Lights, camera, Tisch! (Photo: Leap Year)

When the Techstars reality show on Bloomberg TV gets too intense (What will happen to To Vie For!?!), award-winning producer Wilson Cleveland has a solution for you. His web series Leap Year, presented by Hiscox Insurance, chronicles the personal and professional lives of several employees at a startup called C3D, which is "like Skype with holograms." The show follows the ups (but mostly downs) of building a startup, with a wry comedic voice and plenty of inside jokes for the tech set. In fact, the show garnered so many Startupland fans that a couple of  New York’s better-known tech glitterati make appearances in this season.

Today, Mr. Cleveland and the Leap Year team released an episode featuring none other than Techstars cofounder Dave Tisch, Shelby.TV cofounder Reece Pacheco, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian and Change the Ratio cofounder Rachel Sklar. Quite the star-studded cast.

Mr. Tisch plays himself and introduces a competition, the winner of which will get to go through the Techstars program. Mr. Ohanian offers some unsolicited startup advice: "Follow the crowd. We are all herd animals and one way or another that cute video of the old people trying to figure out their web cam or some cute little piglet running around in galoshes is just Mark Zuckerberg's way of hunting us down and eating us. Think about it." Is this some obscure reference to the hive mind?

Ms. Sklar's hilarious self-referential cameo--including a "Change the Ratio" t-shirt, an unnecessary fist bump and a "Girl power!" declaration--were all pretty spot on.

Poor Mr. Pacheco--who played a lowly bus boy clearning off a table where the main cast was sitting--had no lines whatsoever. Do you think that performance qualifies him for a SAG membership?

You can check out the whole episode below.

Aol's Andrea Hong, GroupMe/Skype's Steve Cheney, TechStars' Justin Overdorff, Shelby.tv's Chris Kurdziel and Lauren Appelwick, American Express' Meghan Paul, Acquaintable's Joel Rodriguez and Greycroft Partners' Alisa Richter posing at the always epic Webutante Ball @ Internet Week 2012. (Photo: Nick McGlynn / Random Night Out)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), Founder & 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@garysguide.com.

"I think I just ran into Michael Stipe!"
"Get outta here. Srsly?"
"Well it looked like him."
"Wait, who's Michael Stipe?"
"The lead vocalist for R.E.M."
"Hmmm, are you sure you saw Michael Stipe?"
"Well he was bald and looked familiar."
"Maybe you saw Moby. You sure it wasn't Moby?"
(We all peered into the crowd gathered at the Hard Candy Shell party scanning intently to see if we could spot a familiar, bald rockstar.)

Welcome to Internet Week 2012, y'all! Where the young & the restless mingle with the bold & the beautiful mingle with the rich & the famous all brought together by the seductive beauty and power of this thing we call the Internets! :)

With over 500 companies and 40,000 attendees, Internet Week (now in its 5th year) is billed as a celebration of the city's thriving Internet industry and community. As festival co-chair David-Michel Davies (a.k.a. dmd) pointed out, it's the web, not TV, that is driving the conversation today and is the hub of all things pop culture. And New York is very much a big part of where innovation on the web is happening. "New York is an exceptionally entrepreneurial city," Mr Davies pointed out. "People come here for opportunity, and it’s been like that since the city was founded."

Well, you know what they say. Mo' innovation = Mo' Companies = Mo' Money = Mo' Jobs! :) Yes, I can get behind that. (Also it's been two months since all the partying + boozing + schmoozing + debauchery of SXSW and things have been a tad slow lately. Internet Week, you've arrived just in time!)

Tumblr Founder & CEO David Karp outside the Internet Week 2012 HQ

Demand Media's Oxygen Bar at Internet Week 2012 HQ

My journey began outside the aptly named Internet Week HQ, a 50,000-square-foot space at 82 Mercer. As I patiently waited in line to get in, a couple of girls behind me were chatting excitedly about their startup. "So what's it about?" I asked, unable to resist poking my nose in their bidness. "It's called Picksie! It's an awesome-new-iphone-app-for-location-and-proximity-based-discovery-service-for-things-to-do-near-you!" Their enthusiasm was charming and infectious and I agreed to check it out.

