(via the New York Daily News)

Maybe it's the revelation that Facebook's IPO might happen as soon as the third week of May (at least according to 143 phone calls made by Kara Swisher and, yes, she's counting), but it seems like even the local press has Mark Zuckerberg on the brain.

The New York Daily News, a paper about as known for its tech coverage as Zuck is known for his formal wear, decided to pick out 12 tech folks to watch and led with the portentous line, "The next Mark Zuckerberg might be right here in the city, sharing space with a dozen other startups in a loft near Union Square." HE WALKS AMONG US!

It's refreshing to see no actual "under 30" or "under 25," cap on this list, but the names were still familiar. In fact, so familiar, it's rather like taking a stroll down Betabeat's archives. There's Union Square Ventures' Christina Cacioppo, Raise Cache's Rebecca Zhou, Codecademy's Zach Sims, Lover.ly's Kellee Khalil, Coursekit's Dan Getelman, Cornell's Dan Huttenlocher, TimeHop's Jonathan Wegener, Fab.com's Beth Ferreira, GetGlue's Alex Iskold, and more.

Congrats, guys! Don't forget who knew you when.

(image courtesy Raise Cache)

Raise Cache, the techie fashion show presented by Raptor Ventures, raised $75,000 from selling 1,500 tickets, an additional $20,000 or so in Skillshare classes, and another $5,000 or so through an auction. That means the event slightly exceeded its rather ambitious $100,000 goal for the HackNY programmer apprenticeship program that encourages students to intern with startups instead of heading to Wall Street.

"A lot of times I thought it wasn't going to happen," organizer Rebecca Zhou told Betabeat. "In the Armory, a car looks like an ant. I was like, 'omigosh, how are we going to fill this thing?' But it all came together."

The idea for Raise Cache came to Ms. Zhou after she finished TechStars in May. She started talking casually about it to fashion companies and the reaction was enthused. "Every company, ever person we'd meet introduced us to ten more people," Ms. Zhou said. "We were blown away."

From idea to customers to PR push, organizing the event was like doing a startup, she said.

The planning culminated in a glamorous runway show at the Park Ave. Armory, where the likes of Fred Wilson, Alexis Tryon, Roger Ehrenberg, Dave Tisch, Rachel Sklar and more stalked the catwalk with attitude.

"It had the finesse and the drama and the elegance of New York the same way our companies do here," Ms. Zhou said. "My friends who came, they had fun, got a little drunk and laughed. Who knew that tech people on the runway would actually turn out so well?"

She doesn't have any plans for another event, she said, although she imagines doing another fundraiser or event in the future, "something that reflects New York's personality," but it will depend on what is needed and when. Raise Cache is not an annual event, she clarified.

Betabeat just came across this oddly addictive super short film to promote Raise Cache and it has native New York cred in spades. 

As we mentioned back in October, Raise Cache is an upcoming party to raise funds for hackNY. Organizer and former TechStars's HackStar Rebecca Zhou promised Moot as model in the party's fashion show and spinning via Turntable.fm.

But beyond the illustrated presence of @Dens and Mr. Wilson, New York startups were also involved in the making of the video: Everything Butt Art made the avatars and GraFighters, which is backed Union Square Ventures, designed the battle.

Please enjoy responsibly and good luck getting this song out of your head!:

Saturday, back when everyone had gotten some sleep.

There were a few factors that made hackNY's fourth intercollegiate hackathon the one to beat.

First, the much-loved local fellowship program got ambassadors from the likes of Pivotal Labs, Foursquare, Code Academy, Twilio and Google ("But I'm not here officially," said the rep who shall not be named) to hold office hours during the hackathon. They were on hand to help bleary-eyed hackers running on empty RedBull with the finer points of MongoDB and JavaScript. Then we heard 10gen, Kevin Ryan's most promising investment, was sponsoring buses to pick up coders all the way from schools like RISD, Carnegie Mellon, and UPenn. But the real clincher was that the hackathon was organized using the Hacker League, which was itself a hack cobbled together last week by three students from Rutgers who skipped class to get it ready in time.

In the first hour alone, we learned about a stealth New York startup with some big name clients and an upcoming Turntable.fm party. Add in some humorous contestants ("It's its like Chatroulette, but without the dicks!" was one memorable tagline) and some familiar judges (David Tisch, Chris Dixon, Charlie O'Donnell, Khoi Vinh) and it made Betabeat wish we'd stayed up all night too. Well, not really, but close enough.

As Mike Swift explained, the Hacker League came about after he and his fellow co-founders, Ian Jennings and Abe Stanway, found themselves seeing the same people again and again at every hackathon. To keep track of the usual hackathon suspects, prevent good hacks from being lost, or people from cheating with the same hack at multiple events, the trio put together a social network of sorts. All the students attending had a chance to submit a profile with links to, say, their GitHub page or personal website and upload their hacks. When the site was up--hey, it's still in alpha--it also broadcast vital info like where to find the demo livestream or when the shwarma delivery showed up. Mr. Swift, who's working for TechStars finalist CrowdTap, said Hacker League is in the running for Lean Startup.

We can't say much about the stealth startup, Parse.ly and its Dash platform for publishers, which officially launches next month, except that co-founder and CTO Andrew Montalenti showed us a demo and we really, really want to start using it on Betabeat, like yesterday. And after hearing some of the big name publishers they've signed up as beta clients, its clear we're not the only ones. Thankfully, Mr. Montalenti offered to let us come by and see his standing desk at the ff ventures ergonomic new office space in the interim.

As for the party, mark November 17th on your Google Calendars. Rebecca Zhou, a former HackStar that we recognized from the TechStars reality show, is organizing Raise Cache (get it??). It's a party/mixer/fashion show with the goal of drumming up $100,000 for hackNY. If that doesn't sell you, how about the fact that Moot himself is going to walk in the fashion show and that party is being DJ'd via Turntable.fm.

Popular themes for the hacks themselves appeared to be ordering in food without moving an inch and solutions to help ladies evade "creepers." You can view the full API list, including Tumblr, Twitter, Parse.ly, Hyperpublic, Bit.ly, and Etsy, as well as all the hacks here. But you really only care about the winners, don't you?

3rd Place: LoCreep,"like a LoJack for creeps!," which lets women offer the LoCreep group phone number instead of their own, mock the offender with her friends on LoCreep.com to "stir his game up," and then "when they believe that hilarity has reached optimal level, export all activity to public Tumblr" and print out a QR code to slap on his back.

2nd Place: AdRunner, which makes an addictive game out of dodging ubiquitous online ads. The punishment for losing? You go to the page of the ad that tripped your epic run. One of the creators had been playing all night, and got pretty good at it.

1st Place: MidiPhon, which was created by two NYU music students who code on the side. The hack lets up to 16 performers control MIDI instruments through their phone and led to successful audience performance during the demo. Afterward, it sent a Bit.ly link to a recording of the "concert" to everyone that played. Wonder how long before they give up rock n' roll for Startupland.

Betabeat would also like to award an honorable mention to YPNHOI, short for "You've Probably Never Heard of It," to an app we'd probably download for kicks. According to the demo, it was founded on the "first rule of hipsterdom," namely the fact that "coolness is indirectly related to popularity." It attacks the problem that the first results in Foursquare or Yelp are often what's most mainstream. You can enter in a venue and, based on the number of check-ins and reviews, the app will tell you "Is it still cool?" If it hasn't yet been discovered by the norms, it gives you the option to create a misleading QR code or write a bad Yelp review to keep the tragically uncool at bay. As for the unwieldy moniker, YPNHOI, they were just following the hipster golden rule, "We chose a difficult name to remember for a reason."