Via Smile, It Looks Good on You

You'd think after Hurricane Sandy, nothing short of the actual apocalypse could rattle New Yorkers. And yet, if Twitter is any indication, it seems there's a fair bit of panicky flailing happening around the city right now. Well, buck up, because we've assembled a complete Internet preparedness kit featuring everything you might possibly need.

Maybe also buy some batteries, though? 

1. Information Sources: First off, you'll want to follow the Wall Street Journal's Eric Holthaus, who will promptly freak you the fuck out with dispatches like, "If higher end snow totals do materialize for NYC, this blizzard could be among the top five since the Civil War." (We saw that movie and it turns out Abraham Lincoln dies, so no thanks.) For sheer ALL CAPS HYSTERIA, it's hard to beat the Weather Channel's website, which comes with bonus livestream of star weatherman Jim Cantore and his furrowed brow from downtown Boston.

2. Playlist: Well, obviously, you're going to want a soundtrack to the snowstorm. Here is a Songza playlist to get you started.

3. Entertainment: Absolutely no Finding Nemo, which would be like wearing the band t-shirt to the concert. Might we recommend House of Cards? The weather is scheduled to last until sometime Saturday, which means you've got plenty of time to watch the entire show. If that doesn't appeal, might as well finally watch Freaks and Geeks, or the one-two punch of New York Times documentaries, Page One and Bill Cunningham New York. (Don't watch The September Issue, as you'll already be feeling frosty enough.)

Of course, you'll probably get sucked into Say Yes to the Dress, regardless. 

If you're not feeling a 13-hour television marathon, there's the entire Longform archive. Might we recommend everything ever written by Texas Monthly? We're not sure what to tell you if the power goes out. Maybe light some candles and try reading an IRL dead-tree book?

4. Food: Obviously skip Trader Joe's unless you enjoy bread riots, and the Fresh Direct train has already pulled out of the station. That means, at some point in the next 24 hours, you're probably going to want to order Seamless. All we'd say is: Don't be an asshole, and tip more than 20 percent--in cash.

5. Ways to Document the Storm: When someone says "historic blizzard," your first thought should be "pictures!!!" There's even a distinct possibility of thundersnow, the most terrifying and awe-inspiring of meteorological phenomena. Well, good news: Vine isn't just for porn. If you haven't already, it's time to download the app so you can spam your followers with out-of-focus video of flurries. If you don't have an iPhone, however, you're stuck with Instagram and Snapchat. Snow-day sexts!

6. Outdoor Activities: Here's a Reddit thread devoted to places you could possibly sled, if you're into that sort of thing.

6. GIFS! GIFS! GIFS! At some point your mom/cousin/best friend from third grade is going to want to know how you're holding up, which means you'll need more than a simple pic you can send. Let us remind you: No Finding Nemo GIFs. Try these instead:

Sad, cold crow via Denise Maneter

Via my head is gone

7. Internet K-Holes: There's no way to plan a K-hole, really, but we suggest starting with this Wikipedia page of conspiracy theories.

8. Coping strategies: If you've ever seen The Shining, you know that being cooped up inside can put a severe strain on one's relationships. There's Yelp if you suddenly find yourself in the market for a marriage counselor. Also, there's always porn.

9. A digital snuggle buddy: Failing all else, there's always the kitten cam.

(Photo: IMGUR)

A billboard in the Union Square station is kind of like the Inception of Internet references, collecting every advertiser's notion of what is cool/hip on the web and slapping it onto one delightful subway ad.

First, the ad is for Seamless, a website popular with hipsters and shut-ins and hipster shut-ins that delivers food straight to your door. Secondly, the ad references not only Reddit, but sub-reddits, which is like--whoa, dude. These ad guys "get" me.

Last but not least, it references Seamless users' penchant for customized “special instructions" such as, "I smoked mad weed and I got a new video game so don't break your balls getting here." We're pretty sure that's a shout out to our post, The Most Glorious Special Instructions Customers Have Requested on Seamless. (Maybe not, but we'll take it!)

The only thing that could make this more acceptably Internetty is it was a GIF. Maybe better to save that for the Bedford L stop.