There were a ton of panels and keynotes all through Internet Week. Here are some highlights:

Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore sat down for a fireside chat with Mr. Davies and reminisced about starting Mashable at age 19 back in Scotland in 2005 out of his bedroom and bootstrapping it all the way through. (Interesting factoid: Mashable was hosted on WordPress instead of TypePad because it was too expensive at $10 a month!) Mr. Cashmore pointed out how the lines between consumer and producer are rapidly blurring as users are not just passively consuming but also activately creating and publishing content. Mr. Cashmore also noted that the value of social media is how it becomes our personal filter to the world around us helping make sense of it and making it more personal and relevant. (Personally, I'd have loved it if Mr. Cashmore shed some light on when/how he stumbled upon the goldmine that is Top 10 Lists ;))

In an hour-long conversation, the New York Times' David Carr and Brian Stelter explored the fast-changing world of media consumption, discovery, reporting and business models. "It was scary when it was first announced with all of us there in the newsroom," noted Mr. Carr, regarding the Times' decision to erect a subscription paywall. "We all held hands and jumped through the wall!" "Nobody should ever break news on Twitter," continued Mr. Carr. "There is certainly value to breaking news, but not to kidnapping it." Both Mr. Stelter and Mr. Carr cautioned against getting sucked into the Twitter echo-chamber. "Don’t mistake Twitter heat for real heat!" (Okay, I get it ... Mr. Carr looks at Twitter the way a mouse looks at a rattlesnake ;)

New York's CEO Mayor Mike Bloomberg unveiling the Mapped in NY initiative to help connect job seekers with startups looking to hire.

CNN Money reporter Laurie Segall, LearnVest CEO Alexa von Tobel, ArtSpace CEO Catherine Levene, Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna, Mashable COO Sharon Feder and Nestio CEO Caren Maio at the 'Why being a good executive has nothing to do with being a woman' panel

Then there was the "Future of Media" panel, where folks from the media industry gathered to discuss--you guessed it--the future of media. Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa and recently elected Yahoo board member Michael Wolf opined on the continued relevance of smaller local newspapers and Warren Buffett's recent purchase of 63 newspapers. Jezebel's Jessica Coen gave a thumbs up to the tactile feel of glossy magazines that just can't be replicated digitally quite yet. And Buzzfeed's Jonah Peretti noted how Facebook was by far their biggest traffic referrer, surpassing Google.

IAC chief Barry Diller announced at the Federated Media CM Summit that they will be launching an offline component to Match.com. So what does that mean exactly? Well, it means Match.com will be organizing more face-to-face, curated, in-person events. This seems to have disaster written all over it, but I do give Mr. Diller points for trying!

There was video blogger Shira Lazar chatting with new age spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, who has a new YouTube channel The Chopra Well and is working on his 65th book, Spiritual Solutions (talk about prolific!). We waited breathlessly for Mr Chopra to impart one of his trademark enlightening comments and he didn't disappoint. "We are but a speck of dust in a huge infinite void somewhere in the junkyard of infinity." Yes we are!

Video blogger Shira Lazar interviewing new age spiritual guru Deepak Chopra in the Whats Trending section

But as we all know, while panels are great, Internet Week (like SXSW) is really all about the parties, right?!!

There was the opening day party at Internet Week HQ followed by the after-party at Tribeca Grand, where I ran into a bunch of people including the lovely Jennifer Laxmi from Picksie, Stylemusee's Karen Moon, Laughing Squid's Scott Beale, DotGo's Michelle DeForest, Interference's Jessica Randazza and others. The founders of a new startup launching soon called Klooff (it's Instagram for pets!) gave me an impromptu demo in the lobby downstairs. OMGPOP founder Charles Forman offered us strange orange tablets and encouraged us to mix them into our drinks. Which we promptly did. And that's pretty much the last thing I remember from that evening. I kid, I kid! It turned about to be just some tangy, Vitamin C stuff that Charles had picked up somewhere. This wasn't that kind of party, y'know! ;)

There was the Time Inc. party to celebrate the magazine's 10 NYC Startups to watch (ahhh top 10 lists again). The theme of the conversation was very much about 'Why NYC' as a place to start a company. Adaptly cofounder & CEO Nikhil Sethi mentioned how 99 percent of their customers were within a one-block radius of their offices. Sidetour cofounder & CEO Vipin Goyal talked about the breadth of amazing experiences available in the city including one of their more popular tours, "dinner with an investment banker-turned-monk in an East Village monastery." Only in NY! Art.sy founder & CEO Carter Cleveland reiterated what we all know, that New York is pretty much the center of the art world. And Fab.com CMO Scott Ballantyne talked about trying to replicate online that experience of walking down SoHo on Greene Street with one's friends on Sunday and discovering something in the shop window.

