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.

Terribly saddened by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims, and hopefully we can all come together and figure out how to never ever let something like this happen again.

Plenty more holiday parties this week. The one event you don't wanna miss is the Queens Tech Meetup Holiday Party. QTM has quickly raced to almost a thousand members, and this Wednesday they've assembled a rockstar panel of women in NYC tech including Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer, New York City), Reshma Saujani (Founder, Girls Who Code and former New York City Deputy Public Advocate). Jessica Lawrence (Managing Director, New York Tech Meetup) and Helen Marshall (Queens Borough President and Coalition for Queens). Long Island City is happening, yo!

Who wants high-speed broadband fiber goodness at their business? You do! The NYCEDC may be bringing you the Christmas gift you always wanted. It's called the NYC Fiber Challenge. Winners receive free fiber build-out to their business, an overall value of up to $7 million for all winning businesses over two years. The application deadline is 2pm on December 27. Go get 'em! If you wanna learn more, there'll be a few workshops this week in Long Island City and Brooklyn.

Matter Ventures, a new incubator for media startups supported by The Knight Foundation, KQED, and Public Radio Exchange will be holding an information session on December 18th from 6:30 to 8:30pm at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Inaugural class begins in late February and the deadline for applications is January 6th.

In other news, Manhattan's hottest new museum is ... MoMath! It's the first math museum in the U.S. and, true to its name, math pervades every aspect of the design--even the cafe, where the walls are made of Tetris-like puzzle shapes called pentominoes, and the tables are arranged as a knight would progress on a chessboard. The museum is located at 11 E. 26th St (north of Madison Square Park) and open everyday from 10 to 5. So go check it out and don't forget to take your kids (and nieces and nephews) along. It's about time we made an effort to make math cool and fun!

And if you're looking to check out GPS shoes with LED lights, a high-tech music box, Rotobooths and 3D printers, head on over to the WIRED popup store in SoHo (583 Broadway). It's open 11am-7pm Tuesday to Sunday through December 23rd.

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

NJ Tech Meetup 31
With Tony Haile (CEO, Chartbeat)
Monday (Dec. 17), 6:30 p.m. @ Howe Center Bissinger Room, Stevens Institute of Technology, 4th Fl., Hoboken

NYTM Meet the Board of Directors Candidates Event
NYTM members and the candidates running for a seat on the New York Tech Meetup board of directors.
Monday (Dec 17), 6:30 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

Second Screens and Social TV Roundtable
With Alex Iskold (founder/CEO, GetGlue), Tom Boland (SVP, Social@Ogilvy), Jesse Redniss (SVP digital, NBC / USA Networks), Michael Hussey (CEO, PeekAnalytics), David Beck (VP/GM of social media, Univision) and others.
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 8:30 a.m. @ SNR Denton, 1221 6th Avenue

NYC Data Business Meetup #11
Presenters include Oren Falkowitz (cofounder & CEO, sqrrl), Eric Frenkiel (cofounder & CEO, MemSQL) and Dhruv Bansal (cofounder & CSO, Infochimps).
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Avenue, 7th Fl.

December NY Enterprise Technology Meetup
Featuring keynote by Fred Wilson (partner, Union Square Ventures). Demos by tracx, JouleX and SoMoLend.
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas, 46th Fl.

Windows 8 Launch Celebration!
A night of wine and cheese networking hosted by Microsoft, in celebration of the company's latest OS.
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of Americas

Introduction to the NYC Startup Community + Founders Panel
With Neil Blumenthal (cofounder, Warby Parker), Brad Hargreaves (cofounder, General Assembly) and Kathryn Minshew (cofounder, The Daily Muse).
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 7:30 p.m. @ Warby Parker Annex, 819 Washington Street

Queens Tech Meetup 5 & Holiday Party
With Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer, New York City), Reshma Saujani (founder, Girls Who Code and former New York City Deputy Public Advocate), Jessica Lawrence (Managing Director, New York Tech Meetup) and Helen Marshall (Queens Borough President and Coalition for Queens).
Wednesday (Dec. 19), 6:30 p.m. @ See Exhibition Space, 25-25 44th Drive, Long Island City

NYC Gaming December: Demo Night
Demos by Kristen Harris (Taptiles), Mike Weiksner (Tip or Skip), Dat Nguyen (Smart Kick), Vianel Aquino (Waveology), Noah Sasso (BaraBariBall) and Muse Games (Guns of Icarus).
Wednesday (Dec. 19), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Fl.