Ubiquitous Seamless subway ads (Photo: Twitter/Caro)

Sure, social networks may know you better than Seamless--Facebook knows what you like, Google knows what you search for, Twitter knows who you follow, OkCupid knows how you like it. But ordering meals to your door is still an oddly intimate experience. Often you're sitting in your home hungry, lazy, vulnerable to your body's demands, and chances are, sporting attire that should not see the light of day.

Perhaps that's why the New York City-based food delivery company gets such special "special instructions" from its customers. Seamless was kind enough to provide Betabeat the search results for particular keywords from 2012.. This is what they found.

NAKED

• apartment is in the rear building, if you hurry up a naked chick will 100% answer the door for you. I win.
• please deliver the food naked. thank you.

HIGH

• I want a high five when you hand me my food
• Please high-five as many people as possible on your way in

WEED

• Entrance to basement apartment is on left hand side of building, through the black gate. I smoked mad weed and I got a new video game so don't break your balls getting here.

PANTS

• We apologize in advance if the person who answers the door is not wearing pants.

DRUGS

• Extra sides of Kung fu ketchup and drugs

STONED

• Red pepper and oregano please hurry I'm stoned
• Come fast, we're stoned.

DRAW

• Please draw an epic battle between a boxing robot and a sexy pirate on the bag. Thank you in advance.
• Please draw a giraffe on our bag! You guys are awesome!
• If the pasta comes in a box, or any sturdy container, draw a ninja dragon on it
• draw a cartoon pizza superhero on the box
• Please draw a picture of a cat saying "hello there!" on the box/bag.
• Please draw a panda on the paper bag, my daughter loves pandas.
• Please draw or attempt to draw a whale on the bag.
• Please include a side of ranch dressing. and draw a cool cartoon on the pizza box. :)
• Please draw Santa Clause riding a dragon on the bag
• If you can, please draw something interesting on the bag. I want to win a bet.  (please)
• Draw a wizard on the box/bag
• Please draw on the box a stick-figure man in a bowtie fighting a dragon, shouting the words "HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAY!!"
• On the inside of the large pizza box, can you draw a picture of a bear riding a whale, please? Thank you much!
• Please draw your favorite animal on the box if you have the time.
• Draw a picture of a cat on the box ^_^
• please draw a smiley face on a napkin and include.
• Draw a zombie ninja fighting a cyborg pirate on the box
• Please draw a power ranger on the bag
• Please draw a smiley face on the bag! And please include chopsticks (we just moved in and dont have silverware at the moment)
• Can you draw Stewie Griffon, from the show Familly guy?
• please draw a large octopus on the bag
• please draw a dinosaur ultimate fighting a zombie with a monocle on the delivery bag.
• Please draw a picture of your favorite thing in the world on the delivery bag!  :)
• Please draw a dragon fighting a unicorn on the receipt

All those pleases! So polite.

Mr. Dickerson (Photo: Twitter.com)

Lots Of Tiny Wicker Puppets Sold Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson took to the company's blog to address his craft-obsessed minons and report big new numbers. Etsy recently hit 20 million members across over 200 countries. In the first week of November, they passed the $700 million sales mark and their direct checkout system has now processed over $100 million in transactions. By the end of the year, Etsy projects that it will have sold over 100 million items in the company's history.

The company is also going all out for the holiday season and expects to have its best month yet. It's running a multi-million-dollar online advertising campaign and opening a Etsy Holiday Shop in SoHo from November 29th through December 8th. SoHo though? Isn't Greenpoint or Williamsburg more on target with the Etsy brand?

Chu Bets Against Zynga Betable has already announced partnerships with big game companies and is right on the path to become the Spotify of online gambling and pass its closest rival, Zynga. Ya-Bing Chu, a former VP and GM of Zynga's mobile division, has now joined Betable as the company's new Chief Product Officer. At Zynga, he was responsible for operating Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends. Mr. Chu explains the move in an essay on Betable's blog, where he says, "I realized that Betable was the only frictionless way to enter the real money market, which is revolutionary."

Make It, Don't Break It Mayor Bloomberg and NYCEDC have opened submissions for their New York's Next Top Makers challenge. Competitors will have to create a product with commercial potential which includes consumer products, equipment, furniture and lighting, soft goods, packaging, interaction, transportation, DIY (kits) or something else. There are six $5,950 prizes and an $11,000 grand prize up for grabs. The deadline is in three months, so get to brainstorming right away.

