BB bb (Photo: Instagram)

Glasshole Missed Connection Betabeat finally had the distinct pleasure of trying the dorky looking face computer we love to mock so much at a party last night at Meetup HQ. We (only slightly drunkenly) approached a tall white dude donning Google Glass and timidly asked if we might be able to try it on. When we slipped on the device (in slate!), the display was incredibly blurry--not due to our eyesight, but because Glass specifically calibrates to the wearer's eye. It was hard as hell to see, but the voice commands worked almost seamlessly, impressive since we were at a loud party.

The device's functionality is fairly limited: you can take a picture, record video and get directions to and from places. It also has the added benefit of making you look like a complete dork while somehow also attracting swaths of attractive ladies to get up real close to your face.

As it turns out, the Glasshole bro developed a crush on a Betabeat acquaintance, but even his face computer couldn't help him remember her name or even what she looked like. Instead, knowing only where she worked, he sent a LinkedIn message to a coworker he thought was her, but nope. (They do have the same hair color.) The coworker then forwarded his picture around the office asking if anyone had met him the night prior and wanted to date him. In the picture, he was wearing Glass.

A source also tells Betabeat that the Glass-wearing dude is working on a facial recognition app for the device that would take a person's picture and tell the wearer what their name is. You do you, Mr. Glasshole, but you might want to get on that one sooner rather than later.

Royal Joyriding  Important update in the Yellow Cab Wars: Here is a photo of Prince Harry (you know, the hot one) getting a personal demo from Hailo's cofounder:

Hailo co-founder Russ showed Prince Harry how to use Hailo to get home after a big night at the @uktiusa Tech event: hailo.to/l4naQ

— HailoNYC (@HailoNYC) May 15, 2013

Breakfast Breakup If you make a breakfast date with Ben Lerer, don't you dare stand him up. Mr. Lerer tweeted that he had early morning breakfast plans with Gawker publisher Nick Denton (at Balthazar, we assume?), but that the media mogul failed to show. Perhaps Mr. Denton was getting a head start on wedding planning.

https://twitter.com/BenjLerer/status/333934325286436866

What Is... Eyeroll Jeopardy does its best to related to the youngs during its college editions. As such, Wednesday's episode featured a category called "Yo-lo," as well as an entire column devoted to "Techie Dropouts." Tech familiars name-checked in that round included Kevin Rose, David Karp and Mark Zuckerberg. Aaron Swartz was the $2,000 answer.

https://twitter.com/1uigi/status/335006407361433600

(Photo: Tumblr)

A Meetup for Meetups Last night, we climbed an interminable number of stairs to reach the rooftop where Meetup was holding a celebration for its 100 millionth RSVP. We arrived to find hotdogs, plentiful kegs and even a tiny lawn made of AstroTurf. Musical accompaniment was provided by (what else?) a local bluegrass Meetup.

Among the crowd we spotted Laughing Squid’s Scott Beale in conversation with man-about-town Rex Sorgatz, Branch’s Josh Miller chowing down on a hot dog, and Small Girl Mallory Blair working the crowd. Lindsay Kaplan and Richard Blakely, Baratunde Thurston, Chris Kennedy and Kickstarter’s Fred Benenson also turned out.

“Meetup got started when there were two towers over there. Now there’s one tower going 1776 feet in the air. And Meetup wouldn’t be here if that tragedy didn’t happen,” said founder Scott Heiferman, standing up to extemporize a few remarks. “The worst things happen when people meet up. But thankfully, more often, the best things happen in life when people meet up.”

As we rode the Gilded Age elevator back downstairs later that evening, several people pulled out their phones to check their Hailo reservations. “I Hailo’d three times today,” one said proudly.

Wedding Bells Last weekend, at a ranch in Glen Ellen, California, New York Times columnist David Pogue married his longtime girlfriend, PR pro Nicole Vosshall Dugan. No word whether the vows included a brief but tasteful disclosure.

Mistaken identity Recently, one Betabeat reporter found herself in her umpteenth conversation about Lean In. A male developer frowned and announced, befuddled: "Oh, I thought that was a lean startup book." So, there’s that.

