Clear eyes, full hearts, can't deal. (flickr.com/misternaxal)

Old wounds were pried open this morning with the announcement of Tech Homecoming, an event sponsored by the likes of Bing and Sailthru that promises to immediately launch members of New York's tech community into a painful round of high school reminiscences.

The event includes everything that made you long for sweet, sweet escape to college the first time around: a most popular contest, something called "football" and an awkward dance where hopefully Mayor Bloomberg will be on hand as chaperone, to chastise you for "bump and grinding."

We look forward to dodging the mandatory pep rally in favor of dicking around in the debate office, right next to the computer lab full of engineers who were conspicuously absent from the list of honorees, probably because they were too busy--pardon the expression--fucking shipping.

Because, in all seriousness, for an industry compromised of people who try their damndest to avoid conventional wisdom, putting everyone in little boxes (literally!) feels painfully retrograde. There's a reason we said tech needs to get uncool again.

Nor are we the only ones feeling a tad discomfited by this idea. The reception has been, shall we say, mixed.

For example, we're actually a little glad this "FictiveKin brosef" isn't telekinetic:

Somebody needs to Carrie this techhomecoming.com

— Ed Finkler (@funkatron) October 17, 2012

Meanwhile, it sounds like The Awl (who obliged Mr. Finkler's request, via GIF) will sending a contingent, of a sorts:

Great, the rest of us—the sluts, burn-outs, goths and, right, the BROWN PEOPLE AND HOMOS AND OUR GOOD FRIENDS THE FATTIES—will all meet outside and smoke joints and throw water balloons at you. See you there, Heathers.

One Chicagoan had a very visceral copyeditor's reaction:

Barf. Also, site needs a proofreader. techhomecoming.com

— Mari Huertas (@marihuertas) October 17, 2012

One honoree is not happy to see her name on the website and sounds about ready to call down a pox on the houses of everyone involved:

why am i on tech homecoming site, told them i didn't want to participate. — Lauren Leto (@laurenleto) October 17, 2012

homecoming was the fucking worst thing on earth for me (and i'm sure plenty others). fuck high school & those who want to relive it. — Lauren Leto (@laurenleto) October 17, 2012

Someone should probably go check on poor Matt Langer:

sorry, still hung up on this, easily among the top five worst things to ever happen in human history techhomecoming.com

— Matt Langer (@mattlanger) October 17, 2012

However, condemnation is not universal. For example, the sponsors and participants sound pretty tickled:

Vote for @sailthru in the upcoming @techhomecoming superlatives for the best office space! ow.ly/eyhJI

— Sailthru (@sailthru) October 17, 2012

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and 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 [at] garysguide.com.

R.I.P. and Godspeed, Neil Armstrong--a pioneering astronaut, American icon and international hero, who on July 20, 1969, became the first man to set foot on the moon, making history and instilling a deep sense of pride in every man, woman and child on earth. As Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted: "Neil Armstrong was the spiritual repository of spacefaring dreams & ambitions. In death, a little bit of us all dies with him."

In more earthly concerns, it looks like a ton of Silicon Alley folks have submitted panels for consideration for SXSW 2013 this year. Here's the comprehensive list we've compiled, based on your emails and feedback. Go show some love for these panels with your valuable votes. Remember, the deadline for voting is August 31.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

What are Funders Looking For in Strong Startups
With Brian Cohen (chairman, New York Angels), Ben Lin (managing partner & COO, Greak Oaks Venture Capital) and Steve Brotman (managing partner & founder, Silicon Alley Venture Partners)
Monday (Aug. 27), 6:30 p.m. @ Foley & Lardner LLP, 90 Park Avenue, 39th Floor

Reddit Entrepreneur/Startup Meetup
With presentations like, "How I quit my job to start my startup," "Things I wished I knew before I quit my day job," "How I used kickstarter to finance my startup"... You get the idea.
Monday (Aug. 27), 7 p.m. @ WeWork Labs, 175 Varick St., 4th Floor

Beer and Social Media! Joios and Digital MBA Talk and Taste.
Eight interesting beers will be featured, plus remarks from Chris Gallant, founder of the Bronx Brewery.
Tuesday (Aug. 28), 6:30 p.m. @ City Tavern, 22 E 13th St.