New Work City Holiday Festival
Arts & crafts & drinks & music! Holiday-themed drinks and activities will abound, and there might even be a surprise up their sleeves!
Thursday (Dec. 20), 10 a.m. @ New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

Health 2.0 NYC: Crystal Ball Charity Gala 2012
With Esther Dyson (angel investor) and Bryan Sivak (CTO, HHS).
Thursday (Dec. 20), 5:30 p.m. @ Club 39, 303 West 39th Street

No Office Holiday Party 2012
Wyatt Cenac, Sexy Santa Photo Booth, DJ Steve Reynolds (Party Like It's 1999), Karaoke + more!
Thursday (Dec. 20), 8 p.m. @ Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn

More events on the horizon...
ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge: Application Deadline on Dec. 27 @ NYCEDC
The Product Group January 2013 on Jan. 3 @ MTV Networks / Viacom
January 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Jan. 8 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Startup GC Panel #2 on Jan. 10 @ General Assembly
Enterprise Tech Meetup on Jan. 16 @ Microsoft
Law to Tech Breakfast Panel on Feb. 22 @ General Assembly East

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

Foursquare's temporary HQ. (Photo: Twitter)

Given recent events, Betabeat decided to forego our Rumor Roundup this week for a roundup of all the things startups are doing to help get New York back to normal following Hurricane Sandy.

It didn't take long for New York startups and techies to spring into action after Hurricane Sandy left parts of our fine city without power, water, shelter, or Wifi.

On Tuesday, we pointed you to New York Tech Meetup and New Work City's attempts to mobilize tech-savvy volunteers to help local businesses and organizations get networks and websites up and running. Today, NYTM put out an official call to its 28,000 members, asking for more volunteers and taking requests (online or by phone/text 646-392-7353) from government agencies, small businesses, non-profits, and schools that need help anything from data recovery to Internet connectivity to getting servers back online.

Noel Hidalgo, one of the lead volunteers of that effort, has been manning an uber-useful Sandy Coworking map of offices space for displaced techies. And New Work City founder Tony Bacigalupo, has pretty much morphed into Silicon Alley's Cory Booker. 

I was thinking it'd be bad ass to get teams of people in cars loaded with supplies just rolling around helping whoever was in need.

— Tony Bacigalupo (@tonybgoode) November 2, 2012

In fact, companies like Uber, which temporarily dropped surge pricing amid cries of price gouging but then quickly reinstated it--and Hotels.com have been the aberration. Most startups have lept at the chance to lend a hand and show off the tech scene's self-professed collaborative spirit.

Here's a roundup of yet more Sandy relief efforts spearheaded by the tech community:

No fee Airbnb From Oct. 31 to Nov. 7, Airbnb is waiving its fees for both renters and hosts on all properties located in areas hit by Hurricane Sandy, including NYC and Long Island. Travelers must stay for seven nights or fewer. We found a bunch of local hosts who dropped their rates to $10 a night, as a Sandy special.

Red Cross Tonight Hotel booking service Hotel Tonight is donating all money spent on hotels in NYC Thursday Nov. 1 and Friday Nov. 2 to the Red Cross.

Zaarly's pops up with a helping hand Peer-to-peer marketplace Zaarly launched an online pop-up shop that allows users to purchase local services for NYC residents in need. Examples include homemade meals from a local chef, pet sitting and renovations. All of the proceeds from the pop up shop will be donated to the Red Cross in New York City. "Based in San Francisco, folks at Zaarly wanted to help their friends in New York, but felt powerless," a rep told Betabeat. "After batting ideas around late into Monday night, they realized they were no longer small and powerless. They could help their friends and enable others to do so too."

