisfy the attendees of those startup parties 40/40 has been hosting.

According to Mashable, the sports bar and lounge is "outfitted with Powermat charging stations through the resin-top bar area, VIP lounges and the stadium style seating with a view of the 165-inch state-of-the-art video walls."

We be big pimpin' spendin volts. Wired charging is a hard knock life--once you have your moment of clarity you'll realize the only way to run this town is with money, cash and Powermats.

Okay, we're done.

Birchbox cofounder Hayley Barna (firstround.com)

The rain was really starting to come down hard, but the female CEOs at Internet Week appeared undaunted by the passing storm. Birchbox's Hayley Barna, Learnvest's Alexa von Tobel, Nest.io's Caren Maio, Mashable's Sharon Feder and Artspace's Catherine Levene joined CNNMoney reporter Laurie Segall for a discussion about gender in tech.

The panel was entitled "Why Being a Good CEO Has Nothing to Do with Being a Woman," but it was clear from the first question that the women on this panel were more concerned with talking about their businesses than how being a woman has hindered their growth in the tech sector. And who can blame them? After all, the panel was specifically about how gender had nothing to do with their success--though almost all of the questions revolved around their experience as women in a male-dominated world.

"A good executive has everything to do with being a woman," said Ms. Levene. "I think they make amazing leaders, great managers. They have a different way of communicating with people, so I think it’s a fantastic opportunity. As it relates to women in technology, you just have to face the fact that there are not that many."

"I wish this was less about being a women and more about the businesses that we’re building," added Ms. Barna.

Once we got the gender politics (mostly) out of the way, the ladies elaborated upon their advice for building a successful business--whether you have two X chromosomes or not.

1. Have a good mentor.

"I think that it’s been really helpful for me to have a series of mentors that I've had throughout my entire career, and that’s been incredibly helpful," said Ms. Levene. "My advice is to find someone that you can really trust, that you respect, that you look up to."

2. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

"Building your business is a lot of asking the right questions, knowing how to collect the data and knowing when you’re wrong and turning it in another direction if necessary," Ms. Barna said. "So it’s really a balance between confidence, vision--but then also being able to ask the right questions."

3. Don't ask permission. Just do it.

"My advice for people who want to start a company is: start it," advised Ms. von Tobel. "Don’t ask for it. Go out and really start it. There’s great capital out there, and I really believe if you work your ass off you can have whatever you want."

"Don’t ask permission," added Ms. Maio. "If it’s something that you’re really passionate about, you really feel that fire in your belly and you’re ready to do it, then do it."

Yesterday we learned that a link in a Gawker post can fetch $175; so how much do you think an A-list television star could get for a tweet? Last night, in between tweets about the McRib being made of people, washing his hair with baby urine, and recovering from the mental image of Bette Midler and Geraldo Rivera having sex, Rainn Wilson tweeted the above.

You can tell this is a joke because:

1) It is funny.
2) Consider that Ashton Kutcher's tweets are worth 13,000 eyeballs. Consider that most advertising rates for impressions (CPM) usually fall in the sub-$1 range for every thousand. Would you pay Mr. Wilson $12,000 for a tweet?
3) Mr. Wilson has not deleted the tweet.
4) Check your private messages. Have you ever included an @ sign?
5) There is no "Macho Bellgrande Burrito!"

But the real punchline--the Next Web ran with the story under the headline "You Might Never See a DM Fail Quite as Bad as This One." C'mon, Asia Editor Jon Russell! What about the time a guy named Weiner accidentally tweeted a picture of his wiener?

Apparently, Mashable also picked it up, as did the Boston Herald. Headlines "Rainn Wilson Caught in $12K Tweet For Pay? [VIRAL EMBARRASSMENT]" and "Comedy star’s tweet ‘disses’ taco chain," respectively.

UPDATE: Mr. Wilson copped to the ploy this morning in a tweet: "Joanne - please call @mashable & let them know they are a bunch of idiots. --Rainn." Mashable has updated its story.

Some excerpts:

1. Silent downvoting of competitors
If a favorable article about a competitor is on the front page, that link may silently get pushed back to the 3rd or 4th page. After about an hour, it will then slip off the site completely ...

2. Silent upvoting of YC-backed companies
If a YC company-based article is on the "/newest" article page, or the 3rd or 4th page of the main site, it may jump to the front page ... The deviation of the (votes) and (time submitted) is much higher than its siblings.

3. The use of undetectable "silent jails"
... Hacker News uses a devious silent banning mechanism for user accounts and domains. If you have been banned, or are tryign to post a link to a banned domain, everything will appear normal from your IP address, user account, and session. If you submit an article or comment, it will appear on your screen as normal, however no one else can see what you wrote or posted ...

4. Special front-page posts meant for YC backed company announcements (which cannot be voted on or commented on by users)
Ever see an article which you can't vote or comment on? It's a YC-backed company announcement. YC posts several of these a day ...

5. Poorly implemented circle voting counter-measures
Circle voting is a big problem for social bookmarking sites. It's the process of people abusing a large social network of friends to articially up-vote articles ... Hacker News has implemented this so poorly, that any articles that even get mildly upvoted too quickly by the same group of people are marked as "circle-voted," and put into a silent jail. If the article happens to be from a YC-based company, moderators simply take the link out of the jail and put it back on the front page.

The infographic goes on to claim Y Combinator is a pyramid scheme, with companies pressured to buy each other's products and failed companies fed to the strong ones.

"All the stuff about the banning is true," a source tells Betabeat, but questioned the allegations of a pyramid scheme. "Plausible maybe, I have no idea. They must have 300+ companies ... I only know of like, 10."

TECH BLAH-GOSPHERE. Silicon Alley newbie hipstress Brenna Ehrlich has left the cushy confines of Mashable, where they have lolz the cutest greeter evar, and resurfaced in Times Square as a senior writer for MTV O Music Awards, honoring digital musicians.

AND, NOW HIRING. Silicon Alley veteran Jason Calacanis is looking to poach talent: "I'm looking to add three more rookies to the team ... and one star to help lead them (if a star like +MG Siegler or +erick schonfeld or +Marshall Kirkpatrick or +Staci D Kramer becomes available)," he wrote on Google+, the newsletter mogul's latest venue for pondering.

AND YA COULDA CALLED ME, HENRY. Henry Blodget (BI/SAI) and Kara Swisher (ATD) had a Twitter/blog tiff over a Groupon internal memo obtained and published by ATD. Mr. Blodget wrote the memo had likely come from CEO Andrew Mason, seeking alternative routes to gossip during the start-ups quiet period in advance of its IPO; Ms. Swisher told him to stop trolling.

@karaswisher: I take issue with henry for claiming I made a deal to get Groupon memo, which is fictional

@hblodget: "No "claim". My speculation RT @karaswisher: I take issue with henry for claiming I made a deal to get Groupon memo, which is fictional"

@karaswisher: @hblodget Please. You really take the cake here. Let me be explicit: I made no deal with Groupon on this. I got lots of copies.