Second Hardware Startup Meetup!
Speakers include Jeff Glasse (CEO, Kogeto), Charley Hendee (CTO, Tactonic Technologies) and Diego Vargas (CTO, Wattvision)
Tuesday (Aug. 28), 7 p.m. @ Collab, 304 Hudson St.

North Brooklyn Breakfast Club
With Shelley Bernstein (Brooklyn Museum), Seth Porges (Cloth) and Jose Serrano-McClain (Trust Art).
Wednesday (Aug. 29), 9:30 a.m. @ Enid's, 560 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn

GreenspaceNYC Hackathon
With focus on several sustainability use-case scenarios, such as mapping green building resources in New York City.
Wednesday (Aug 29), 3 p.m. @ Wix Lounge, 10 West 18th St., 2nd Floor

State of the Startup Industry: Design
Featuring Dan Maccarone (cofounder of Charming Robot and Hard Candy Shell) and Matias Corea (cofounder & chief designer of Behance).
Wednesday (Aug. 29), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Queens Tech End of Summer Drinks
Have drinks, meet interesting techies, learn about tech projects in Queens, and collaborate on exciting ideas.
Wednesday (Aug. 29), 7 p.m. @ Alewife, 5-14 51st Avenue, Long Island City

Websdays Rooftop Pool Party w/ Sailthru
A rooftop pool party at Thompson LES, featuring an open Wodka Vodka bar. Yes, that does sound awesome.
Wednesday (Aug. 29), 7:30 p.m. @ Thompson LES, 190 Allen St.

New York Mobile App Developer (MAD) Meetup
(Reverse) pitches by PaperTrail, Postable, Tappible, OneTok and TapFame.
Thursday (Aug. 30), 7 p.m. @ Magnani Caruso Dutton, 138 West 25th Street, 4th Floor

More events on the horizon...
NY Games Conference on Sep 05 @ Museum of Jewish Heritage
September NY FinTech After-party and Networking on Sep 05 @ Butterfield 8 Restaurant & Lounge
2012 Tech Does Fashion Week (#TDFW): A Kickoff Party on Sep 07 @ AlleyNYC
Comedy Hack Day on Sep 08 @ Pivotal Labs NYC
Digital Money Unconference-- From NYPAY and Consult Hyperion on Sep 11 @ Google
FinovateFall 2012 on Sep 12 @ Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
Investor Feedback Forum (New York) on Sep 13 @ Columbia University - Schapiro Center
Design for Manufacturing Summit on Sep 20 @ Dumbo Spot

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

Mr. Capel. (Photo: Sailthru.com)

Just one month after making its very first acquisition, New York-based email marketing company Sailthru has snapped up another. "It's not been a direct strategy," CEO Neil Capel told Betabeat over the phone. "At the same time, we're finding some really talented people and some IP to add to our layer. We keep an active lookout for interesting startps."

Two weeks ago, Business Insider reported that Sailthru is raising a big round of funding, around $20 million. Mr. Capel dismissed this as "a rumor," although we wouldn't have expected any other answer. The company is on track to be cashflow positive by the end of the year, he said. "Our revenue growth has been increasing 15% month-over-month since January!" the company said in a recent blog post.

Sailthru raised $9 million in September, doubled its staff in six months to 68, moved into "some fantastic digs in West Soho," and recently rolled out a minor redesign. It now serves emails for AOL, the Huffington Post, Fab and Totsy, Mr. Capel said. Its first acquisition, the mobile ecommerce platform Frame, will let Sailthru optimize for HTML on the iPad and other tablets. The second acquisition, Seamless Receipts, will let Sailthru power electronic receipts for its customers with brick-and-mortar stores.

For Sailthru, which tweaks the content of its emails depending on the recipient, the goal is to maximize revenue per user and the lifetime value of the customer behind each email address. "Rather than sending out the same email to everyone on the list, we're actually sending selected content to each and every user based on their inferred interest," Mr. Capel said. Electronic receipts are another place for Sailthru to slip coupons and ads into customers' inboxes.

So who'll be fed next to Sailthru's maws? "You never know what we're looking at on the acquisition side of things," he said, although there's nothing coming up. "Not imminently." There will be another redesign soon, however, he confirmed.

(flickr.com/johanl)

Instapaper proper Good news, Android users: No more workarounds for you. You can finally have for-real Instapaper, rather than the next best thing. The reading app is now available for the platform that's not iOS. (That is, unless you're unwilling to cough up the $2.99.)