What a Mitzvah! Yenta, the "Grindr for Jews," has coordinated a bunch of relief efforts. The company has temporarily halted advertising and paid outreach in order to donate those proceeds to the Red Cross. Yenta is also inviting displaced New Yorkers to stop by their offices, where they're collecting food and clothing donations for Sandy victims.

Later, late fees AT&T, Verzion and T-Mobile are both waiving late fees for customers impacted by Hurricane Sandy, and will continue to provide service to prepaid and contract customers, even if they haven't been able to pay their bill. AT&T and T-Mobile have also been providing charging stations for New Yorkers affected by the blackout.

Tying the Knot Wedding startup The Knot created a Facebook page to help brides whose weddings were ruined or canceled by Hurricane Sandy. Affected couples are using the page to "share tips, find available venues and talk to local experts." The page is also collecting the information of wedding venues and vendors in the area who did not suffer damage and are still able to host November weddings.

Time Warner does something good Much-maligned New York cable provider TimeWarner, known for pissing off every actor from Star Trek, has temporarily shrugged off its evil image with a hefty $1 million donation to Sandy relief efforts. According to a press release, "The company will donate $500,000 to the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City with another $500,000 to be dispersed to other organizations that are serving victims in the greater Tri-State area." They also deployed ten trucks downtown to act as charging stations with free Wifi.

Gilt City helps the city From Wednesday Oct. 31 to Sunday Nov. 4th, Gilt City NYC is donating 30 percent of all profits from sales on its NYC page to the Red Cross Hurricane Relief. The company has alerted all Gilt members of this opportunity in an email with the hopes of encouraging some philanthropic shopping.

Rubicon to the rescue Ecommerce platform AHAlife is also donating 15 percent of profits made from Oct. 31 to Nov. 4th to Team Rubicon, which links up military veterans with communities in need of rebuilding.

Squee! Stuffed animal startup Squishable released a limited edition Sandy Corgi, with $5 from every purchase from now until Sunday Nov. 4 going to the Red Cross. The corgi was so cute (see for yourself below) that it quickly sold out, so they extended the offer to the platypus squishable. So far, they've raised $1,460.

The adorable squishable corgi, which is sadly sold out. (Photo: Squishable)

Lucky us Community crowdfunding platform Lucky Ant is providing free crowdfunding for local businesses impacted by Sandy. The company has waived all fees for any local businesses wishing to use the platform to get themselves back up and running. Lucky Ant is also raising a fund with a goal of $50,000 or more that they will distribute to small businesses in need.

Buried bauble relief Online jewelry retailer Bauble Bar is hosting its weekly "Buried Bauble" special, where users use a clue to find a discounted piece of jewelry. This week, for every $10 buried bauble users purchase today, Bauble Bar will donate $10 to the Red Cross.

Fresh charity My Fresh Shirt, an online drycleaning service, has donated a year's worth of free drycleaning for auction at Charitybuzz, a platform that allows users to host auctions for charity. So far, the current bid is up to $600, and all proceeds will go to the Red Cross.

(Photo: @Marissa)

Many businesses and organizations in New York are suffering without electricity following yesterday's devastating hit from Hurricane Sandy. With electrical and tech equipment down across the city, there's a need for capable engineers to help get New Yorkers back to being plugged in. Today, the New York Tech Meetup and New Work City published a sign-up form for volunteers hoping to use their tech skills to help out a neighbor.

"NY Tech Meetup and New Work City are organizing volunteers with technology skills to help New York-area businesses and organizations get their technology back up and running after Hurricane Sandy," reads the signup form. The team is currently organizing a database of willing volunteers and then will decide from there how to allocate help.

Skills in need include server maintenance, data recovery, and wifi troubleshooting, among many others. They're also looking for volunteers to donate or lend supplies.

