JackThreads Gets an iPads App

SoundCloud Drifts to NY The orange-and-white audio platform announced the opening of offices in New York this week, declaring that they find the city "similar to Berlin" in that it’s "not trying to replicate what’s going on in The Valley." SoundCloud has also taken on Dan Gerber, the former National Director of Strategic Partnerships at Pandora, in order to look after brand revenues following his work at The Grammys. No word if he’ll organize Taylor Swift-style digs at rivals Spotify and Songza.

Aereo Reveals New Pricing Structure Controversial live TV streaming company Aereo unveiled a new payment plan for customers that allows access to most features for as little as $8 an hour. The purveyors of tiny antennas said the pricing plan "requires no long-term commitment and eliminates the previous annual and day plans," referring to it as "streamlined." The move is accompanied by a commitment to offer full service amenities free for the first month commencing May 15. Aereo's CEO stated that, "We looked at our data and it was clear, consumers want a more simple approach to pricing," mentioning nothing about undercutting the network giants they’ve so angered.

SideTour Adds BlackJack Wiz Experience maestros SideTour let slip that one of their own employees, a veteran card counter and Blackjack player, has started offering tours of his own. The staff member, Brian Cotlove, "spent six years making a career playing blackjack in casinos around the world." Perhaps a trip to Atlantic City is in order for the SideTour team?

BitPay Expands The BitCoin world’s PayPal has grown with the inclusion of Bitcoin core-developer Jeff Garzik and CFO Bryan Krohn. As BitCoin prepares to be used in up to 50,000 stores, the payment site says that Mr. Garzik’s new position will "allow him to work full-time on Bitcoin, BitPay, and related open-source projects to benefit the Bitcoin community."

Fiverr Hires Former Cuban Council Co-Founder Following the buzz around Google’s acquisition of legendary design firm Cuban Council, it can now be revealed that co-founder Michael Schmidt has made the move to Fiverr, the online services marketplace. Schmidt, who was responsible for Evernote, Bad Religion and the Rdio app, amongst other things, will now be their new front end architect, building and managing the Fiverr design team.

Pheed Launches Android App Feisty young social media upstart Pheed, used by the likes of Miley Cyrus, continues to vie for the big leagues with the launch of an Android app. The site, which is essentially a mashup of every other social media, believes it will "double in size over the next couple of months due to the new Android market," according to CEO O.D. Kobo.

IBM is making a push into mobile, and plans to provide customers with software, data and security services on mobile devices. [NYT]

Calling all youth correspondents: the social network Pheed is said to be gaining in popularity, especially with teens. [Forbes]

Facebook isn't the only tech company to catch heat for using stock option deductions to avoid paying corporate taxes. The Center for Tax Justice says LinkedIn has used the deduction to avoid paying federal taxes for the last three years. [New York Post]

Eduardo Saverin talked about life after the Facebook, the challenges faces the social media company he helped found, and his decision to move to Singapore. "No, I did not rescind my citizenship for tax purposes," is what he says. [WSJ]

Mr. Kobo (Photo: Admin5)

Launched just two weeks ago, the Los Angeles-based social networking startup Pheed has already seen a fair amount of ink spilled over it, perhaps most notably in a Forbes piece which wondered if the hyped platform was "the new Twitter." With an iPhone app released today, that buzz is bound to build. But O.D. Kobo, a longtime internet entrepreneur and Pheed's cofounder, argues that these comparisons are moot, and that Pheed is in fact blazing a brave new trail in the social networking world.

"I read one journalist compare us to App.net," he told Betabeat, sounding slightly mystified. "We’re original. I think that’s obvious."

Pheed is a new social network that allows users to upload multimedia content to their profiles, including audio, video, photos and text updates. What differentiates it from other players in the space--aside from the fact that it seemingly streamlines the functionalities of companies like Kik and YouTube into a single service--is that it allows users to directly monetize their content. Users can opt to erect a paywall, charging anywhere from $1.99 to $34.99 monthly, or $1.99 to $34.99 per view of a specific piece of content.

But it's not all about the monetization. "We’re by no means a premium website," Mr. Kobo stressed. "We’re a website that simply offers the ability to monetize some things. If you want to share photos or do a live broadcast, monetization is simply a feature. We think it’s fair. We think it’s about time that content providers should own and monetize their content and not the platforms."

The nine-person Pheed team operates from a mansion on LA's famous Mulholland Drive. The company is staffed entirely by engineers, who have worked tirelessly to build out an infrastructure that's as fast as it is lightweight. Mr. Kobo, an American born in Hong Kong who worked in the internet biz in China for the past 10 years, possesses a sort of humbleness that occasionally veers into bewilderment. He simply can't believe, it seems, just how far Pheed has come since it beta launched in August.

"We’re all tech people," Mr. Kobo told Betabeat by phone. "We’re developers, programmers and we’re also users of social media. We come from the space and because we’re also programmers, we like to take things apart and understand how they work. The team has been working together for almost 10 years and most of the career we spent out of China building social networks and software. We used to have 90 million uniques a month from Asia. We learned from the ground up what users like, and that gave us a roadmap to get to Pheed."

Despite its star-studded user base--Paris Hilton, Miley Cyrus, Ashley Tisdale and Chris Brown all have Pheed accounts--Mr. Kobo is quick to dismiss the idea that Pheed is just for celebrities looking to make money off of their social media content. "We have thousands more normal, not-famous people on Pheed than celebrities. We’re for everyone," he said.

