By Jessica Roy 1/07 8:29am

Linkages

(Photo: Blogger)

Booting Up: That Pesky Business Model Edition

Is Snapchat representative of a new wave of apps that tout privacy as the defining feature? Fred Wilson thinks so. [A VC]

Google’s obsessive drive to quickly index and display as much info as possible on search results pages could diminish Wikipedia’s traffic. [Optimize and Prophesize]

Coursera and other startups offering online classes could totally be the future of education…if only they figured out a stable business model. [New York Times]

Marissa Mayer made a Yahoo employee dance to “Gangnam Style” as cruel punishment for not participating in the employee feedback survey. [AllThingsD]

Is Reddit raising a new round at a $400 million valuation? [TechCrunch]

By Jessica Roy 1/03 10:04am

Planet Reddit

(Screencap: Facebook)

Redditors Revolt After CEO Yishan Wong Posts Link to 9gag

Some waved virtual pitchforks and some wept into each other’s bosoms as Reddit users gathered in the town square (a.k.a. the Reddit front page) to voice their outrage at CEO Yishan Wong, who committed the ultimate act of betrayal directly in public view.

Today, in the wee hours of the morning, Mr. Wong posted a link on his Facebook page. But it wasn’t just any typical link–not to Imgur, and certainly not to Reddit. Instead, the link he posted was to 9gag, Reddit’s most notorious nemesis. Read More

By Jessica Roy 1/02 2:15pm

Planet Reddit

(Photo: QuickMeme)

Rebellious Tweens Split From Teenagers Subreddit So They Can Curse and Post Porn, Okay? God.

Taking to the Internet to express the angst of youth is a long-heralded pasttime that will no doubt be bequeathed to generations to come. Once there were the Xangas and the Livejournals of yore, but these days teens frequently flock to outlets like Tumblr and Twitter to subtumbl and subtweet their little hearts out about how unfair it is that their parents made them help carry in the groceries when they were like, right in the middle of something. 
 Read More

By Patrick Clark 1/01 8:25am

Linkages

Cerf. (Wikipedia)

Booting Up: Happy Birthday to You, 2013

Vint Cerf is wishing the modern-day Internet a happy 30th birthday today. [Google]

Reddit had 37 billion page views and 400 million unique visitors in 2012. [Reddit]

If the New Year left your brain feeling like this GIF looks, we sympathize. [Daily Dot]

Here’s a trend to watch for in 2013: Companies are pretending they want employees to spend some time away from their electronic devices. [NYT]

The new year will bring documentaries that aim to tell the history of Silicon Valley on public television. Again. [AllThingsD]

Lost in the hubbub over Hewlett-Packard’s $8.8 billion loss on Autonomy was word in the company’s 10-K—filed quietly during the last week of 2012—was a hint that CEO Meg Whitman may start spinning off businesses. [Bloomberg]

Did we mention that New York City’s techies have New Year’s resolutions? [Betabeat]

By Kelly Faircloth 12/13/12 6:09pm

Release the Memes

Screen Shot 2012-12-13 at 5.55.56 PM

Girls Star Allison Williams Goes to Sea World, Leaves a Meme

Earlier today, someone posted to Reddit a rather cute picture of Girls star Allison Williams getting cozy with a sea lion on a visit to Sea World. The marine mammal has leaned in as though sharing a confidence, and Ms. Williams has a look of delighted shock. The caption: “Must be a crazy secret.”

And so a meme–”crazy secret”–was born. And like so many memes, some instances are infinitely more charming than others. For example, this is pretty cute: Read More

By Myles Tanzer 12/05/12 6:18pm

Reddit All-Stars

Mr. Lion (Photo: wikipedia.org)

Snoop Asked Himself a Question About His Own Weed Habits on Reddit

Snoop Lion, formerly known as Snoop Dogg, of course, took to Reddit today to answer some important questions in his very own Ask Me Anything thread. Mr. Lion told Redditors that the best show he ever played was at last year’s Coachella and that he smokes 81 blunts every day, seven days a week.

It was everything you’d expect a AMA with Snoop Lion to be.

But about halfway through his hive mind interview, Mr. Lion either got bored of answering questions or was just too high to keep going, so he decided to quickly quiz Reddit on his own weed smoking habits instead. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 11/29/12 1:45pm

Planet Reddit

Calling these guys cavemen is an insult to cavemen everywhere.

Good Guy Greg Would Not Approve of Pressuring Girls Into Sex

There’s an entire meme, Good Guy Greg, devoted to defining and modeling what makes someone a decent dude. It’s consistently charming. He now has a counterpart, Good Girl Gina. Unfortunately, instead of being a living example of graciousness and thoughtfulness, she mostly cooks for her boyfriend and prioritizes your sexual pleasure above her own.

Ain’t the Internet grand? Read More

By Patrick Clark 11/29/12 8:30am

Linkages

The Concorde: loud but fast. (Wikipedia)

Booting Up: Give Them What They Want Edition

President Barack Obama blew Mitt Romney away when it came to raising money from employees of America’s top technology companies, according to Nate Silver. Maybe that had something to do with the president’s ability recruit talent to build his campaign’s much-ballyhooed IT infrastructure. [NYT]

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian just wanted to make the world Read More

By Jessica Roy 11/19/12 8:34am

Linkages

So close to this, you guys. (Photo: Pinterest, duh)

Booting Up: Even a Billion Dollars Isn’t Cool Edition

Actually, being in the billion dollar startup club kind of sucks. [New York Times]

Any person with children who purchases a computer in the U.K. will be forced to apply anti-porn safety controls to it, because there’s absolutely no way kids who want to look at porn will be able to get around that. [Daily Mail]

Cisco balls so hard they just dished out $1.2 billion in cash for Meraki, a wifi startup. [TechCrunch]

How did nerds impact the election? Turns out 30,000 Redditors registered to vote after President Obama linked to a voter registration page in his AMA. [The Atlantic]

According to U.S. search results, Americans care more about Twinkies than the Israel/Gaza conflict. We are all the worst. [Virtus Machina]

By Jessica Roy 11/16/12 8:56am

It's All About the Bitcoins

(Photo: Wordpress)

WordPress.com Is Now Accepting Bitcoin Payments

WordPress.com, which hosts close to 58 million blogs across the world, announced last night that it will now accept payments for upgrades via Bitcoin, the peer-to-peer digital currency. The blog hosting platform says its mission is to “make publishing democratic,” and because PayPal and other payment companies block access in a fair amount of countries, the company has decided to accept Bitcoin, enabling users without access to PayPal to still purchase WordPress upgrades. Read More