Interested volunteers should sign up here.

RIP, startups.

“I thought this was gonna be like a real funeral,” Betabeat’s date complained. Her confusion was understandable. The invitation for Friday night’s Startup Funeral--a sort of reverse launch party for failed startups--instructed us stop by the “New Work City Funeral Home.” So we were a little surprised, upon entering the dim second-story loft off Canal Street, to find a DJ spinning hip-hop as guests milled about the Chinatown coworking space in business casual--save for a veiled woman and a dude in devil's horns.

We didn't spot any condolence casseroles, but canapés sat on trays next to bowls of punch and pink paper lamps hung from the ceiling. On the Western window, a large screen bore the Wifi password.

Precisely one hour into the event, a bagpiper's procession cut the networking short, indicating that it was time for the mourning to begin. Host Kevin Galligan, an Android developer in a priest’s toque, reassured us we weren’t the only ones befuddled by the party's conceit.

“At first everyone kind of got it,” he explained. But the notion of celebrating failure--something we hear Silicon Valley types are a little more comfortable with--became difficult for locals to process. "It turned into, ‘We’re gonna have lessons, right? We’re gonna learn what they did wrong and we’re gonna avoid that next time?’ Or it’s like, ‘Oh you’re gonna make fun of everybody? That’ll be hilarious!’ Then it was people that were upset: ‘Oh, it’s a funeral? It’s so morbid! Why would you do that?’ Eventually I just stopped explaining it,” Mr. Galligan admitted.

After some more funereal piping, he passed the mic to his cohost, web designer Leo Newball, who showed off the miniature urns (filled with hard candy) each presenter would receive. "Father" Newball apologized that Favorly, which describes itself as "Kickstarter for human capital," wouldn't be on the speakers list due to a fortunate turn of events. Just two hours before the party, the company had been resuscitated, narrowly avoiding the deadpool.

The first presenter, iOS developer Brian Papa, took the floor in front of a projected mock tombstone that read, “Addieu 3/2011-8/2011: There was an app for that.”

Mr. Papa described his now defunct app as “a quick and easy way to connect with people that you meet on Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter all in one shot.” Addieu may have won third-place for best app at South by Southwest in 2011, but it was still “very awkward to use in real-life situations.” Users would have to get their friends to download Addieu, “and it was a tough word to spell because it’s not even a real word. It’s a French word that we added a letter to.” But the biggest problem, Mr. Papa concluded, might have been that “we were trying to solve a problem that nobody really had.” Soon enough, he bid adieu to Addieu.

Dan Tashman, cofounder of Skip Trace Design and former star of Betabeat's web series "The Pitch," was more somber as he described how his app Get-a-Game grew out of—and was held back by—his passion for pick-up sports. “I was trying to build this portal for users,” Mr. Tashman recalled, “but in the end it didn’t really serve the people who were going to be monetizing the business, which is the sports service providers, the gyms, the trainers.”

As a “single cofounder,” Mr. Tashman revealed, recruiting a team from around the world led to terrible hours. The end came, however, when he had a hard time with the ever-popular pivot, a Startupland staple: “They always tell you to do what you’re passionate about, but then they expect you to have this flexibility where if it doesn’t catch, you should pivot quickly. And that’s something that I had a lot of trouble with. Because at the end of the day, I had a specific goal in mind and anything else was really not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”

Last up was Chris Siragusa, former CTO of Kozmo.com, the free online delivery service whose orange-cloaked bike messengers once ruled the streets of New York. He jokingly described the company, now a punchline for dotcom era excess, as “the most ridiculous company ever to try to do something.”

“In a year and a half we went from six people working in a basement to three hundred people working in five floors downtown,” Mr. Siragusa told an astonished crowd. “We went from one warehouse in lower Manhattan to 25 warehouses in 11 cities around the country. We went from just videotapes to DVDs to books, movies, magazines and prepared burritos. And at the end of the day I think we raised somewhere close to $280 million." The only problem? "We were losing money on every order.”

