Twitter and American Express announced a plan to turn the microblogging service into an ecommerce platform: Details are vague, but it sounds like the partnership will allow users to link their Amex to their Twitter feeds, than make a purchase by posting a message. What will you buy with your subtweets? [WSJ]

We guess Michelle Obama won't be buying a Surface Pro anytime soon. Apple CEO Tim Cook will be a guest of the FLOTUS during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address this evening. Last year, Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs joined Ms. Obama for the State of the Union. [Mercury News]

The residential real estate website Trulia crunched some numbers ahead of Valentine's Day. If you're looking for a man, try Las Vegas, Honolulu, Palm Bay, Florida, San Jose or Gary, Indiana; if you want the highest percentages of women living alone, try Bethesda, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Boston, New York or Raleigh, North Carolina. [NYT]

What do you get a tech billionaire for his birthday? Books, apparently. But of the electronic or dead tree variety? [Business Insider]

(Photo: Instagram.com/fwmj)

Something momentous happened yesterday. America, the beautiful--now with higher "flawless quotient" thanks to second couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé--inaugurated a black president for the second time, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day no less. Bangs were swung, shade was thrown, a terrifying parallel universe was kept at bay.

Less importantly, but no less indicative about the direction this country is heading, the inauguration also elevated the "selfie" onto the political stage. Literally.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/293563605000003584

Sasha and Malia's neon-encased iPhones (sorry, the GOOG) captured not only Michelle Obama's impeccable duck face, but also their own irrepressible tween mugging. Just wait until POTUS lets them use Facebook.

(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

(Photo: Pinterest)

Back in March, we reported that the POTUS himself had joined the ranks of Pinterest users, posting photos of First Dog Bo and the Obama family chili recipe. Well, Mr. President had his three months in the sun--now, it's time for the First Lady to hop onto the Pinterest bandwagon.

The Verge reports that First Lady Obama joined the site today and has already pinned adorable family photos pegged to Father's Day, as well as photos of President Obama's inauguration. One album, called "Around the White House," spotlights the work the First Lady does through her Let's Move initiative.

Of course, like President Obama's account, the First Lady's is run by the Obama 2012 campaign, though pins specifically published by Ms. Obama are signed "-mo." One squee-inducing family photo includes the caption "We are dad's biggest fans, each and every day - mo."