We’re Puking. Here’s a cool glimpse of what they’re serving up in Hell, er Silicon Valley: Angry Bird-themed sushi rolls! Much to Selina Meyer’s relief, it isn’t a fine Finnish import and it’s not made of real birds-- just fake fish. We don’t know what tastes more depressing: the Angry Birds II roll (filled with mango, torched salmon, and “special sauces”) or the OMG roll that contains a spring mix salad and torched white tuna. What’s worse is that the ginger is probably served room temperature.

https://twitter.com/jowyang/status/333750310633873408

Better than a “I’m With Stupid” mug. Oh, ha ha. Look at Jack “the Jokester” Dorsey everyone! The personified short-circuiting Twitter feed joked that he was giving arch nemesis Mark Zuckerberg one of his snazzy new Square stands for his “hoodie business.” It’s a joke because the Facebook CEO wears a lot of hoodies! The animated interaction happened on Twitter, a website that Mr. Zuckerberg (née @finkd) hasn’t used since 2012. We really need to figuring out a neutral platform for these two nerds to troll each other on. Reddit?

https://twitter.com/jack/status/334339997626949634

(Photo: Amazon)

Front Page Printed Pages of the Internet Just before taking stage at SXSW to talk his crowdfunded Internet 2012 tour, Alexis Ohanian emailed out a link to his new book, Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed.

Since you asked, Mr. Ohanian, we dig the cover, but "without their permission," sounds a little iffy in the context of Reddit's Creepshot scandal, no?

Last week, we wondered when Mr. Ohanian was running for office already. “Alas no,” he emailed back. “I'm not going to rule anything out but right now I'm having too much fun (and impact) from my place in the private sector.” However, as the Young Entrepreneur Council founder Scott Gerber pointed out, Mr. Ohanian does happen to own the domain name ohanian2013.com.

Just checking in 525,600 minutes. How do you measure a year in the life of a (defoundered) man? Earlier this week, on the anniversary of his abrupt departure from Foursquare, cofounder Naveen Selvadurai posted a recap of the last 12 months. Don't expect to learn much about what he's been working on, though. Think more in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights and cups of coffee.

Mr. Selvadurai lost the founder 15; he traveled; he saw his family and friends; he traveled some more; he read books; he went to Disney and rode Space Mountain many times; he learned to drive stick; he went to the Olympics. "I always kept saying 'year 30' wouldn’t be such a big deal and that it’s just like any other. it turned out to be so much more and i’m grateful for that," he reflected.

Oh, but he might have picked up a bit of a gloomy streak, too:

this is how the war will start - "ohio man charged with shooting robot" singularityhub.com/2013/03/04/ohi…

— naveen (@naveen) March 6, 2013

(Photo: Instagram/Dens)

So (proto)typical Google Glasses are now just popping up everywhere, it seems. The latest sighting comes via Digg community manager Veronica De Souza: "SPOTTED: A skater bro wearing google glass in bedstuy. Who are you?" she tweeted. Betebeat welcomes any intel as to the identity of this mystery man, so we can pester him until he lets us try his specs on.

Maybe Dennis Crowley knows the guy. The Foursquare cofounder recently, "lost my Google Glass virginity."

(Photo: Instagram/Fred Benenson)

Spotted! Our friends at Quora--the erudite agoraphobe’s answer to Yahoo! Answers--never got the memo that print was dead. Thus earlier this year, the site opted to publish a 441-page hardcover book called “The Best of Quora,” featuring 131 primers. Forbes called it a “fascinating, enchanting, exasperating book,” and wondered if the inquiring minds of Quora were “too clever” for their own good.

Author Clive Thompson and Kickstarter’s Fred Benenson got to thumb through the pages and see for themselves when they spotted a copy “in the wild” at Lil Frankie’s Pizza in the East Village. Mr. Thompson said on Instagram that he received an advanced copy this week. As Bill Couch, a front-end product engineer at Twitter explained in the comments, “[Quora] issued them as gifts to the authors of those answers at the end of last year, then provided it as a PDF online.”

Guess the question about Betabeat didn’t make the cut.

:( Guys, we think Tumblr really hurt Shelby.tv cofounder Reece Pacheco feelings. He recently published a long, sad blog post announcing, "Tumblr I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down." Nothing says heartache like LCD Soundsystem! So what set Mr. Pacheco off? He logged into Tumblr the other day, as he does regularly, and found himself subjected to a laborious, drawn-out attempt to get him to follow more blogs. Then, he was given a few hovering tool tips--on a service he's been using for years.

He did not like this!