Mary Beth, Taylor Bennett and Kaki Read of Warby Parker at the Refinery 29 / Warby Parker party during Internet Week 2012

There was, of course, the much-anticipated Webutante ball (a.k.a. Nerd Prom a.k.a. Everyone Gets Laid Tonight) hosted by Richard Blakeley (Managing Editor at Thrillist) at Marquee, which had lines snaking around the block. I made a beeline to the bar where a young 20-something mentioned to me how excited she was to get away from her corporate cubicle world and finally dip her toes into the "NY tech scene cesspool." Uh-huh. Another pretty young thing whispered in my ear how she loved my curls and proceeded to slide her fingers through them. I closed my eyes, downed the remainder of my drink and signaled to the bartender for an encore. Yes, this was going to be a fun night!

As I made my way thru the crowd familiar faces popped up everywhere. There was The Next Web's Courtney Boyd Myers alongwith Storyful's Erica Berger. RecordSetter's Emily Meithener was there, as was Folio's Niamh Hughes and Sailthru's Aubrey Sabala. Thrillist founders Ben Lerer and Adam Rich and their posse were staked out in a corner. There was the hot (and poachable) Andrea Hong, who does bizdev for AOL, hanging with fellow bizdev cohort Steve Cheney of GroupMe/Skype. I got a hug from Perks Consulting's Lauren Perkins, who'd just arrived with Zelkova Ventures' Jay Levy in tow.

I ran into 360i social strategist Rosie Siman and MDC Partners' Faris Yakob. Mr. Yakob's dreadlocks are getting to be almost as crazy as my curls, if not crazier! I caught up with the lovely ladies of Morris+King - Chi Zhao and Elisabeth Maria. There was WeWork Labs' Matt Shampine, excited about their recent expansion into SF and even more excited about a recent excursion to wine country in Sausalito. Next to him was our very own Betabeater Adrianne Jeffries chatting with frenemy Dick Talens of Fitocracy. Eventually, as all parties do, this one had to end and we all headed over to the after-party thrown by Charming Robot at Destination Bar. The crowd grew drunker, the voices grew louder, the night grew warmer and the party grew crazier.

Gary's Famous (and Sponsored) Red Tie at Webutante Ball at Internet Week 2012

Shelby TV's Reece Pacheco and Lauren Appelwick crowned King and Queen of Webutante Ball at Internet Week 2012. (Photo: Nick McGlynn / Random Night Out)

There was TapRoot's Make It Happen party at a sexy private loft + rooftop apartment in Soho. Taproot's trying to connect folks who are interested in doing pro bono work with charities who could use their help. A worthy cause if there was one. I bumped into a bunch of people including TapRoot's Wendi Sturgis & Robert Acton, Morris+King's Andy Morris, DBG's Chris Young (our gracious host), Social Innovators Collective's Shana Dressler, NY Tech Meetup's Dawn Barber, OMGPop's Charles Forman and others. Inc.'s Howard Greenstein regaled us with stores about the early, early days of Silicon Alley, of Mac User Groups and BBSs.

There was Nick McGlynn's always-happening Obliterati party at Sweet & Vicious, where we all downed copious amounts of margaritas in jars (a.k.a. jargaritas!).

There was The Art of Apps show at the Soho Gallery for Digital Art, which showcased the art and design behind some of the coolest apps such as Path, Mixel, Cameo, Paper and others. As event host (and gdgt founder) Peter Rojas noted: "Creating an amazing user experience for an app – one where the device itself almost melts away – requires a thoughtfulness and cleverness that can be hard to find." Amen, brother.

There was the Stylecaster party, bringing a dash of fashion & style to Internet Week and attended by Fueled founder & CEO (& 50 Most Stylish New Yorkers honoree) Ramit Chawla (who I hadn't seen since SXSW), Foodspotting's Soraya Darabi, Chloe+Isabel's Lindsay Kaplan, Hearst's Head of Digital Marketing (and StyleCaster Co-Founder) Brandon Perlman, The Next Web's Courtney Boyd Myers, Intermix's Dani Axelrod and many more.