Tumblr Goes Native Tumblr just released an update to its iOS app with a completely redesigned dashboard. The app has gone fully native and now finally runs a lot smoother: it runs faster than before, photos are a lot bigger, and GIFs play automatically when swiped. Better GIF's on your phone people, this is the stuff of the future.

Where's Our Food? There aren't many differences between the major players of the online food ordering game. But GrubHub has just changed the game a little bit with the beta release of its Track Your Grub feature. Similar to Domino's Pizza Tracker, Track Your Grub lets you know what the status of your order is during every step of the way. You'll get texts when your food is expected to arrive and when it leaves the restaurant. In certain areas, you can even watch your food make the trip to your apartment in real time on the maps feature. Seamless just got a little nervous.

Shop Like No One's Watching Sole Society, the West Coast based site that lets you order shoes direct from the manufacturer, has announced its first celebrity collection with two-time Dancing With The Stars champion Julianne Hough. On the site, Hough says, "Every girl needs a sexy leather jacket and a cutout heel." Noted.

Big Data Gets Big Money The social data platform, Datasift, has just secured $15 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners and Northgate Capital and Daher Capital also contributed. Rory O’Driscoll, the managing director of Scale Venture Partners, said in a press release sent to Betabeat, “Great companies make hard problems simple for the end user, and DataSift has done that with its game-changing visual interface."

Sad Turkey Daily deals site are a dime a dozen and so 8Coupons, a site that thinks of itself as "Kayak for deals," lets you see all daily deals across the web at one glance. The site's efficiency was proved this week when David Burke at Bloomingdales tried to pawn off its special turkey dinners on nine different deal sites at the same time. Seems a little desperate to go for nine sites at once.

Poke Your Way To Africa Plyfe, the game that rewards you for using social media with real prizes like Lady Gaga tickets, is about to go mobile. The site, which raised one million dollars in funding last March, has also announced an unexpected new partner--the United Nations. Users can now win opportunities to do development work in Africa. That should lead to some great new submissions for Gurl Goes To Africa.

Bad Guys Still Temporarily Nice Time Warner Cable, the unexpected nice guys of Hurricane Sandy, has announced that it will automatically credit many local residential and business customers whose services were impacted. The company says that it will also waive any fees or penalties for equipment, such as set-top boxes and cable modems, which were lost, damaged or destroyed as a result of the storm. In a press release sent to Betabeat, John Quigley, regional VP of operations for Time Warner Cable’s New York City market, said, “By posting credits automatically to customers’ accounts in the hardest-hit parts of our service area, we hope these affected residents and businesses will have one less call to make as they recover from the storm.”

CEO Jonathan Zabusky. (Photo: Seamless)

This week, just when you most wished for the familiar comfort of Seamless order delivered to your door, loss of power and Internet, lack of availability or guilt over subjecting delivery guys to the elements kept you away.

In the midst of the storm, one wit started a Tumblr chronicling the most egregious egregious wait times on the food delivery platform Seamless (try ninety minutes for a smoothie or 37 days for some soup). Asked for comment, a company spokesperson  pointed out that most of the times highlighted were for catering companies, which "are meant for larger parties and therefore need more time to prepare."

But, understandably, delivery times had doubled Monday, just after the storm. (Even if your favorite Mexican place was open during the storm, did you really feel like it was okay to ask them to send a delivery guy out into the hurricane to bring you some fish tacos? If you did, we hope you tipped 200 percent.)

However, over the past few days, restaurants have been slowly coming back online. On Sunday, 28 percent of restaurants in Manhattan were closed. Monday the number jumped to 53 percent, and on Tuesday it ticked up to 64 percent. On Wednesday, however, the rate of restaurants closed slid back to 61 percent, and delivery times are creeping back toward normal--–at least in parts of the city that still have power.

Note the "lunch" sign, in case someone was confused. (Photo: courtesy of Cater2Me)

Founded a year and a half ago in San Francisco, Cater2Me quickly found its niche feeding the ravenous techies of Silicon Valley, nabbing clients like Dropbox, Square and Klout. "You can call it the Google effect, if you want," cofounder Alex Lorton told Betabeat, and "that idea is becoming the norm in New York, as well."

Hence the company's decision to expand to New York City. The service just launched yesterday, but it sounds like Mr. Lorton is already halfway to going out for the cheerleading team.