Thing is, I wouldn’t be so frustrated with you, Tumblr, if I didn’t love the platform so much. If you were just some other social network, I’d say “Do whatever you want. I don’t care. Your only value is your scale.”

But that’s not you, so don’t treat me like some number. You know I’m active. You know I’m a creator more than a reblogger. Treat me that way and show me some added benefit, rather than just trying to get more mindless engagement out of me.

Sorry, Reece--those revenue targets aren't gonna hit themselves.

Mmm, cake Happy birthday to GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci, who got quite the gift in celebration. There's a Vine of the festivities, but here's a teaser:

Looks like a party, alright!

High fashion Huffpo cofounder Kenny Lerer is well known around Silicon Alley as an investor. But did anyone know he is, as his son Ben Lerer put it on Twitter, "fcking fashionable"? Mr. Lerer the Elder recently appeared in a New York Times profile of Laurent DeLouya, "the amiable proprietor of a hair salon that over 50 years has amassed a following that is kind of a cultural Core Club." Papa Lerer told the Times he'd "walk over hot coals for Laurent,” and apparently Mr. DeLouya performed baby Ben's first haircut at age 3.

We yearn to someday achieve that kind of rapport with a stylist.

User #279 Your user number can be a figure of pride among the tech set. If it's low enough it signals that you're an early adopter, and makes you feel cool, which is kinda sad if you think about it cuz like, look at your life.

"I'm User No. 279," humblebragged New York Times tech writer Nick Bilton in a recent Twitter back and forth. "I got @dens drunk and [sic] Nick Denton's house and made him give me a beta account."

Whatever works.

Meme-tastic! (Photo: Politicker)

If your week was as hellish hectic as ours, you must be in need of a stiff drink. Pour yourself a cocktail and get comfy: here comes this week's rumor roundup.

Step Away from the Crackberry! In case you missed all the Instagrams, Mayor Bloomberg performed some titillating acts of Startup Theatre on the stage at Gracie Mansion Tuesday night. The crème of tech society, including MakerBot's Bre Pettis, General Assembly's Adam Brimer, Yipit founder Vinny Vacanti, Google trends & insights editor Caroline McCarthy, Sailthru's Aubrey Sabala, chief digital officer Rachel Sterne Haot and her husband, LiveStream founder Max Haot, gathered on the lawn for canapés and cocktails to celebrate NYC Connects 2012.

To enhance his usual Silicon Alley cheerleading, Mr. Bloomberg opted for props on the podium, like an array of Warby Parker sunglasses and a Seamless delivery guy, who shlepped takeout up on stage. The spotlight was enough to lure Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky out of Twitter hiding. Besides one of the guests complaining about a scripted "Hello world" joke that fell short, everyone seemed to eat up the promotional opportunities.

While Mr. Bloomberg and his girlfriend Diana Taylor eagerly examined the new MakerBot Replicator 2 on display, however, another executive was also milling about: Google chairman Eric Schmidt, pecking at his BlackBerry rather than tapping at an Android device. Mr. Schmidt! Haven't you been warned about this before?

Snoop No More? Earlier this week, we wondered how the $15 million Andreessen Horowitz just ploughed into Rap Genius would affect the startup's street cred. Marc Andreessen, you see, also happens to have donated (a small fraction) of his billions to Mitt Romney--along with fellow Republicans like race-baiting Scott Brown and the Tea Party's only hope for the White House, Paul Ryan. And if our Yeezy history lessons and Nikki Minaj's recent brush with satire have taught us anything, it's that rappers and Mitt don't mix.

Signs of a potential rift in-the-making surfaced via Snoop Dog's Instagram today when he republished Twitter personality @DragonflyJonez's reasons not to vote for Mitt. Good thing for the site's founders--who appear to have some habits in common with Snoop--that the rapper has a verified account on Rap Genius, but hasn't actually contributed anything.

Weissman, Party of One After a long week of product launches, Reddit k-holes, and funding news, there is nothing Betabeat likes so much as a 90s Netflix marathon. It looks like Union Square Ventures partner Andy Weissman had the same idea:

Thinking about dipping into Party of Five this weekend, see if it holds up after all these years

— Andrew Weissman (@aweissman) October 5, 2012

Dr. Jack Shephard before he ever crashed into that damn island? Jennifer Love Hewitt before she was relegated to a John Mayer punchline? We're getting nostalgic already.

