The pivot, we were told, involved moving further away from the combining of all of one's social networks into one social platform, and more towards an ultimate address book app; in other words, way less social, way more efficiency. Betabeat reached out to Hashable CEO and founder Michael Yavonditte, who refuted this claim, noting, "That's not true." He explained that Hashable was about to unleash upon the world the best address book pretty much ever, which sounds...not like Hashable?

In July, Erick Schoenfeld at TechCrunch reported that Hashable was "turning inward" with a "quiet" redesign, including a switch to the aforementioned social component of the app: "Instead of encouraging users to broadcast each meeting, the default is now private." Mr. Yavonditte told the ever-intrepid tech news outlet: “The service has really morphed into a mobile CRM. Our heaviest users preferred more privacy, less broadcasting.”

CRM! Sounds less social network-y, more SkyMall business-y. Five days ago, Yavonditte Tweeted out the following:

Getting closer 2 launching the best mobile address book in the marketplace. Trying 2 eradicate dupes, syncing across all screens.Coming soon

— Michael Yavonditte (@mikeyavo)

Two days ago, Mr. Yavonditte sent the following message out to the private Hashable power users group, leaked to us by one of the members:

I now have the NewHashable on my iPhone. It's so much better than the version in the marketplace today. It's now my primary address book "plus" mobile CRM. It's not only my primary address book but it's the only one I have that combines Linkedin, three gmail accounts, and iPhone address book. I have almost no duplicates in my new address book. I have much more powerful search: by name, company, school, tags (marketing, CEO etc) and I now have access to my address from any web device! We have a few more weeks of bug fixing then will begin to let this loose!

Over the phone, Mr. Yavonditte explained to Betabeat that the new Hashable "has an address book we think is the best in the world. That’s the only difference." The new update, he explained, is set to launch in January. "Four months ago, we were in phase one of the two-step phase to build a mobile CRM, and we’re about to conclude that process."

"If you call a better product a pivot, call it a pivot. I call it a better product," said Mr. Yavonditte. "We’ve always had an address book, we had one that was incomplete, and hard to explain, and now we have what we think is the best one in the world. Go with the sensational version of that. I call it a much better product." And this was always the plan? "Yes. Always."

Another source explained to Betabeat that earlier this summer, this wasn't being worked on. And now, "internally," they noted, "it's considered a pivot."

Today, after we called Yavonditte, he started started broadcasting on Twitter:

-Getting closer 2 launching the best mobile address book in the marketplace. Trying 2 eradicate dupes, syncing across all screens.Coming soon
-Everyone that knows me knows I've been trying to build a mobile CRM for a year now. We are close! Soon will be the best mobile address book!
-you'll just see the same app but with an address book that will become your primary. Took 5 months to build, very very hard

Maybe Mr. Yavonditte isn't such a fan of the word "pivot" because he's had to adjust his plans before (Hashable started out as a Yahoo! Finance competitor called Tracked), or maybe because as Betabeat writer Mike Taylor—in assessing Hashable as "worthless"—put it in March, the word "pivot" is "start-up talk for 'try to make something that’s at least a little less stupid than what you originally made.'"

Whatever the word "pivot" actually means at the moment, it appears Hashable is about to unleash upon the world a dramatic change in what they do, and what will be—in Mr. Yavonditte's own words—"the best [address book] in the world." We look forward to seeing it, and are relieved we won't be scored (or judged) by what's in it.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

MIXED MESSAGES. A couple weeks ago, Betabeat noticed that Skillshare founder Mike Karnjanaprakorn was out in San Francisco for the launch of Skillshare in that city. Had he picked up some cash while he was out there, we wondered? Skillshare raised $550,000 in January, which was made public in May, so the company certainly could have sustained its five employees on that--especially with MK's militant lean start-up mindset and the bit of cash it's getting from the website. So when Mr. Karnj said he hadn't raised a new round, we said 'Oh okay.' But then we kept hearing, over the transom, that Skillshare has raised a fresh round. And they're trying to fill up their sweet Soho office with a backend developer, community team and founder apprentice. Any insights? Drop us a tip.

#UNDERSHARING. "Now that I'm forced to use new Twitter I will be using Twitter much less," declared Hashable CEO and Betabeat frenemy Mike Yavonditte, known for purveying plethoras of pithy proclamations in the form of #tweets. RIP, a source intimated sarcastically, he will be missed! But it appears Mr. Yavonditte has gotten acclimated to his new environs: 15 tweets today.

A/S/L. Michael Galpert's iPhone decided to go from being jailbroken to just broken, pulling a factory reset in the middle of updating to iTunes, and the Aviary CEO co-founder no longer had anyone's number the night of his big party. Hilarity ensues! "Not having anyone's numbers in my phone is turning out to be the best game evar," he said on Twttr, to which Barbarian Group's Colin James Nagy replied, "Everyone prank Galpert!"

Q AND NOT U. In the course of Aol's attempts to hip-ify, Aol Ventures's Q Labs has become a super-cushy gig. Hackers reportedly get high salaries and excellent terms--"six figures and 20 percent equity, or something like that"--says our source, to hack on projects in a gorgeous space at AOL Ventures in Noho/East Village. Caveat: We hear the wifi sucks, and incubate-ees have to work off Verizon MiFis. Got a Q Labs story? Email us!