Stylecaster's Ari Goldberg, David Goldberg & Meghan Cross and Everyday Health's Mike Keriakos

There was, of course, our very own Betabeat's one-year anniversary party (they grow up so fast!) co-hosted with the Barbarian Group on their awesome Tribeca rooftop with a view to die for. As I arrived, I got a warm hug from Betabeat editor Adrianne Jeffries. Later I ran into Observer Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Spiers, who told me she loved my column. High praise indeed from the founding editor of Gawker and the high priestess of blogging! There was ex-Betabeater Ben Popper who recently jumped ship to VentureBeat and blink-and-you-missed-it jumped again to The Verge.

I bumped into Mr. Webutante Ball himself Richard Blakeley and girlfriend Lindsay Kaplan of Chloe+Isabel. They mentioned they were planning to take a much-needed vacation to Italy. Right on! VYou cofounder and man-about-town Rex Sorgatz was there with the Wall Street Journal's Monica Vosough. Mr. Sorgatz complained that people had been lately confusing him for Barbarian Group cofounder and angel investor Rick Webb. I looked at Mr. Sorgatz, then looked at Mr. Webb and then back again at Mr. Sorgatz. No, I didn't see it--but then again, I was only on my second drink!

I ran into General Assembly's Matt O' Brimer and Jake Schwartz. GA has been on an expansion tear lately, first with London and then Berlin, and the pair were excited about their new online initiative, as well. Mr. Schwartz promised to connect me to their guy in London, where I'll be headed to later this month to explore Tech City. I caught up with Alli Mooney, who I hadn't seen a long, long time. Alli heads trends and insights marketing at Google. I met the lovely Nikki Durkin, the recent Y-Combinator graduate and 99Dresses founder, who bootstrapped her startup down under in Australia. We chatted about her experience at YC, the grueling interview process and the secret to acing it. (Yes, there is one. It's called showing traction. PG loves traction! :))

As the evening progressed, I ran into a whole bunch of acquaintances including Union Square Ventures' Christina Cacioppo, Aviary's Michael Galpert, Barbarian Group cofounder Benjamin Palmer, ABC's Maya Baratz, NYC Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne and many more. Yes, this was definitely a happening party!

Betabeat's One-Year Anniversary Party on the Barbarian Group Rooftop (Photo: Zarah Burstein)

McGarryBowen's Taylor Lorenz and Adotube's Bitsy Metcalf at the BetaBeat 1 Year Anniversary Party on the Barbarian Group Rooftop

Later, a bunch of us headed over to the party at Hard Candy Shell's new offices. Retro was very much the theme, with audio cassette tapes sprinkled everywhere and Mr. Webb snapping and sharing Polaroids all around whilst puffing on an electric cigarette. We ran into foursquare tech guru Harry Heymann at the entrance. He invited us in and encouraged us to make ourselves at home, which we did. The lovely Brooke Moreland from Fashism (there with her beau Joe Wiesenthal of The Business Insider) waved at us. I bumped into former Hard Candy Shell chief and now Charming Robot founder Dan Machharone. (Mr Machharone incidentally is also a co-owner of the aforementioned Destination Bar)

The lovely Bitsy Metcalf and I put on our sunglasses and hammed it up for the camera. A screen on the wall was playing YouTube videos of impossibly cute cats & dogs. I chatted with foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, Laughing Squid's Scott Beale 'n Rusty Blazenhoff and designer Emma Welles. We all got excited at what seemed to be a whisky cabinet but upon closer inspection it turned out to be just a whiteboard inside. No hard candy for us :(

foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley on realizing the whisky cabinet was really just a hidden whiteboard (Photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

And finally there was the Internet Week closing party at IAC's snazzy Gehry-designed west side digs and hosted by hot new streaming-TV startup Aereo. The event was teeming to the brim with celebrities and the city's movers 'n shakers, including actors Wilmer Valderrama, Tyrese Gibson, Carrie Keagan and Allison Williams, IAC honcho Barry Diller, Match.com president Mandy Ginsberg and others. Actor and Comedian Will Arnett was manning the DJ booth.

Actors Will Arnett, Carrie Keagan and Tyrese Gibson at the IAC / Aereo Internet Week Closing Party

The two Rachels: Rachel Sterne and Rachel Sklar at the IAC / Aereo Internet Week Closing Party

Actor and comedian Will Arnett manning the DJ booth at the IAC / Aereo Internet Week Closing Party

The final crowning moment of Internet Week 2012 came as Mr Davies, alongwith the city's Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne and a bunch of others, rang the NASDAQ closing bell on a day that saw the exchange host the historic debut of the IPO of Facebook, arguably the most important Internet company of our lifetime.