And who could forget Kozmo's notorious Oscars party in advance of the company's March 2000 IPO? Not Mr. Siragusa. "Liquor was flowing much more than today," he recalled. "There was our CEO standing on a grand piano giving this crazy speech about all the stuff that we’re gonna do in the future. Everyone left the party just counting the value of all their shares in their head. The market crashed two weeks later." As investors fled, Kozmo shed employees and closed markets, eventually folding in April 2001. The best parts of the business model were resurrected, however, when Mr. Siragusa went on to found the similar, but smaller, Maxdelivery.com.

“We’ve been in business for seven years," he announced with a smile, "still growing, and having a great time.” Sans grand piano, we assume.

(Photo: Startupfuneral.co)

Startup parties tend to focus on the positive. Launches, app releases and acquisitions, oh my! It's a freaking party, after all. But the flip side also deserves to be commemorated. With booze. So goes the logic behind Startup Funeral. "Join us as we pay respects to our dearly departed startups who have left us for the deadpool," says the site, with a link to an event on September 21st that promises to do just that.

The wickedly clever idea was masterminded by Android developer Kevin Galligan, who then teamed up with four of his fellow entrepreneurs out of New Work City, a co-working space in Chinatown: Leo Newball, Jr., Jason Kende, Valerie Lisyansky and Jason Nadaf. "Work time: 45 minutes; Discussion Time: 2 months+," Mr. Newball told Betabeat by Gchat when we asked how it took them to build the site.

Founders representing the deceased startups will have a chance to speak for five minutes about whatever they want--lessons learned, plugging their new venture--but the aim is to have a good time. "So the idea [for] Startup Funeral started as a Viking funeral--drinking with a burning effigy as they would in the grand old times when the Vikings ruled the sea. Then the idea morphed. Why not an Irish funeral? Why not a marching band?" Mr. Newball explained. "We want to be clear it's primarily a party; the learning experience is way down the list."

"An effigy falls in the middle of that," he added, noting "potential fire permits." If all goes well, the group plans on hosting more funerals under different themes. For the kickoff in September, they're toying with the idea of featuring bagpipe players. "If you happen to know one, that would be awesome!" Mr. Newball said.

We weren't sure how seriously to take the concept. After all, the companies peeking out of the coffin on Startup Funeral's homepage--Hashable and Digg--have their share of detractors. Were they (gently) mocking these companies' demise or do the creators ascribe to Startupland's "fail fast," school of thought? "This is a stage of life we're recognizing. And the message is failure is par for the course," he said. "So, self-mocking, yes, but in good humor. Each startup has a 'launch party,' funny how none of them have the opposite when things don't go well."

Sounds kinda heavy for a party theme. "That's what booze is for," Mr. Newball explained. "Everyone deals with grief in different ways."

"Plus," he added, "We're trying to derail Startup Weekend." Did we detect a beef, after all the build-a-business weekend event was being hosted at AlleyNYC, a new rival co-working space in Midtown? "No, not really," he said with a laugh, "But I'm sure there will be a few people who may be interested who start Startup Weekend Saturday with shades on."

The group is still putting together a guest list of speakers. "We are reaching out to Hashable ASAP. We consider Digg in zombie mode, so they aren't quite ready yet for a eulogy, but we will have some 'honorable mentions' throughout the evening. Consider it a compliment." As a group of freelancers, entrepreneurs and founders, Mr. Newball said every one of Startup Funeral's creators has sympathy for the dead. "We all have experience with failures ... and each one rough in varying degrees."

The experience of getting this idea off the ground has been not unlike a building a startup. "Kevin [Galligan] keeps reminding all of us (even while writing this), 'Just get it launched and we'll figure the rest later!'" Here's hoping we don't have to go to the Funeral's funeral.