In Adrianne Jeffries' feature this week on start-up fever affliciting New Yorkers with a bad case of  wantrepreneurship, we listed what we thought was already a high number of networking spinoffs from the original New York Tech Meetup. Dumbo Tech Breakfast, UWS Startup Meetup, and the New York Technology Bathhouse Meetup come to mind. But none of the options on that growing list meets the particular specifications of ff Venture Capital's David Teten. He and venture partner Mike Yavonditte from Hashable are launching "a periodic Meetup for people who work in the innovation community and who are parents of pre-teen children." Sorry, Fred Wilson, your kids are too grown.

On Business Insider, Mr. Teten writes, "We envision organizing activities that our kids, partners, and we will all jointly enjoy."

Ironically, Mr. Teten felt the need to create this new targeted meetup vertical because of the proliferation of events that leaves New York's tech set in a constant state of FOMO. For VCs with growing broods--they're probably a little more insulated from the cost of raising a kid in the city--that FOMO is particularly acute. Says Mr. Teten:

Now that I’m up to my 3^rd child, effectively all of my weekend/spare time is spent with the kids. That’s great, but it also means that I’m somewhat cut off from some of the great activities that the NY innovation community organizes every week: the classes, panels, presentations, networking events, pitch contests, etc. That’s why we’re working on this initiative.

Hmmm, come to think of it, we're feeling sort of feverish about a location-aware babysitting app that disrupts the venture capitalists with pre-teen kids market.

Yavonditte and Hickey

Betabeat has a long a tumultuous relationship with Hashable. We wrote about the service before it was open to the public, when Fred Wilson and Charlie O'Donnell were still topping the leaderboard and Trevor Owens was an intern at Dogpatch Labs. We wrote about its potential to chart the social economy and fill a vacuum left by LinkedIn.

Of course, we also posted an opinionated takedown of the service, and engaged in a spirit online spat with Hashable CEO and founder Mike Yavonditte.

Today we learned that Emily Hickey, the Chief Marketing Officer and, aside from CEO Mike Yavonditte, public face of the company, has left Hashable.

Hickey decline to speak with Betabeat for this story, saying only that the parting was amicable and that she learned a lot at Hashable.

But a source close to the company said otherwise. "She and Mike Yavonditte definitely did not see eye to eye on everything. With the tech scene here booming the way it is, she won't have any trouble finding a new gig."

It's tough to tell how Hashable is doing these days. There seems to be a good flow of activity going through the service, based on the tweets displayed on the site.

Right now the most active user is Yan Tsirklin, followed by Natalie Noguera. Both were Hashable evangalists to SXSW who received a free plane ticket and hotel. The number three user is Nihal Mehta, who is an investor. The number seven user is Rachel Sklar, who works for Hashable.

And a lot of the activity being recorded about folks on Hashable doesn't capture social connections, which is the intention of the service. Looking at Fred Wilson's recent activity, for example, shows dozens of tweets with people quoting things Mr. Wilson said, not meeting him, and using hashtags for the conference like #RRW2Way and #IWNY.

"Can someone please introduce Ghostly music to Fred Wilson - maybe some @phantogram or Choir of Young Believers #IWNY /Anthony Volodkin," says one tweet recorded by Hashable.

The hashtag, which made its way into the company's name and logo, is a simple, powerful mechanism for letting users record their connections. But it also seems to be capturing a lot of noise. The last time Hashable recorded Mr. Wilson using the service was at the end of May, and again it doesn't seem like it was intentional.

"#tcdisrupt Eric rforman yes that's the book I mentioned today at #tcdisrupt"

Who wants t0 #FF ff Venture Capital?

Betabeat will be getting some new neighbors! Hopefully the air has cleared and we can all grab lunch.

John Frankel, who has been an angel and VC since the dot-com days, announced today that his ff Venture Capital is building out 5,000 square feet of new office space at W. 36th. It will be the home base for Frankel and his new team, partner David Teten and venture partner Mike Yavonditte, who are joining the firm.

Portfolio companies like Parsley will be using the space too, with twelve desks free for funded companies in all, but don't call it an incubator! "I hate that word. I can't tell you why, I just do," Frankel told Betabeat by phone.

ff Venture Capital is more than halfway to raising its second fund, pegged around $25 million. One of its biggest wins was Quigo, where Mike Yavonditte served as CEO, which sold to AOL for $340 million back in 2007. It's made 11 investments in 10 companies since December says Frankel.

Dan Rather

Dan Rather, the CBS evening news anchor for 24 years whose contract was not renewed after he aired an investigative report about former president George W. Bush's military service that was based on documents that turned out to have been forged and who once said journalists "need to ask more tough questions--and keep asking them," did a story about New York start-up Hashable about the "new tech landscape," which airs tomorrow.

"Dan Rather Reports presents a revealing behind-the-scenes look at
Hashable – one of the many new social-media startup companies trying to prove they have what it takes to launch a successful social media platform in a highly competitive new tech landscape. Does Hashable have what it takes to break through the clutter? And even if it does, will it make money? Or is all the funding flowing to Hashable and other startups a sign of yet another bubble?" the press release says. "Dan Rather Reports explored these questions speaking to key staff members at Hashable about their motivation, vision, contacts, angel funding, potential users, and--possibly most importantly in today’s world--their buzz."

The story airs Tuesday on HDNet at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., but the channel posted two clips from the interview with some hard questions such as, "What's the potential of the business? You said to me you think it's unlimited." "It's enormous," CEO Mike Yavonditte answers.

"Dan Rather Reports is hard-edged field reports, in-depth interviews and investigative pieces that emphasize accuracy, fairness and guts," according to the show's Twitter account.