Internet Week Co-Chair David-Michel Davies and NYC Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne ringing the closing bell at the NASDAQ

“I’d love to get a time machine and go back to 2004 and invest in Facebook,” quipped Mr Arnett.

So would I, Mr Arnett. So would I.

We! Are! New York Tech! (And so are you!)

On a recent Wednesday evening, all the red plush seats in the large, two-tiered auditorium at NYU’s Skirball Center were filled, as they usually are for the monthly assembly of the New York Tech Meetup, the largest organization of Internet professionals in the city. But the twittering audience members were about to hear some bad news they probably already knew: New York is No. 2.

Scott Heiferman, the sandy-haired founder known to smash iPads on stage for dramatic effect, flipped through slides ranking cities around the world by their tech meetup ecosystems. Chicago was No. 5; Washington, D.C. was No. 4, and London was No. 3. He reached a screen labeled TOP TWO TECH TOWNS, and he stopped. “So the Bay Area and New York,” he said mischievously, as the techies giggled and agitated in their seats. “Let’s get into this right now. Leeeeet’s take a look at this.”

The next slide showed two lines, red and blue, zig-zagging in tandem—but Silicon Valley was consistently a cut above. “Isn’t it crazy that we have been neck and neck with the Bay Area for month after month after month?” Mr. Heiferman asked the audience. “I think that has to change. And I think we need to let a little aggression out. Does anyone have an iPad?”
Nobody did—or rather, nobody offered to hand one over. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine Mr. Heiferman sledgehammering a tablet from the Cupertino-based company to make his point.

The rivalry between the coastal tech hubs is not entirely friendly. “The NYC tech scene is exploding,” investor and entrepreneur Chris Dixon wrote in February 2010, an early instance of the now-common trope of pairing the words “New York City tech” with the word “exploding” (alternatively, “blowing up”; also “killing it,” “crushing it”). “Am I the only person in NYC rolling their eyes at this continual barrage of ‘IN NYC IT RAINS MANNA FROM THE SKY!’?” one commenter wrote. Fans of the East or West Coast volleyed in the comments. New York was accused of being frivolous, blustery, and “startup suicide.” California was called out for being a monoculture.

Over the last few years, the rhetoric in Silicon Alley has started to sound like a Bring It On sequel. The rhetoric is dominated by two themes: boostery New York exceptionalism—in September 2009, the high-profile investor Fred Wilson gave a talk called “NYC’s Startup Scene: What makes it special?”—and the David and Goliath narrative, with Silicon Valley as the reigning champion versus New York as the cool, scrappy young challenger.

Even City Hall is on the squad. “My ultimate goal is reclaiming our title as the world capital of technological innovation,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said back in July. When a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News called to say he was “planning a column on the budding rivalry between our two regions,” the receptionist answered: “What rivalry? We’re winning!”

Rachel Sterne, whose appointment as the city’s first “chief digital officer” last year immediately started trending on Twitter within New York, is probably New York’s head tech cheerleader, trumpeting startup minutiae to her 29,490 followers.

Given that the three-year-old debate really hasn’t changed much, some feel it’s time to stop the pep rally and get to the game.

“The West Coast can claim it won round one of whatever ridiculous battle this is all about, but it really depends on when you start the ‘fight,’” said Aaron Price, an entrepreneur in residence at DFJ Gotham Ventures and founder of the New Jersey Tech Meetup. “Do they want talk pharmaceutical or telephony? I didn’t think so. It’s all pointless and self-serving. Let’s just all get back to work and build awesome companies that can have offices employing people all throughout the country and the globe.”

In May, the Brooklyn-based tech blogger Courtney Boyd Myers wrote a blog post for The Next Web called “Why New York City’s Tech Scene is Thriving.” It was very well-received. “Should Rachel Sterne stop talking about how New York City is ready to be the social media and technology center of the world? Absolutely not,” she wrote in an email. “That would be like forcing a father to stop telling his daughter she’s brilliant, beautiful and capable of saving the world.”

But, she acknowledged, “We need to stop comparing ourselves to Silicon Valley. We should be celebrating our differences and figuring out innovative ways to collaborate, not fighting for VC money or attention in the press. It is the World Wide Web after all.”