Here Comes Baby Ex-Googler and newly minted Yodeler Marissa Mayer gave birth to a baby boy on Sunday, September 30th. "Baby boy Bogue born last night. Mom (@marissamayer) and baby are doing great--we couldn't be more excited!" tweeted her husband Zachary Bogue. But it turns out the baby doesn't have a name, and instead the Mayer/Brogue couple is doing what any young techie couple would: they're crowdsourcing for names.

According to an email sent out by the couple, published by Forbes:

Hi All -

Zack and I welcomed BBB (Baby Boy Bogue) into our family last night.

He arrived exactly one week ahead of schedule at 22:22 p.m. on 9/30/12, weighing 8 lbs 14 oz and is 21″ tall.  He is now officially BBBB – Big Baby Boy Bogue!  We are all very happy and excited.  Name TBD – suggestions welcome!

With love and happiness,

Marissa & Zack

We're guessing "Larry" is completely out of the question.

Stalking 2.0 When Vox Media director of marketing Callie Schweitzer asked Onswipe cofounder Jason Baptiste if his stalker was still around, our ears immediately perked up. Turns out a stranger had been checking into Mr. Baptiste's apartment and Onswipe HQ on Foursquare and it was starting to get creepy. Luckily, Mr. Baptiste assured us it was "nothing serious." Besides, Foursquare stalkers are so 2010. The real people to worry about are the creeps who like every single one of your pictures on Instagram. Photos of artisanal meals aren't that inspiring.

Media Mogul Melee BuzzFeed cofounder Jonah Peretti and Gawker publisher Nick Denton took the kid gloves off this week and engaged in a rather amusing sparring session on Twitter. When Mr. Peretti disingenuously congratulated Mr. Denton on Gawker landing at #101 on Business Insider's Digital 100 List, Mr. Denton replied with his trademark brand of British-tinged snark: "We've always been asked: in your quest for traffic, what would you not do? Buzzfeed has provided the answer. Thanks, @peretti"

Somebody make some popcorn.

Bizzy Dev It looks like one of Betabeat's "poachables" has gone and gotten herself poached! On her Tumblr, Andrea Hong, a senior manager of business development at AOL, announced that she'll be joining NewsCred, a New York City startup that wants to reinvent "how and where content is sourced, distributed, published, and paid for," as the company's director of content. We hope she enjoys NewsCred's snazzy new office!

Beef by the Book Just this week we got an official update on the progress of Sheryl Sandberg's work-in-progress Lean In, which is proceeding apace on its path toward becoming the women-in-tech equivalent of Bossypants. 

But it seems Ms. Sandberg may have a rival in the long-form arena. Intellectual gadfly Evgeny Morozov (whom we last saw stirring the pot with the audacious suggestion that the Internet isn't always a wondrous freedom-granting elixer, as well as trash-talking TED) is finishing up his own tome, and just recently he hinted arcanely that Facebook's COO might be in for a very academic diss: 

Am I going a bit overboard in this new book using Bernard Williams to bash Sheryl Sandberg? Well, yes. But at least it's FUN.

— Evgeny Morozov (@evgenymorozov) September 30, 2012

We simply can't wait to learn how the British moralist relates to Ms. Sandberg, and we long for the arrival of the inevitable New York Review of Books essay hashing all this out.

As always: Overheard a juicy tidbit about impending departures or imminent acquisitions? Dying to dish about startup blunders or frothy financing? Holler at your girls: tips@betabeat.com

Mr. Miller (joshm.co)

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Josh Miller, the precocious 21-year-old Princeton dropout behind Branch, one of tech’s most buzzed-about new startups, took The Observer on a tour of the Obvious Corporation, a growing operation helmed by the cofounders of Twitter that advises and invests in an elite set of fledgling tech companies, Branch among them.

The San Francisco office radiated industrial California coziness, with tall windows and exposed pipes, dark grey walls and a fridge overflowing with Vitamin Water. Mr. Miller, who is tall and insouciant, with the laid-back linguistic tenor of one who spent his childhood in Santa Monica, bustled about the office, seemingly unthreatened by the fact that he is both much younger and less experienced than the majority of Obvious employees.