Ever better Meanwhile, Sailthru is iterating all up in here. They've added new features including zip code radius, so users can now find subscribers within a certain geographical area. Plus you can now label templates with custom tags (simplifying search) and include data feeds in transactional emails.

Gamify your life The NYC Gaming Meetup is moving on uptown. The gathering has outgrown GA, so next Monday, June 11th, will be the first demo night at Microsoft's offices, their new home. RSVPs due tomorrow, June 7th; holler at the organizers if you've got something you'd like to show off.

Gathering in Gotham Heads up for later in the month: The Gotham Ruby Conference is June 23. Here's the speaker lineup for all you curious hackers. Also, we should probably mention that a yacht party is included in the cost of admission.

Just for me Quincy reportedly just closed a $950,000 seed round, led by Great Oaks Venture Capital. The company aims to offer better-fitting women's clothing at a non-couture price point. Here's how: Ditching the traditional S/M/L categories but eschewing the ultra-tailored approach, Quincy has developed its own, more customizable sizing system based on length, bust and cup size.

It's a Jersey thing The deadline approacheth for applications to the first class of TechLaunch, New Jersey's very own tech accelerator. So if you live across the Hudson and you'd like to stay there (with a little assist from New Jersey's Economic Development Authority), June 8 is your cutoff.

Devotion rewarded The newest comer to the NYC startup scene: Loyalblocks, which just launched what's billed as an automatic, walk-in loyalty app here in the city. Users don't even have to open the app or check in, which is certainly simpler than the old punch card. Probably not for the ultra privacy-sensitive, but for what it's worth, we do see that our favorite burger joint is involved. Plus the team tells us they'll be doing special summer promotions, which everyone loves.

Now hiring We hear that SNAP Interactive needs a Senior PHP developer and a QA engineer; 1stdibs needs a Java developer and a marketing operations associate; and B-Reel needs a mobile/iPhone developer. Also, if you aren't already on the Inside Startups jobs mailer, we don't know what to tell you.

Mr. Capel.

This is a guest post from Neil Capel, CEO of Sailthru, a New York-based startup that automatically tailors email, web and advertising content to the unique user.

I’ve always abided by the InboxZero principles: delete, delegate, respond, defer, and do. Anyone who has ever abided by these principle knows, though, that it’s becoming impossible to maintain. I barely have enough time to open all my emails, let alone categorize them. Time is valuable and because of that I default to the fastest action: deletion. I delete even faster when the email is from a brand that has repeatedly sent things that aren’t relevant to me.

It’s not that I don’t want to engage with brands. I’ll willingly admit that I’m a sucker for free shipping offers and a good discount. I’m signed up for more retail and content sites than I care to admit. But why do I receive email deals for pedicures on a daily deal site? And why do I keep getting updates about Kim Kardashian’s love life when I’ve neve rclicked on an article about her? (Okay, maybe once.)

Why? Because brands don’t respect me, my time or my inbox—at least that’s how it feels. I know the reality is different. Many brands think the more emails they send, the more money they make. And, to a certain extent, they’re right. Email has always been leveraged as a cos- effective and high ROI, direct response channel. But truth be told, in this socially-focused day and age, more mass emails means more opt-outs and trips to the SPAM folder. It means losing a key channel with which to communicate withcustomers. It means losing me, my trust and my business.

So I did the thing any serial entrepreneur would do. I created a business to help brandsbe relevant in a consumer’s inbox, on site, in app, and in ads through hyper-personalized, 1:1 content. The whole premise of Sailthru is that we help an e-tailer to know that I prefer to shop on my iPad and that I generally buy gifts for my wife, and that you like to buy sports equipment and read articles about skiing—and respond to both our unique interests accordingly.

Sending pertinent email deals, as well as serving good content recommendations onsite, in apps or in ads all create more engaged, loyal customers, build trust and tell the user that you respect them and their time. It’s that simple.

My delete finger is tired. But clearing email inboxes is a game for consumers andbrands alike. All consumers should adopt an email philosophy whether it’s InboxZero, a priority inbox or something else in order to keep up with ever-growing inboxes. The best brands will help them with this daunting task. And their customers or subscribers will recognize them for it with their clicks, page views and purchases. And I’ll finally feel like my inbox has gotten some respect.