Rachel Sklar, a Canadian lawyer-turned-tech and media consultant and founder of Change the Ratio, got into the tech scene around the time the cheerleading started really ramping up. Since then, she’s become adept at baton twirling for New York tech. She’s done publicity for several New York startups, formally and informally. Last year, when many New Yorkers traveled to the South by Southwest Interactive tradeshow for the first time, Ms. Sklar managed a Twitter account called @NYxSW. (Sample tweet: “Congrats on an awesome SXSW, folks! Tweet at us and tell us how you crushed it, so we can RT and give you your due. #NYCrushingIt.”) Recently, Ms. Sklar roped in dozens of local founders, engineers and investors to lipsync lyrics about New York tech—New York underdogs / We can make it here, make it here—in a music video played at a benefit for HackNY, a nonprofit initiative that pits New York tech against another behemoth, Wall Street. “Every NY Tech Person And Their Dog Made A Cameo In This Music Video,” wrote Business Insider blogger Allyson Shontell, who also appeared in the video.

Most of the cheerleading and nyah-nyahs plays out in blog fights, however.

“I feel like the Valley started it,” said Ms. Sklar, who said she doesn’t “have a dog in this fight” despite her efforts to market New York tech. “I remember reading some long ranty article.”

Was it “Face It: NYC Is Not The Best Place For A Startup,” authored by former New Yorker Matt Mireles in February 2010?

“It wasn’t Matt Mireles,” she said. She’s had other blog fights with Mr. Mireles. “It was this guy, Antonio something. It was obnoxious.”

That blog post was titled, “New York will always be a tech backwater, I don’t care what Chris Dixon or Ron Conway or Paul Graham say.” It was written in August 2010 by Antonio Garcia-Martinez, the founder of a startup that was later acquired by Twitter, and it ended with a challenge: “I promise to wear one of those ridiculous ‘I NY’ shirts you buy for $3 from the Nigerians in Times Square for an entire month if the total amount of New York–based startup funding, as reported in Crunchbase, exceeds that of Bay Area-based startups in any financial quarter during the next five years.”

He concluded, “So…bring it, New York. ‘Cause I say the hippies from California will continue to eat your lox.”

Perhaps that jeering bet is what’s kept the bicoastal battle alive even after the city surpassed Boston in venture capital invested in Internet companies in 2011. New York now has a stable of plausibly successful companies, including Foursquare, Etsy and Tumblr; and with both a Facebook engineering headquarters and the Cornell-Technion tech campus on the way, one would be hard-pressed to deny the city its tech cred. California dreamer Paul Graham, who finds New York intolerable, especially when the humidity causes sweat to bead above his upper lip, encourages the startups at his incubator, Y Combinator, to stay in the Bay Area. But even Mr. Graham acknowledged on a recent visit that “New York is definitely now solidly in the No. 2 spot.” By this and many metrics, the city seems to have arrived. So why the persistent Valley-baiting?

Kirill Sheynkman, a former Silicon Valley resident who heads up the New York branch of RTP Ventures, a $750 $700 million fund based in Russia, likes to compare the New York tech scene to a football player stammering through a history report and then blurting out, “San Dimas High School football rules!” in a panic, a scene from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

“There’s a lot of talk about Silicon Valley in New York City, a lot of comparison. I think it’s the underdog syndrome,” Mr. Sheynkmann said, though he added that the “star quality” of New York startups, which tend to be highly visible and impeccably-branded, might have something to do with the messaging.

“I don’t see a need to compete,” he said. “The two cities are different! They focus on different areas of tech. Tech is vast. It’s like science. Science is a broad concept.”

New York talks about itself for two reasons, he said. First: it’s in the city’s nature. Second: there is pressure to tell a compelling story in order to attract talent and capital.

Still, as much as New York tech loves itself, some are wary of talking too much talk.

“I just think it’s a little bit of a wasted effort,” said Kyle Bragger, who recently returned from a session at Mountain View's 500 Startups for his startup Forrst. “Is it really productive to have yet another blog post debate about the latest ‘New York is better or worse than other city,’ or ‘City A is better or worse than City B’?”

Maybe the persistent marketing served a purpose when New York was getting on its feet. But at this point the local tech scene is at least toddling, if not walking. “We call it the flywheel effect,” said Lucas Nelson, an associate at DFJ Gotham Ventures. “Is the flywheel going? Can it sustain itself, or do you still need to put energy in it?”