“Check this out!” he called from a breezy conference room with a panoramic view of downtown San Francisco. He pointed to a wet bar fully stocked with top-shelf bottles. “You know, I’m just out of college, so sometimes I’m, like, afraid to drink any of this because it’s so expensive! It’s like, where’s the Franzia?” he joked, referring to the cheap boxed wine favored by destitute college students.

Though he will return to New York this month, Mr. Miller has been working from Obvious’ offices since January due to the success of Branch, a platform he founded last summer that attempts to make online discussion easier and more worthwhile. The Branch website looks a lot like the comments section of a blog, though with a simpler and sleeker interface, and allows users to host invite-only discussions, ideally between experts or those who are passionate about a given subject.

“Thoughtfulness makes Branch different,” Biz Stone, a cofounder of Twitter and one of Branch’s advisors, told The Observer via email. “Every decision made in building the platform was given craftsman-like attention, and that sort of attention has an impact on the way people perceive and use the service.”

At its core, Branch is an attempt to resolve a raging debate among Internet enthusiasts over how to fix the “online conversation” problem. Website commenting sections have long been the target of Internet trolls and snarky know-it-alls, with anonymity generally exacerbating the problem.

But it’s not just about the trolls: One of the far-reaching problems with online discussion is that it’s open to everyone—the people we’re happy to hear from and also those we’d prefer to ignore. On the Branch blog, Mr. Miller wrote that he sees a “profound power inherent in the open exchange of information.” Branch, with its invite-only model and focus on quality conversations among identified users, is one of the first well-backed attempts at revitalizing online discourse, but it’s also a gated community seeking to promote intelligent dialogue: unlike most of the Internet, no dumb, off-topic or anonymous opinions are allowed.

Of his initial pitch meeting with Mr. Miller, Obvious Corporation cofounder Jason Goldman said that he believed “Branch was a big disruptive idea and was obvious in the sense that all the best ideas are obvious in retrospect.”

Some of Manhattan’s media moguls, including Gawker Media founder Nick Denton, have also been experimenting with ways to revamp online conversation. Recently, Mr. Denton told the tech news blog GigaOm that he believes Mr. Miller is one of the most interesting people in tech.

“Josh is working on a hard and important problem—online conversation—that hasn’t been solved yet,” said Jonah Peretti, cofounder of BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post and one of Branch’s advisors. “He really wants to solve the problem and will do whatever it takes to make it happen, even if it is hard, even if it takes longer.”

Since last summer, Mr. Miller has morphed from being a Princeton soc major to a college dropout with a half-baked idea to a cofounder of a well-funded, highly hyped company with advisors like Mr. Peretti and Twitter cofounders Mr. Stone and Ev Williams.

“If you had told me I was going to drop out of school, I would have said you were crazy,” Mr. Miller announced, after we’d settled into comfortable leather-backed office chairs in one of Obvious’ sun-drenched conference rooms. Behind him, a red plastic pig stared out at us from behind a glass dome. “If you had told me I was going to move to San Francisco, I would have said you were crazy. And then three months later move back [to New York]? I would have thought you were fucking insane.”

Mr. Miller attributes much of Branch’s swift rise to the fact that New York’s nimble tech scene yields myriad chances to meet with tech types who are eager to help. “You know how busy BuzzFeed is. But still, Jonah took this random meeting with this kid who had some sketches on a piece of paper,” he said, still clearly astounded by his luck.

Up until last year, Mr. Miller was known primarily for his activism in the education sector. While still in high school, he was named a CNN Hero Finalist in the “Young Wonder” category for devising a scholarship program that aimed to alleviate racial tensions following the death of his friend Eddie Lopez, who was killed in a gang-related drive-by shooting. At just 18 years old, Mr. Miller spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival, before shifting focus entirely to delve into the tech sector.

As a junior at Princeton, Mr. Miller decided to intern at a startup called Meetup. The company’s cofounder Scott Heiferman brought him to his very first New York Tech Meetup, an event held monthly at NYU that is typically packed with more than 750 tech enthusiasts.

“It was the coolest experience,” gushed Mr. Miller. “The energy of the room was incredible. Especially as someone who doesn’t know tech, it was like—oh, my God! People are excited, and they boo when you talk about revenue, and it was just a really cool environment.”

It was at this event, under the wing of Mr. Heiferman, that Mr. Miller decided to become an entrepreneur. At a startup workshop, he teamed up with an NYU student named Hursh Agrawal; together, the two devised the plan for Roundtable, an early prototype that would eventually become Branch.