Picadilly CIrcus, London, (Source: Paul Atherton via Wikipedia)

LAWGIC. Today 2tor is partnering with Washington University to put their Master of Laws degree online. 2tor's previous partnerships with USC, UNC and Georgetown have put high-end higher education online with programs in social work, business and nursing. The Washington University partnership is specifically aimed at removing a hurdle for international students who want to study U.S. law. Now they can do it from abroad but still have access to the faculty they would be working with if they were physically in St. Lous.

BE MOBILE. Last week New York City based bMobilized locked down $1.5 million in series A funding from European VC firms Alliance Venture and Investinor. The mobile technology company uses cloud technology to convert websites from one of seven languages to HTML5 for a better mobile browsing experience.

RABBIT EARS. Yesterday NimbleTV named Lou Borrelli as their CMO. Mr. Borrelli joined the cloud-based television subscription service last year as an advisor and investor. His resume includes senior positions at NEP Broadcasting and AOL.

WORKSITE. Yesterday, Scrollkit, the intuitive site building platform, unrolled two big new features. Now users can draw on their websites and buy a domain that automatically propagates. Build entire websites at the speed of Twitter.

COMMUNITY. New Work City just revamped their community membership policy. Now, for $30 a month, members receive one free day pass, discounts on other days and events and access to happy hours, a startup support group, meetups and show and tells.

URBAN EXPLORATION. NYC BigApps winner MyCityWay has gone transatlantic. The urban concierge app is in London just ahead of the Olympics with all the features New Yorkers already enjoy. Need to find Tea? Crumpets? Petrol? They've got you covered.

PUNCH THE CLOCK. Hourly, a matching service for workers and employers looking for flexible work, just relaunched with a slew of new features including enhanced search, a premium membership offering and civic and trade group associations.

DIY. In response to customer feedback, Vook, the e-book creation, publishing and distribution platform, is making their product financially feasible for small players. The new Vook Starter Account is available for $9.99 a month and includes 100 MBs of storage and all the other features that make Vook so attractive, including automatic distribution to the Amazon and Barnes & Noble and royalty collection. Another victory for independent and individual publishers!

INTERNET INVASION. In celebration of Internet Week, WalkaboutNYC is pulling back the covers on New York tech. For the third year, everybody is invited to check out the offices of big names like 10gen, Behance, Art.sy, Codecademy, Gilt Groupe, Jetsetter, eBay, Knewton, Lot18, Spotify, Tumblr—there's a lot, okay? The citywide event is completely free thanks to time tracking company Harvest, and participants can tailor their experience with tours, founder talks and of course, demos.

NERD PROM. The 2012 Webutante Ball is a week from tomorrow where founders, investors and other big names in tech get together to drink dance and crown the king and queen of the Internet. "Series B" tickets are still available for $60 but if you wait for those to sell out the "IPO" ticket round bumps the cost up to $70. All this is happening on May 16 at Marquee, 289 10th Ave.

Mr. Diamond giving his candidate speech from the heart at New Work City.

About 60 of 200 registered attendees gathered at New Work City last night to hear two-minute speeches by the candidates for an open New York Tech Meetup board seat. Meetup and NYTM founder Scott Heiferman stood in the audience in a red hoodie, board member Esther Dyson settled on the window ledge in a #newsfoo t-shirt, and scene staple Gary Sharma wandered about with his sponsored tie (Pivotal Labs and Inkba) as 15 candidates gave their vision of what should change about the largest meetup in New York, which last year incorporated as a nonprofit 501c(6), giving it the power to lobby government, among other things.

The other bold-faced names, as far as New York tech goes, were among the candidates: Eric Friedman, head of business development at Foursquare; Shai Goldman, a 10-year veteran of Silicon Alley Bank who moved to New York a year or so ago; and David Tisch, the most talked about candidate of those who couldn't make it, as he had a prior commitment out of town.