So how did an internet entrepreneur who spent the majority of his career in China convince big names like Ms. Cyrus to create Pheeds? "I think the reason we have a lot of tastemakers and influencers on the platform is that while we were in our beta stage, I went around and showed Pheed to a lot of tastemakers and influencers around L.A. I had been in China for a decade so it’s not like I have buddies at Universal, so it was really kind of me just going around and meeting people and those people were some of the first people who opened Pheed channels up."

Despite its buzzy launch, Pheed has seen a few hiccoughs along the way. A few weeks ago, Twitter revoked its API access without warning or notification, leaving users who hoped to sign up for Pheed to use Facebook Connect instead. Twitter restored its connection within 48 hours.

"We contacted the support and we never really understood why, nor did we ever get any reason why it was taken down or even placed back up," Mr. Kobo said.

Do you think that perhaps, given Twitter's recent crackdown on third-party API clients, Twitter considers Pheed a competitor, we asked?

"I’m this little mosquito coming into this arena that Twitter helped create," he replied. "I don't really think we're a competitor. I don’t think a motorcycle is a form of car--just because we both live on the internet doesn’t make us competitors."

With today's launch of an iPhone app--and an Android app hitting the Google Play store hopefully by end of year--Pheed is hoping to capitalize on users' gradual transition to mobile. The app provides all of the functionality that the website does, including uploading and sharing of photos, videos and audio, as well as the ability to set up paywalls on that content. It's also fast. The Pheed team rigged the video feature, for example, to encode video while the user records, so that it uploads almost immediately afterwards.

Even if Mr. Kobo doesn't consider himself a competitor to the social networking giants out there, he does seem to have some prominent app makers unnerved. "Yesterday we had a CEO of a very popular app company open a Pheed channel," Mr. Kobo said. "The guy was playing around with Pheed and accidentally clicked on the 'Broadcast' button and forgot to switch it off. So we were sitting there watching him talking live to their staff for like 45-50 minutes, saying 'Can we copy this? How did they build this in a year? They must have bought another company.'"

Mr. Kobo laughed. "We’re just nine guys that have been in this game for a long time."

I'll Take Stingy for $5, Alex

Hacks/Hackers has a very welcoming attendance policy and routinely waives fees for students so that no one gets shut out. But if your portfolio's aggregate revenue teeters up into the billions, just pry your hands off the fiver, dude.

App Maker, App Maker, Build Me an App "Did you know Spotify only has 53 apps?" a tipster wrote in Betabeat earlier this week. We had not. But considering how quickly third-party apps helped grow sites like Twitter and Facebook, it didn't seem like a good sign. That might be why the tipster reported that Spotify is asking big publishers to help them get saturation. Perhaps the meetings went well. At last count, Spotify's app store is now up to 57.

Scobleized After that phreakin Pheed Forbes piece was passed around, prolific blogger and "technology evangelist" Robert Scoble decided it was time to sign himself up for the new social network, which has gained popularity with celebs like Miley Cyrus and Paris Hilton and purports to rival Twitter. "Great, another social network. Yes I Pheed," he tweeted, almost like a humblebrag, along with a link to his Pheed feed. But the new site didn't seem to live up to the Scobleizer's exacting standards. "I am on Pheed but so far I prefer Facebook," he wrote on his Pheed. " Personally it is Twitter's fault that this was born. Twitter refuses to innovate. Lists, there, suck, for instance. It is why I moved much of my time to Facebook. Anyway, now I can say I Pheed too!"

Power tweeter and Radar writer Alex Howard (a.k.a. @digiphile) took Mr. Scoble to task for his impolite introduction. "You came here just to say you prefer other places and that Twitter features 'suck?' Ouch. Wonder how people here will interpret that introduction. :)" Hey, it wouldn't be an early social network if the tech elite weren't arguing on--and about--it.

Thiel Treasure Facebook and Paypal investor Peter Thiel is apparently having investment discussions with Airbnb. If all goes well, a $150 million or so investment from Mr. Thiel would make Airbnb very valuable, to the tune of $2.5 billion. Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports details of the deal are still up in the air, but Airbnb investors Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital are still on board for the second round as well. Now if only we could convince Mr. Thiel to list his mansion on Airbnb...

Sing Me to Sleep Gizmodo blogger Sam Biddle shared an earnest college memory with his devoted Twitter followers. "You're my favorite TV channel, no lie," he tweeted at MTV Jams, a hip hop music video channel from MTV. "I spent a sad amount of time watching MTVJ in my apt. senior year." Perhaps Mr. Biddle should consider becoming a Rap Genius site member?

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 We've also implemented an anonymous tip box for you covert tipsters out there; you can find it on the top-right corner of our homepage.

(Photo: 4 the Media)

Ain't nobody can hold Kim Dotcom down. [Wired]

Celebs are flocking to a new Twitter-like site called "Pheed" which allows them to charge monthly subscriptions or pay-per-view for content. [Forbes]

Google announced a $249 lightweight, durable Chromebook that it's hoping can begin to corner the market on inexpensive laptops. [Google]

Airtime is flailing and its user stats are pretty depressing: "AppData, a service that collects data about sites and services that connect with Facebook, indicated that Airtime had just 400 users a day and 10,000 over the course of a month, but Mr. Parker and other executives at the company suggested those figures were off. Nielsen and comScore, two independent analytics firms, both said that traffic to Airtime was so small that it did not yet register on their charts." [New York Times]

Apple's logo is apparently considered blasphemous in Russia. [CNET]