Mr. Chen. Twitter)

The ratings on Foursquare Explore are now powered not simply by randos assigning stars, but rather a number of factors like checkins and tips. [Foursquare Blog]

At GigaOm's RoadMap conference, Kickstarter cofounder Perry Chen dropped a little knowledge on the crowd: Last year, $3 million went to gaming projects. This year, the sum is 20 times as high. [Twitter]

Washington wants to strengthen privacy protections for the kiddos, but Silicon Valley swears up and down the new rules are so bothersome it might make it impossible to even bother developing for children. That would be terrible, because then they might have to spend some time outside, God forbid. [New York Times]

Everyone's just a touch nervous about the prospect of New Jersey's vote-by-email scheme. [Computer World]

Tumblr now clocks in at 20 billion monthly pageviews. Whew. It's also basically a ceaseless river of content, with 77 million posts every day on 79 million blogs. (Though presumably many of those are reblogging the same five pinup pics again and again.) [Daily Dot]

Whoa (Photo: kickstarter.com)

There are some lookers spread across the board in New York's tech scene, but no one holds a candle to the collective attractiveness of the Kickstarter team. Seriously, their staff is a little too beautiful, like the shirt folders of the local Abercrombie in our high school days.

Luckily, we can now gaze at them all day long on the site's new team page. They've bucked the trend of posing together like a picture day elementary school class and have instead gone with a looping scrollable video gallery. It's like taking a ride through Disney World's Hall of Presidents, as styled by American Apparel.

Just look at founder Perry Chen bite down on that pen. It's adorable!

Yancey Strickler's giggle? Perfect 10.

Must be something in the water, or coconut water, to be more precise. We hear Kickstarter employees have access to an never-ending supply of Vita Coco. If it's good enough for Rihanna, it must be good enough for them too.

(Photo: Vanity Fair)

Annie Leibovitz's Silicon Alley photo shoot has finally made its way into print, as part of Vanity Fair’s annual "New Establishment" list. As we'd hoped, the magazine opted to pose Arianna Huffington in the sidecar of David Karp’s vintage motorcycle. (Guest appearance by Mr. Karp's "French-English bulldog," Clark.) Only in the version that made the October issue, Dennis Crowley is depicted emerging from a manhole, avec le swag. As before, the annual list is chockablock with tech types, but just like last year, Silicon Valley dominates.

Peter Thiel comes in at no. 37, repping for libertarian utopias between Tyler Perry and Ryan Seacrest. Elon Musk is no. 9 on the list, two rungs higher than Adele, but one spot below a new entrant: Pinterest's Ben Silberman, no. 8. Despite Square's caffeine-fueled growth, Jack Dorsey stayed at the no. 5 spot, but finally got the fashion props he's been waiting for. "It’s a Prada suit; for everyday wear, it’s denim from Scott Morrison’s Earnest Sewn line, which was the first brand to use Twitter."

Scattered among the elite are a handful of New York techies, present and accounted for. By and large, it's the same group of people as last October, although it's interesting to note how Vanity Fair assesses their power ranking, year-over-year.

Herb Allen III, Allen & Co.: Mr. Allen, one of the underwriters for Facebook's contentious IPO, moved up one spot from no. 19 to no. 18. "Managed to stay under the radar as Morgan Stanley took the blame for the bungled offering."

Sean Parker, entrepreneur: Last year, the owner of Bacchus House in the West Village came in at no. 34. This year, he's off the list entirely. A critique of Airtime's ho-hum adoption rates, perhaps?

Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures, Flatiron Partners: Mr. Wilson is moving up in the world--and fast! He jumped from no. 35 last year to no. 23, outranking fellow tech investor Ashton Kutcher (no. 25), if you can believe that.

Dennis Crowley, Foursquare: Mr. Manhole Crowley dropped four places from no. 45 to no. 49. C'mon, doesn't a Best Buy commercial during the Olympics count for anything these days? Vanity Fair pegs Naveen Selvadurai's recent de-foundering as a "power play."

Kevin Ryan, Gilt Groupe, Business Insider: The DoubleClick alum, recently profiled in The New York Times for AlleyCorp's stable of winners, moves up from no. 46 last year to no. 42, with a nod to Gilt Groupe's impending IPO.

Henry Blodget, Business Insider: Mr. Blodget, your caps lock key's best friend, fell off the list this year, from 2011's perch at no. 48. That's okay, he'll keep advising Facebook from the side.

David Karp, Tumblr: Consider this Mr. Karp's coming out party. Last year, the 26-year-old was relegated to the magazine's "Next Establishment" list. But this year, he debuted at no. 44, just behind Lena Dunham (no. 43) despite Tumblr's influence among navel-gazing millenials.

(Photo: Vanity Fair)

Honorable Mention: Perry Chen, Charles Adler and Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter. The crowdfunders didn't make the list, but they did get a get a brief profile in the issue--and a chance to model some well-cut skinny suits. Vanity Fair gives the cofounders, recently scuffed up in the press for overfunded projects' failure to deliver, a shout out for creating "a new product category: the indie gadget." By this time next year, we predict they'll be hovering around no. 45 for ushering in the resurgence of hardware.

Basically. (Photo: flickr.com/benhusmann)

A series of stumbles--dead jellyfish, burned sandals, iffy iPod docks--has Kickstarter backers wondering whether there's any recourse when they bet on projects that just don't pan on. Their discontent finally bubbled up to NPR, which politely requested some answers yesterday. And so today, the Kickstarter cofounders--Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler--took to the company blog to clarify a few things, with a post titled "Accountability on Kickstarter."

That mason jar desk lamp hasn't show up? The brainwave-scanning iPhone accessory not working quite right? Concerned that brilliant poet has taken off to Tahiti with your donation? Sorry, Charlie. It's not Kickstarter's responsibility to make you whole:

If the problems are severe enough that the creator can't fulfill their project, creators need to find a resolution. Steps could include offering refunds, detailing exactly how funds were used, and other actions to satisfy backers.

Not clear enough? Kickstarter does not, cannot, and will not give your money back:

Kickstarter doesn't issue refunds, as transactions are between backers and the creator. In fact, Kickstarter never has the funds at all. When a project is successfully funded, money is transferred directly from backers' credit cards to the project creator's Amazon Payments account. It's up to the creator to issue a refund, which they can do through their Amazon Payments account.

Why won't Kickstarter give you money back? Well, it's just part and parcel of offering a less risk-averse alternative to traditional channels for creative work, like movie studios and publishing houses:

The pursuit of these projects with a guarantee doesn't work. A Kickstarter where every project is guaranteed would be the same safe bets and retreads we see everywhere else. The fact that Kickstarter allows creators to take risks and attempt to create something ambitious is a feature, not a bug.

Of course, the problem with that scenario is sometimes your grand ambition turns out to be a punchline--just ask the producers of Xanadu.

(Photo: Kickstarter)

Kickstarter CEO Perry Chen announced today on the company's blog that project pages for the crowdfunding site have gotten a major makeover. Now it will be easier to find information about projects like that sketchy open source game console Ouya. Rejoice!

Though we're no UI experts, Kickstarter's original project pages could be described as "cluttered" and "confusing" at best. Mr. Chen hopes this redesign will make absorbing information about projects you might want to back much easier.

As for the specific changes: Creator info, location and category are all displayed more prominently, and a short summary of the project has been added so that you don't have to watch a potentially poorly edited video to learn that actually, the creators of this project seem sort of scammy. Other changes include the addition of a launch and funding date, a larger space for videos and other various "design tweaks."

We have to admit the new project pages look pretty swag. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they used a screenshot of a pretty book project video to illustrate it.