NYTM held its first election for the board last year, when proto-blogger Anil Dash and NYU computer science professor Evan Korth were elected. A few things were different this time. Last year, speeches took place at the Skirball Center in front of the usual 800-some audience instead of the cozy New Work City Soho digs; there were also no women running last year, while this year there are four; and only one board member will be elected, rather than two. "This ties us directly to our membership and holds us accountable," NYTM board chairman Andrew Rasiej told the audience.

Whitney Hess, a user experience designer and NWC resident, almost ran for a seat last year before she realized she had massively overscheduled herself. She was the last candidate to step up to the mic last night, a prepared speech on her iPad, and proceeded to thoroughly critique the NYTM user experience from entry to afterparty, including the hated "hovering" until tickets become available "like a Justin Bieber concert."

Other candidates talked about improving the experience of attendees, broadening NYTM's role as an advocacy group, and making the meetup more welcoming to hackers and new members from the outer boroughs and other communities.

First up to the mic was Ben Kessler of CrowdTap--"you guys might know me as @kessler on Twitter"--followed by longtime NYTM volunteer Brandon Diamond, who dumped his script to the floor in favor of speaking from the heart, promising to bring more hackers into the organization if elected. Mr. Friedman's platform was "always be helping," which he illustrated with a quick survey of who was hiring and who was looking for work. Other highlights included the cosmopolitan Jalak Jobanputra, whose resume includes "NYC 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0.," stints in venture capital, government and finance. "It's my goal to evangelize New York as the top tech hub in the world," she said, promising to make NYTM's voice heard in the White House.

Jonathan Askin, a tech law professor at Brooklyn Law School, emphasized NYTM's power to advocate. "We haven't stepped up," he said. "We haven't engaged the government to the extent that we should." Google, Amazon and Facebook are directing government policy on tech, he said, and that doesn't represent the interest of startups.

Murat Aktihangolu, director of Entrepreneurs Roundtable, spoke passionately about making New York more welcoming for startups; Mr. Goldman had a three-point plan: making it easier to move to New York, making sure entrepreneurs have a voice on policy, and reforming the image of New York as a two-trick pony (web and mobile) and getting some attention for cleantech and biotech.

Other candidates who showed up to give a speech included Gregory Schnese of Kikin, Jack Welde, Jesse Landry, June Cohen of TED Media, Luke Haseloff, Matthew Knell and Wei Zhao.

Audience members showed a bias toward the candidates "who showed up." "You just don't like David Tisch," one attendee chastised his friend. "These are community board members," the other pointed out. "Tisch would be better as a board member, don't you think?"

After the talks, the group swigged the Brooklyn Lager and Blue Moon and gobbled their way through several boxes of excellent pizza, talking enthusiastically about New York tech. "I think New York is the best place to start a company!" Mr. Aktihangolu said. New York is an "emerging market," founder Mattan Griffel explained excitedly. Many of the attendees had been to their first NYTM in 2004, 2005, 2006, when the scene was much dinkier, they told Betabeat. Now, Vanity Fair and "The Dylan Ratigan Show" are on the Meetup's press list, managing director Jessica Lawrence told Betabeat. "We should get Betabeat, New York Tech Meetup, Entrepreneurs Roundtable and some cool startups and go to Silicon Valley and recruit!" schemed Mr. Sharma. An entrepreneur in the conversation, Seth Bannon of Amicus, was working on a similar idea (currently in stealth mode), inspired by Paul Graham's recent visit.

Voting for the board seat opened at midnight, and will close December 20. As NYTM adjusts to its new nonprofit status, board members are figuring out their duties (candidates we asked weren't quite sure what they would be doing if elected). Board members serve three year terms.

No one mayor should have all that power.

Leo Newball has held the title of mayor (on Foursquare) of Soho's cozy coworking cave New Work City. Who is Leo? his website asks. A web developer who is into design and data, his website answers. And Foursquare, apparently. But Mr. Newball is tired of going unchallenged.

"Beginning December 1st, 2011 I will not Foursquare Check-in to New Work City, until January 2nd, 2012," he writes on the NWC blog. "On that date, at 12:12pm, whomever is the current mayor of New Work City on Foursquare will be crowned the winner and enjoy a month of the lavish Foursquare Mayor life." The race is on!