New York needs big exits and role models more than it needs savvy marketing, he said. “I think the underdog thing is getting pretty old pretty quickly,” he said. “I don’t want to dissuade anyone who is cheerleading in New York. But in the end, no amount of cheerleading will take the place of smart, experienced angels, or smart experienced anything.”

Others pointed out that the marketing for New York tech tends to get competitive mostly because talent and capital are scarce. “We need to keep investing in the ecosystem and evangelizing what is going on here,” Mr. Wilson wrote in an email. “Students still leave the CS programs at Columbia, Princeton, and NYU and go to Silicon Valley. That means we still need to market NYC.”

A survey of local tech professionals suggested that the boosterism is likely to continue. “NY tech talking NY tech is fine,” Alex Taub, head of business development at Aviary, said in an email. “I don’t think it’s an insecurity thing—I think it’s just topical because NY tech is really thriving. Real businesses are being built and scaling here.”

New York may not be insecure, but there seems to be plenty of demand for self-validation. Two entrepreneurs have organized New York Tech Day, a “science fair for startups” to “celebrate New York’s awesome startup ecosystem” in April. More concretely, it’s going to be a gigantic one-day expo at the block-sized Lexington Ave. Armory, with 200 startup booths, more sponsor and vendor booths, and a few thousand attendees rotating through.

It will followed by an awards show.

A version of this story appeared in the New York Observer the week of February 20, 2012.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Rachel Sklar moved to New York two years ago; that is incorrect. She has been in the city for 13 years. Betabeat regrets the error.

Kathryn Minshew never had much luck with tech incubators. "My first company I applied to a whole bunch and got rejected." So with her new venture, The Daily Muse, a content and career site for young professional women, Ms. Minshew was planning to skip the applications and focus on bootrapping her firm. "If it wasn't for Rachel Sklar and her post about getting your name out there, I never would have applied to Y Combinator." (That Sklar, always changing the ratio and changing minds.)

The Daily Muse decided to apply and prepped with  local YC alumni. "There is a very specific culture and interview process at Y Combinator. It's like a college, you need to know the culture."

Boom, accepted, which means another thing on their already very full plates. "We just had 100 percent growth month over month in our traffic. We're trying to hire new staffers. Now add moving to California into the mix," said Ms. Minshew. 

Unlike some teams, which head to Y Combinator with little more than a prototype, the team from Daily Muse is going to work on a very specific detail. "We are building out our job products and that is going to be the focus at YC. What we've found among our readers is that traditional job boards are not cutting it for women. We think there is a more holistic approach."

This Saturday the team will be hosting there first live event to introduce members of their online community to one another. She Makes is a pop up fair to celebrate women who create, being thrown in partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi, 85Broads and News on Women.

"We were thinking it might be fun to get some Task Rabbits to dress up in holiday gear and steer people to the party from the street," said Ms. Minshew. Hey, it would not be the strangest task going on this week, by a long shot.

via Vogue and a scanner.

Exactly a year after Anna Wintour sprinkled her glossy fashion dust on Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Vogue has decided to switch its gaze from women in New York politics to women in New York tech.

After taking a gander at Silicon Alley's female founders, investors, and stalwarts, the magazine opted to profile New York City's social media-savvy chief digital officer (or "head nerd" in 4 Times Square parlance) Rachel Sterne for being "the face of a new era of digital governance."

The feature, which isn't available online (Bad, Conde! Stop that!) says, "Sterne is part of a new generation of bright, attractive women who are turning Silicon Alley into less of a boys' club." We'd quibble with Vogue's  notion that women judged on their relative attractiveness makes it less of a boy's club. But hey, it's Vogue, which means we get references to Ms. Sterne's "willowy, six-foot frame" and "striking figure."

In what we're pretty sure is NYTM's first Vogue reference, the magazine quotes former CNET reporter Caroline McCarthy, now stationed at Googleplex East, talking about meeting Ms. Sterne for the first time at the meetup in 2007.

"There I was in jeans and a hoodie, probably with greasy hair, like everybody else,"  McCarthy recalls [Ed note: Yup, sounds about right!]. "And when I saw Rachel I thought, What is this incredibly articulate, impeccably dressed gorgeous young woman doing at a start-up pitch event?"

Also name-checked in the profile are Tumblr's David Karp (Ms. Sterne attended his rooftop "new-media scene" party), Ms. Sterne's fiancé Max Haot, co-founder and CEO of Livestream--as well as Ms. Sterne's good friend Soraya Darabi, Fashism co-founders Brooke Moreland and Ashley Granata, Charitini's Rachel Sklar, and event planner Emily Gannett, all of whom are involved in Change the Ratio.

