By Kelly Faircloth 5/01 8:52am

Linkages

SO THERE

Booting Up: Turns Out Craigslist Can’t Copyright Its Customers’ Listings

Things aren’t going so great over at the Silk Road. Where are nerds going to order their Molly now?! [Telegraph]

Now any old rando can shell out for promoted tweets. Please, please let’s not start using this to promote resumes. [Ad Week]

Craigslist can no longer spook startups like Padmapper with threats of prosecution for copyright infringement: A judge has ruled the company has no such ownership of its users’ listings. [Forbes]

“When he woke up, he found that Path had gone on a rogue mission early in the morning, texting and robocalling an unknown number of his contacts, including his grandparents.” [The Verge]

Apparently authors still bother getting pissed at bloggers. [Daily Dot]

By The Editors 4/05 6:05pm

shameless rumormongering

Jason_Calacanis

Rumor Roundup: Jason Calacanis Appoints Himself Obi-Wan to Michael Arrington’s Darth Vader

The Chat-rooming Classes Today, seemingly every tech reporter in the business tuned into Jason Calacanis‘s “This Week in Startups,” presumably in the hopes that Mr. Calacanis would tell all re: the allegations of abuse against Michael Arrington. But as familiar names chattered away in the chat room, Mr. Calacanis had little to say beyond comparing himself to Obi Wan. That would make Mr. Arrington Anakin Skywalker, of course; Mr. Calacanis said he taught him how to be powerful in media, and “I regret that.”

As for the allegations themselves, Mr. Calacanis was quick to say he wouldn’t be commenting on whether they were true, citing his lack of direct knowledge. (He did, however, openly discuss the time that Mr. Arrington called a PR honcho “the c-word,” thereby outing someone who’d never mentioned the incident publicly!) [Correction: Mr. Calacanis first mentioned the incident and the PR exec (Brooke Hammerling) by name in the comments of his Facebook post, prompting Ms. Hammerling to confirm the story, also in a Facebook comment.] All in all, it sounds like he (kinda sorta) regrets getting involved. He apparently thought writing a Facebook note wouldn’t go very far. “I thought that that would be a place where it just lived there,” he said. (Paging Randi Zuckerberg!) “I got a little P.T. Barnum in me and I feel like me commenting on all this stuff actually detracts from it,” he added. Read More

By The Editors 3/29 5:45pm

shameless rumormongering

gosling

Rumor Roundup: Ryan Gosling Loves His Warby Specs (Sent From My Night iPhone)

Morin needs a Mophie Path founder Dave Morin, he of Gosling Parker Economically conscious walking Internet meme Ryan Gosling was recently spotted looking dashing in his Warby Parker frames. The company humble-bragged about the royal sighting on its Facebook page earlier this week noting that the frame is the “Preston.” We share their exuberance. This is one piece Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 3/19 9:30am

Facebook Faceoff

Screen shot 2013-03-19 at 8.26.54 AM

MessageMe, the Addictive App Facebook Tried to Buy Before Cutting It Off, Already Picked Up More Than 1M. Users

There have been a rash of reports recently about Facebook’s mercurial approach to third-party developers. The social network may not want to be “in the business of king-making,” by boosting–or suppressing–traffic to popular apps, as Douglas Purdy, director of developer products, told Reuters. But Facebook is increasingly willing to shut the castle gate on competitors.

While Facebook claims it’s an effort to stop spam and promote apps that add value to the network, “Developers say the crackdown is an attempt to stifle applications that compete with Facebook-owned services,” or pay for ads on Facebook, the Wall Street Journal reported last night.   Read More

By The Editors 3/01 4:45pm

shameless rumormongering

bm

Rumor Roundup: When Is Alexis Ohanian Gonna Run for Office Already?

Your Name Here A Silicon Valley source had the pleasure of dining near Path cofounder Dave Morin and his wife, Brit.co founder Brit Morin recently. Mr. Morin spoke about the future of Path while Ms. Morin, a DIY enthusiast, used crayons provide by the restaurant to doodle on the paper table cloth, said the source. There were rainbows, flowers and balloons, but our favorite was a drawing of the Brit.co logo, with “Morin” written underneath and an arrow pointed towards Ms. Morin (just in case the restaurant staff didn’t recognize her). That’s one way to disrupt advertising, we suppose. Our tipster was kind enough to snap a pic on their way out.

Happy Internet, Mr. President Twice this week in conversation with tech types, Betabeat was asked when Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian was running for office already. The 29-year-old credited with helping to defeat SOPA/PIPA already toured the country (in a bus once leased for John McCain’s  “Straight Talk Express”) running for president of the Internet. But with Sheryl Sandberg hot on his heels, isn’t it time to start campaigning for the real thing? Read More

By Jessica Roy 11/26/12 8:18am

Linkages

(Photo: Instagram, @pinkla16)

Booting Up: 3D Printed Guns Are Coming Edition

Thanksgiving beat out Hurricane Sandy as the most-Instagrammed event ever, solidifying the photo platform as more of a Path-type social network than the future of citizen journalism. [PandoDaily]

The Wiki Weapon Project could be testing its 3D printed guns by end of year. [The Guardian]

Courts continue to wrangle over the legality of collecting texts and data from cell phones to use as evidence. [The New York Times]

Facebook has finally admitted it will soon share the data it collects from your profile with external websites and ad networks. [GigaOm]

Can the Wii U save Nintendo? [The New York Times]

By Nitasha Tiku 7/30/12 6:30pm

Visiting Dignitaries

Path

Who’s Going to the Secret Path Party Tonight?!

Path, the intimate San Francisco-based social networking app for your actual friends (no scare quotes necessary), is cozying up to its East Coast counterparts this week. On Wednesday, the startup is hosting a shindig at Macao Trading Post in Tribeca, presumably to celebrate last week’s release of Version 2.5 and smooth over any lingering privacy concerns among New York’s digerati.

But you didn’t expect an app that once limited your social sphere to just 50 people would be short on exclusivity, did you? Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/20/12 7:40am

Linkages

(Photo: Microsoft)

Booting Up: Nigerian Scammers Edition

Why do Nigerian scammers say they’re from Nigeria? A Microsoft researcher investigates. [Hacker News]

Now you can read through a user’s Twitter stream without all those annoying @ replies to randos clogging it up. [Twitter Blog]

Oops. Microsoft forgot to tell its PC partners about that little thing called the Surface tablet. [Reuters]

Facebook’s head of mobile told the audience at Le Web that the company is trying to copy Path. Cool story, bro. [TechCrunch]

The Daily Dot rounds up some of the more embarrassing moments in Reddit’s history. [Daily Dot]

LinkedIn is being sued for that unfortunate password hacking scandal. [VentureBeat]

By Kelly Faircloth 5/15/12 2:54pm

New York Internet Week

A few of the featured apps.

Are Apps Art? Some More So Than Others, Judging By This Exhibit

There’s clearly quite a lot of creative talent being devoted to the creation of iOS apps. Even hipsters are flocking to the craft. But does something like Path really rise to the level of art? Yesterday, Betabeat ventured downtown to the Internet Week-pegged gallery opening for “The Art of Apps,” to hear the argument out.

By the time Betabeat arrived at the Soho Gallery for Digital Art (the name stencilled sternly in white against a revolutionary red background), the party was winding down. We stepped inside to find a dimly lit gallery studded with high-definition flat-screen televisions, each offering up some element of iOS user design, attempting to recontextualize it as art, not just app.

The first screen offered a note from gadget blogger and host Peter Rojas, which explained a bit about the curatorial philosophy at work:  Read More