"I think it's cool to be part of the expansion of Silicon Alley, to use the phrase, to be part of that startup community," he said. "People in startups are, I think, more willing to embrace something that's new, something that's initially not as tested."

Well, hopefully it's not that untested.

He also expects to have a leg up with the financial sector, as Mr. Lorton and his cofounder did tours of duty in consulting and banking, respectively. (He didn't have anything to say about financiers' appetite for untested ventures, however.)

Asked about their competitive advantage, Mr. Lorton basically just told us that he's bonkers about food: "We go out and we follow the food blogs religiously and we are constantly looking for the highest quality and the most interesting things," he said. Seamless, for example, can't match that, he argues: picking from the wide variety and knowing the chosen vendor can handle spiraling headaches like service elevator snafus are real challenges for the poor non-foodie coordinator likely charged with ordering.

He expects the city will be logistically more difficult. Then there's the fact that Seamless is the market leader. "There's just more things vying for people's attention here," he said. Nevertheless, he has high hopes for New York and expects they'll be serving 20,000 to 30,000 meals a month* a week by the end of the year. (They're currently at "well over" 70,000 in San Francisco.)

They might have to borrow a few coolness points from their startup clients, though: Mr. Lorton told us they're working out of an office in... East Midtown.

As denizens of the Times Square area, Betabeat sympathizes.

*Updated: This article originally stated that Mr. Lorton predicted Cater2Me would be serving 20,000 to 30,000 meals per month; Mr. Lorton reached out to let us know he anticipated they'd be doing that many meals per week. Betabeat regrets the error. 

Mr. Finger.

This morning Seamless founder Jason Finger, legend of Silicon Alley, sent an email out to friends with subject line "Back in the saddle. . ." It seems the Silicon Valley Alley vet has taken up the reins at CityGrid Media and will join IAC's local listings website network. "I've joined IAC as CEO of CityGrid Media," Mr. Finger said in the email. "CityGrid is the largest content and ad network for 'local' and includes several owned and operated websites including Citysearch.com, insiderpages.com and Urbanspoon.com, as well as BuzzLabs."

Mr. Finger cofounded SeamlessWeb in 1999 and took the business up to its acquisition by Aramark in 2006 and beyond until February 2010, when he officially stepped down to "explore other challenges." Since then, Mr. Finger has been an entrepreneur-in-residence at Bessemer Ventures and an active local angel investor.

IAC released a statement yesterday announcing that Jay Herratti, CityGrid's CEO for the last five years, will "support the transition and then pursue other interests."

CityGrid is headquartered in West Hollywood, and Mr. Finger will move to California for the job, said a representative for IAC.

Ms. Kapur.

As if Seamless didn't have enough to worry about with GrubHub nipping at its heels. Ever heard of online food ordering service FoodToEat? Maybe not, as the young startup has been quietly growing in beta. But FoodToEat launched in June 2011 and after a recent redesign, founder Deepti Sharma Kapur, 25, is ready to feed her public.

FoodToEat offers food from 500 restaurants, and Ms. Kapur charges vendors just $.10 per order--a huge savings compared to her competitors, who she said charge between 10 and 18 percent.

FoodToEat has also signed up 50 food trucks, thanks in part to the fact that Ms. Kapur speaks four languages. The original inspiration for the site came when she was preparing for the LSAT and pondering how many minutes of studying the long line at Treats Truck would cost her.

FoodToEat designed a three-way system to get orders to the truck operators. Trucks can choose to receive orders via a lightweight GPRS printer, for which FoodToEat built custom software, or through emails sent to their smartphones. For trucks that have Wifi, orders appear on the website. "We're the only ones that have ever worked with food trucks in this kind of way," Ms. Kapur said.

Ms. Kapur is also targeting the corporate clients that helped Seamless conquer Manhattan. But she's able to keep her costs low because FoodToEat's business model is based on advertising and data collection. Once FoodToEat has enough volume, it will be able to collect large amounts of data from different types of vendors. The startup's close relationship with vendors, Ms. Kapur said, gives them an advantage with monetizable data collection and advertising.

FoodToEat has more than 1,500 registered users, Ms. Kapur said, and the vendors range from ten McDonald's franchises to chicken-and-rice carts to the gourmet West Village hotspot Rickshaw dumplings. The restaurants and food trucks offer a mix of delivery and pickup.