By the time the 48-hour event had ended, and his project had won the competition portion of the weekend, Mr. Miller had found a potential technical cofounder and an idea that he was passionate about.

Eventually, he also persuaded Cemre Güngör, an NYU masters student and part-time designer at twee e-commerce site Etsy, to join the team. In order to woo Mr. Güngör, Mr. Miller told him that they would pay him twice as much as he was making at Etsy, which was a boldfaced lie—Roundtable had absolutely no capital at the time.

“What a hustler,” recalled Mr. Gungor via email. “I knew the company didn’t have any money, [but] liked the energy of Josh and Hursh so much that I decided to start informally helping out.”

With the team assembled and well-known advisors onboard, Roundtable exploded. After it was named one of the 20 hottest startups by Business Insider, investors started indicating interest, and Mr. Miller took a leave of absence from Princeton to focus on his startup full-time, much to the chagrin of his mother.

Mr. Miller’s success is attributable in part to his charm, which was mentioned by almost everyone we spoke to. He is also fiercely determined: He once drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco and back in one day just to meet with Jason Goldman, a cofounder of Obvious.

“I definitely think he thought I was a little crazy at first,” Mr. Miller joked.

“[Josh] is a natural, charismatic leader who people want to root for,” Mr. Goldman said.

Mr. Miller is also take-charge and highly organized; he meticulously scheduled every detail of our interview, including when and where it would take place and precisely how long each portion—the tour, the interview and lunch—would last. Somehow, in an industry bursting with dotcom veterans, his age and relative naiveté haven’t hindered his growth but have served to make him all the more endearing.

“Josh is absolutely relentless and determined,” said Mr. Peretti, whose initial wisdom—that Branch’s vision might be too hard to accomplish, and that Mr. Miller should stay in school—was mostly ignored by Mr. Miller.

After the tour of Obvious, we walked the few blocks over to The Grove, a busy lunchtime spot in downtown San Francisco that boasts an ethereal tree strung with lights. At the register, Mr. Miller swatted away our credit card.

“My mother will kill me if I let you pay,” he insisted, a reminder that, successful or not, he is really young.

“Josh is incredibly focused and responsible at work, but this doesn’t always translate into his personal life,” Mr. Agrawal told us via email. “He is so lazy with laundry that after it’s done, he just leaves it in the dryer—like, perpetually—and runs the dryer for 10 minutes every morning to warm up and de-wrinkle his clothes for the day.”

Next month, the Branch bunch will return to New York to work out of the Betaworks office, another startup incubator that backs them. Despite the ups and downs of the current media landscape, Mr. Miller said that he likes that New York is media-oriented. “I think a lot of tech companies are scared and allergic to the word ‘media,’” he told us. “They’re like, ‘Oh, it doesn’t scale!’ But we’re really interested in that space, so New York is perfect for us.”

“I’m going to try to take a lot of meetings on the Highline,” he added.

A few weeks after our interview with Mr. Miller, Mr. Denton introduced a new commenting platform across all Gawker Media properties that focuses on empowering users, a seven figure investment. Oddly enough, he decided to call each discussion thread a “branch.”

“Well, the idea of comments as a tree is owned neither by Branch nor us,” Mr. Denton told us by email. “Not going to avoid using a word because it’s in their name.” He pointed us to emails he had sent as early as 2008 that discuss the idea of comment threads as trees and branches. Just after we reached out, Mr. Denton started a “branch” on the site justifying his decision to employ the term by printing an old internal email that had used it. There have been discussions about licensing the technology to other companies.

Mr. Miller said he had “no comment” on the incident, but it was clear that the Branch team was not thrilled with Gawker’s terminology. Eventually, he admitted to the The New York Times, “I just wish [Mr. Denton] would have used a different name.”

Mr. Miller seemed mostly unfazed by this taste of cut-throat competition. While start-ups like his don’t have a great survival rate, for now he remains marvelously tanned and earnest, eager to return to New York and build the next great Internet company.

After lunch, as we were both rising to leave, Mr. Miller had a question for us. “Can I give you a hug?” he asked, extending his arms.

A version of this story appeared in The New York Observer on May 2nd.