GENERAL ASSEMBLY DEMO NIGHT. Is tonight (and $10, why?)

NEW WORK CITY. Hit 100 members.

WEWORK LABS. Has an important announcement to make tonight about the future of the coworking space. (We hear it's good news.)

PARTIES PARTIES. Yext holiday party, December 12 at The Standard.

HIRING. Signpost seeks a chief miscellaneous officer, a publisher and channel relationships manager and a business development associate. Sageworks Capital, an interesting breed of investment firm, seeks a software developer and a biz dev associate. "Sageworks Capital’s cloud-based platform allows borrowers to increase their pool of prospective lenders from beyond traditional banks to include private and institutional investors. Sageworks Capital is a newly-formed subsidiary of Sageworks, Inc. and is based in New York City."

JUST SAYING HI. "I recently founded InsideDigs.com, a free peer-to-peer community for apartment hunters looking for rental information on apartments before they hit the market. The site launched in December 2010 for New York City and already has more than 2700 members."

FASHIONABLE CAPITAL. "FashInvest, Ltd., has released its list of companies that will be presenting at its Second Annual Capital Conference on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.  After receiving a record amount of applications from companies vying to present at this year’s conference, the selection committee has carefully chosen a select group of innovative companies from the Fashion, Fashion Tech, Retail and Branded Goods consumer sectors to present their distinctive opportunities to an audience of venture capital, private equity, institutional and individual angel investors." The list of companies is here.

New Work City.

HIP LIKE HP. New Work City just signed its newest sponsor: HP. "This is really great for us, as their support will play a huge part in helping us make ongoing improvements to the space and community. To consummate the relationship, we're hosting an event on December 5th. I'll have more details next week. In the meantime, come play with some new gadgets and help us help HP make printing suck less!"

FITOCRACY PUSH. "Fitness is something that people tend to take very seriously so it should be no surprise that when they embark on the quest to better bodies, they want their chosen tools to be the best they can be. Since the beginning, one of the most often requested features for Fitocracy has been a way to visualize your workout progress over time. And so it is with incredible excitement that we announce the official release of Graphs on Fitocracy."THE BIGGEST SALE IN INTERNET HISTORY. This is how you know Fab.com has made it. "Get Dealy has launched as 'Fab.com for Digital Goods.' We're really excited about launching our new platform, a daily flash sales site for digital goods, such as software, resources for designers and developers, courses and tutorials."

HATCHED. "Just wanted to give you the heads up that Hatch is officially out their private beta as of this past Tuesday, designed by Hard Candy Shell to make organizing activity plans fun, easy and seamless.

NOW EMERGING FROM BETA. "EZBZ is a New York-based startup that goes beyond  reviews by connecting area consumers with top-rated local business products and services.  EZBZ is built on a real-time open bidding platform driven by text message queries to compensate for the relatively poor Web infrastructure that typical local small businesses have, providing a mobile functionality that’s also convenient for consumers."

HIRINGS. Signpost needs a chief of staff. "As the 'Chief of Staff' you’ll be doing a combination of accounting, HR, stocking the fridge, and anything else we need help on." Wildfire Interactive seeks a senior account executive and Thrillist needs a web apps developer (work with the talented Michael Smith!) while meanwhile Rent the Runway is hiring for a software engineer, Linux engineer. SNAP Interactive needs a MySQL dev.

HEALTH TECH. Startup Health partners with New York eHealth Collaborative, "a public-private partnership that serves as a focal point for health care stakeholders to build consensus on state health IT policy priorities. We established the StartUp Health Pavilion at the NYeC Digital Health Conference to showcase some of the leading early stage health and wellness companies in the greater NY area at the event.  We have one spot left so if you are interested in this great opportunity to show off your offering to more than 500 HIT stakeholders and decision makers across the region, be sure to reach out to us!"