Vogue's feature follows Vanity Fair's Sean Parker profile and Glamour's recent women in tech piece penned by none other than AllThingsD's own Kara Swisher.

In Vogue, Ms. Sklar remarked on both Ms. Sterne's intelligence and poise:

"She's an intellectual heavyweight who's as smart as--or smarter than--any guy in the room," Sklar says. "And she's ambitious, but she's also really nice and gracious and poised. She's a lady." Half jokingly, she adds, "She's kind of our Kate Middleton."

Vogue culls that last British royal bit for the feature's pull quote, minus the "half-jokingly," part, naturally.

StepStruder MK7 (makerbot.com)

So the big news from the last week: TechStars is now 100 percent more Y Combinator, having raised a new fund from investors so it can give every graduate a $100,000 convertible note. But, did anything else happen?

3-D WHAAAT. "MakerBot Industries announced today the launch of yet another innovation to 3D printing, the MakerBot Stepstruder MK7. The most compact and reliable extruder to date, the MK7 produces the most detailed prints ever created on the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic." Woot!

OPENING UP. Canv.as is, the second image-based startup from Christomoot Poole, is in public beta now (as is Google+). Alpha invites went out for Diaspora, that New York expatriated startup still occasionally poking at the fringes of our awareness. But Canvas still has a complex domain and the Twitter handle is @canv_as. Ick!

TIME FROM NYTM DEMO TO FUNDING: APPROXIMATELY SIX MONTHS. "Sitesimon.com is relaunching into public beta today as a new service and announcing its $500K angel investment for the first time. Sitesimon now brings the best content on the web to you, automatically tailored to your interests in real-time. Using a unique combination of social and science (and an awesome new browser add-on), Sitesimon privately analyzes what you browse and who you connect with online to recommend the best content for you. Best of all, it learns from what you’re already doing, so it requires no additional work on your part.

We also raised $500K earlier this year from angel investors Ken Cron (Former CEO, Vivendi Universal Games; Former President, CMP Media), John Ason (early investor in Diapers.com/Soap.com, Ology.com, and Hotlist.com), and Samer Hamadeh (Co-Founder, Vault.com & Zeel.com; Venture Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners). We're based in NYC and currently in the ER Accelerator."

CHOOSE YOUR SLIPPER. A New York startup launches for those of little feet. "Once impossibly hard to find outside of the children's section or grandma's basement, thanks to the Odd Slipper, shoes for petite feet will now be easy to find with the click of a mouse (or heel!) And they'll be on-trend and user-voted.  Since it can be so difficult to find these sizes, we'd love to get the word out through the fashion community and reach those women who are often frustrated with the typical shoe store size offerings. Each week starting tomorrow, the online boutique will unveil new styles for the petite-footed woman to check out, vote on, and comment. Once the feedback is in, the best reviewed styles with the highest amount of votes will be sent to manufacturing. The Odd Slipper will be keeping customers updated as to which styles have been picked up and when they'll be ready for sale." Yay!

WOULDN'T IT BE LOVERLY. Lover.ly is "a visual search engine and cloud scrapbook" for "brides and their to friends search, save, and share wedding inspiration from the best sites online." The founder and CEO, Kellee Khalil, is a top Hashable-using networker and just hired an editorial director: Julie Raimondi, former EIC of Brides.com and Brides Local mag. "Sort of cool to see someone leaving Conde Nast for a startup," startup evangelist and new mediaite Rachel Sklar writes. "Julie was also previously exec editor at The Knot." Congrats!

TONITE: Even though two Ubers are gone, Projective Space rocks on. BYO Game Night is tonight: "We're acting on spur of the moment and can't refuse any opportunity we can grab to bring our friends, fans, and members together for an evening of games and drinks. Mario Kart, Wii Sports, Halo, Poker, Ping Pong, Board Games...We'll have 'em all and definitely encourage you to bring your own, perhaps we can geek out to Settlers of Catan? Generously hosted by PS member and traveling website Wanderfly, there'll be refreshments provided if you can peel yourself away from the screen." Fun!

THE WEEKEND. Hack for the hungry at the NYC Famine Hackathon and check out the multimedia art at the Dumbo Arts Festival. And rest up for YCNYC on Monday. Squee!