Mr. Denton (flickr.com/scriptingnews)

After a week of closed commenting sections, Gawker released its new commenting system today, and it's a doozy. Nieman Lab has a great rundown of the changes, including a computer algorithm that sifts through the comments and looks for ones to feature, as well as "a new inbox [that] focuses attention on all replies to a user’s comments... the original commenter must explicitly approve a reply to allow it into the conversation."

Nieman Lab reports that the proprietary system is officially called Powwow, but interestingly enough, the actual discussion threads themselves are called "branches."

If that doesn't sound familiar, it should. Just last week we reported on Gawker founder Nick Denton's love for the startup discussion platform Branch, in which he called Branch's 21-year-old cofounder Josh Miller one of the most interesting people in tech.

Even before today's official launch, many media watchers pointed out that Mr. Denton's vision for the future of comment sections was very similar to what the Obvious Corporation-backed Branch is doing.

"Well, the idea of comments as a tree is owned neither by Branch nor us," Mr. Denton told Betabeat by email. "Not going to avoid using a word because it's in their name."

It's worth noting that Branch changed its name from Roundtable just last fall, and that the company doesn't own a copyright on the name. But we can't imagine the Branch team is too happy about this new development. When reached via email, Mr. Miller said he had "no comment."

Mr. Denton (flickr.com/scriptingnews)

Gawker overlord Nick Denton's commenting revolution is in full swing, with the first phase--revoking the illustrious "star" from each commenter, and temporarily disabling comments altogether--implemented last week. Mr. Denton has been very vocal about the fact that he wants to ditch the site's old insidery cabal of snark-obsessed commenters in favor of more thoughtful, inclusive discussion.

His approach reminds us of a little startup we know that, with the help of its Obvious Corporation connections, has been gaining major traction on both coasts. According to GigaOm, Mr. Denton is a huge fan of Branch:

The most interesting people in tech:

GigaOM: “Who do you pay attention to when it comes to tech or online media?”

Denton: “I always watch what Evan [Williams] is doing, because I’m obsessed by Internet discussions, and how bad they are, and how much better they could be. Josh [Miller] at Branch is interesting [Branch has been funded by Williams' Obvious Corp and does hosted invitation-only discussions].

A conversation regarding the merits (and lack thereof) of Mr. Denton's new vision already took place on Branch last month, with some of the media scene's most well-known players participating, but Mr. Denton himself did not chime in. "First thing I thought of when I saw Branch for the first time last week was Denton's comment push," wrote Curbed founder Lockhart Steele.

Perhaps Mr. Denton watches Branch so closely because it possesses an almost identical vision for online conversation. Do we sense a Gawker/Branch partnership--or fracas--on the horizon?

Your topics list can also be edited and impacted by friends who give you +K's, or recommendations, on certain topics. But occasionally Klout unearths a bizarre couple of topics that leave you wondering just how much you talk about things like bacon (we're looking at you, David Karp).

So what topics are tech titans influential about? Apparently some pretty hilarious ones.

Dennis Crowley

We think it's sweet that Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley is influential about moms. Who doesn't like a guy who tweets about his mother?

Cameron Winklevoss

One half of the imitable Winklevi duo, Cameron Winklevoss apparently has a lot to say on Twitter about 80s heartthrob John Cusack.

Nick Denton

Mr. Denton, self-proclaimed "gossip merchant" and overlord of the Gawker Media empire, is influential about trauma, which we suppose makes sense considering the rigorous workload he expects from his staff.

@Betaworks

Company Twitter accounts can also have their own Klout scores. Startup non-incubator Betaworks, for example, is influential about cookies...and drag queens.

@Tumblr

Angsty tweens and fashion porn were oddly not under Tumblr's popular topics. Luckily, knives and Kid Cudi were.

Mayor Bloomberg

Last but not least, we have our very own Mayor, @MikeBloomberg. He is apparently influential about both fascism and bullying, though we have to guess that Occupy Wall Streeters may have had something to do with that.

And just for good measure, did you know that Betabeat is influential about cosmetics? Yes, this tech blog is one of the few run entirely by ladies, but we never tweet about our makeup routine. What gives, Klout?

UPDATE:

Klout wrote in to tell us that the Klout profile for Mark Zuckerberg, listed in the original edition of this piece, is unfortunately fake. His real profile is here, with nary a Justin Bieber reference in sight. The real Zuck is in fact influential about money and celebrities, though his low influence on privacy still remains true.