Betabeat commented that Ms. Kapur seemed awfully calm given her plan to take on two wildly successful websites. "Our goal is not to bring them down," she said. "Our goal is to be healthy competitors." Seamless and GrubHub can't compete on price, she said, because they're too entrenched and too big.

FoodToEat has apps coming in the next two weeks for iPhone and Android, and is already scheming a pilot launch in Los Angeles. Ms. Kapur, who raised $500,000 in funding from family and friends, has eight employees in an office in Midtown East. The company will raise a series A soon, she said.

So, what happened to the LSATs? "I did end up taking them," she said. "It's just this idea was too strong for me. I felt like this was the age to work on a startup and take such a high risk." She's already working on her next business: SeekATable.com.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated Ms. Kapur's age. She is 25, not 26. Betabeat regrets the error.

(twitter.com/seamless)

The Mayor is on a techie ribbon-cutting roll lately. Twitter office. Facebook engineering headquarters. New York Tech Meetup appearance. Yelp office opening. Cornell-Technion tech campus. Mike Bloomberg wants to be remembered for his impact on the New York internet industry, and today he stopped by a granddaddy of web startups: the company formerly known as SeamlessWeb. "Seamless is exactly the type of company we're looking to grow," the mayor said as he ordered chicken soup for lunch. "Seamless is transforming the city's restaurant industry."

Seamless recently raised $50 million in private equity, acquired MenuPages and opened the foodie-centric office in West Midtown, under the leadership of Jonathan Zabusky, who replaced Jason Finger as CEO.

The company changed its name, redesigned its website, ramped up advertising and threw huge resources behind its mobile effort, an area of explosive growth, all since late spring / early summer. Seamless is hiring “for everything,” Mr. Zabusky told Betabeat in September, when he described the new office as “conducive to brand we’re building,” boasting, “we’re going to have food permeating through our environment.”

Seamless's acceleration comes just as competitor GrubHub comes nipping at its heels in New York. (Has anyone else noticed that sometimes Seamless orders arrive in GrubHub-branded plastic bags?) Peep the city's full press release for the event here.

Fresh redesign! Get it while it's hot!

Being early to market isn't always an advantage. Especially when you may have been a little too early for mass consumer adoption--and are owned by the VC arm of A big corporation like Cantor Fitzgerald. Enter Delivery.com.

Delivery.com, a website that connects its half  million users with local merchants to get goods delivered, was launched back in 2004 (same year as GrubHub). You can think of it like a hybrid of modern-day Seamless (which was born as a corporate catering company in 1999) crossed with Kozmo.com, since the site also connects users with local merchants who sell groceries, alcohol, flowers, pet supplies, and deli items. But there's no army of messengers in green and orange. In Delivery.com's case, the stores themselves do the delivering.

[Let's all give a moment of silence for our dearly departed Kozmo.com, shall we?]

Now that the convenience economy (err, laziness market? we're still l0oking for the right word) is bubbling over, sites like Seamless (née Seamlessweb), Grubhub, Amazon's Diapers.com and Soaps.com are all spending heavily to become the slothful person's service of choice. Even the Zaarlys and TaskRabbits of the world--which let you hire someone else to, say, deliver you a pack of gum--are rapidly multiplying.

To get its head in the game, Delivery.com launched a redesigned site today along with a number of new features. The site, which Betabeat (a long time New Yorker and big time Kozmo fan) had actually never heard of, did gross revenues of $50 million last year and expects to double that this year, but wouldn't disclose profits or margins except to say that the "lion's share" of its business comes from restaurant delivery.

Unlike competitors, which spend on aggressively signing up new locations, Delivery.com has a network gives commissions if you recruit a restaurant to their site, which might be why they're growing slower, with 10,000 restaurants listed (compared to Seamless's claim of 40,000).

The redesign lets users see relevant content based on their location, view recent orders, reorder favorite orders with the push of a button, and more. Then comes the new features...

There's a virtual punch card for discounts! Loyalty points that can be directed to charities! Delivery.com Office for group ordering! A partnership with Verizon FIOS to let you order from your TV! Service to let you order from your hotel room! And did we mention the daily deals!

"What’s hot in the environment is deals," Jonathan Mark, VP of marketing told Betabeat over the phone. Hey, if you're competing with everyone else, might as well add Groupon and its clones to the mix.