TURNTABLE SPINOFFS. Also apparently associated with New Work City, an official site vending Turntable merch has a splash page up at shopturntable.com; no store yet, but here's a peak. The site is endorsed by TT, as we understand, unlike rolling.fm--which looks like one of those straight-up knock-off situations.

WALKBACKS. Gawker made some changes to its redesign last week--"a little less boxed-in," as Nick Denton tweeted--giving readers the ability to opt out of the two-pane configuration which many found intolerable at first. Gawker has been tweaking the redesign since its debut earlier this year and subsequent pageview nosedive, and pageviews are climbing back up. Bad news for digerati Rex Sorgatz, who put his money where his mouth was back in February in a public bet with Mr. Denton: "I’m on the record that I think the redesigns will fail. And I’m now officially opening the betting pool. I think Denton is going to be forced to pull back on this," he wrote. "I keep getting traffic alerts telling me that @gawker sites are breaking records. That traffic bet with @nicknotned is looking silly now," Tony Haile tweeted this morning, and he's a man who should know--he's the general manager at Chartbeat.

Dear Josh - I run a really successful daily deals site, imagine a Groupon for the aging hipster set. Problem is, a bug in our latest feature release exposed a bunch of user's emails and personal shopping history to everyone. Now we're getting chewed up on the blogs for the privacy breach! What should I do?

What's old is new again. Remember when hipsters were called hippies? Remember "Blue Chip Stamps." Ahh... the summer of 1967...

Your primary problem is not blog mastication (check that up in your Funk & Wagnalls). You have a systems integrity problem and your company is now paying for cut corners in the development process. This is a classic instance of why releases by the big girls (e.g. Oracle, Google and Microsoft) take more time and money to produce. They have the resources to fully document the code, alpha test, beta test and retest before they release. So now that you too are becoming a big girl and need to design and implement back-end procedures that minimize future security breaches.

As for the media relations management I defer to experts Brew Media Relations and the Morris+King Company to weigh in:

Andy Morris: This happens so much that it’s almost formulaic. Even the biggies have survived this kind of thing and I can think of at least one Internet geek God who made it through a pretty serious privacy compromise by taking this approach and not ducking any punch. In the same vein as don’t duck or blink, one should preemptively disclose the security lapse. Too often, companies are paralyzed by indecision about whether or not and what to disclose. Inevitably word gets out—in our age of instantaneous communication—so better to be ahead of it. Inevitably, you will get chewed up in the blogs if people sense that you’re not forthcoming, you’re trying to obfuscate facts or your name is Nick Denton and you’re attached to something like this.

Brooke Hammerling: It doesn’t matter if you're a startup or a big corporation, the apology has to have a human face. A mass email apologizing to, "Dear customer" is just going to make people feel more violated at this moment. Get your team in a room, order some pizza and lock the doors until you figure out how to get the right message across. Don't get defensive, acknowledge the mistake and how seriously you're taking it. Oh, and if it's a consumer business, you better offer offer something more than apology: free samples, discounts or VIP upgrade.

Josh Harris is the founder of JupiterResearch and Pseudo.com and the ceo of The Wired City, a web tv network in New York. Andy Morris is a founding partner at The Morris+King Company. Brooke Hammerling is a founder at Brew Media Relations.

Need some advice? Email Josh at askjoshharris at gmail dot com.

"These sites festooned with social media buttons—they look like primitive tribesmen clutching pathetically onto shiny baubles they believe to the symbols of modernity," Nick Denton told The Observer at the time. Facebook was by far the most significant source of social traffic, he said, and therefore a Facebook "Like" button was the only embedded widget needed.

But suffering pageviews has forced Mr. Denton to walk back parts of the redesign, including the ban on share buttons. Gawker sites now include a row of icons representing email, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Facebook, with a dropdown menu that offers more click-to-share options.

Mr. Denton declined to say anything quotatious in a brief exchange by email. "The all-the-rest share button went in nearly two weeks ago! You just noticed?" he chastised The Observer.

Yes, we admitted (as it happens, we might not be the only fans who have become less frequent visitors since the bold but potentially disasterous redesign).

Anyway, does this mean such widgets are now viewed as a necessary evil in Gawkerland?

"Well, we're down to two: Facebook and all-the-rest," Mr. Denton demurred. Thanks for sharing!

See also The 25 Dumbest Gawker Passwords, In Order.

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries