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.

It's a bird! It's a plane! Oh wait, it's a ... Google Balloon? The company that gave us self-driving cars and wearable computer glasses presents Project Loon. Thousands of high-pressure balloons circling the earth providing internet to five billion unconnected people. I wonder what's next, a space elevator?

Next week I'm co-hosting an awesome Fashion+Tech networking mixer, ALOHA to Summer!, with my friend Liza Kindred (3rd Wave) and the good folks at Magnet Media & Trinet. Unlimited cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, photobooth fun and a live DJ! Plus I'm giving away 10 free tickets.

I also have 3 FREE tickets to Startup Grind next wednesday, featuring a fireside chat with Jared Hecht & Steve Martocci, Founders of GroupMe which sold to Skype for $80 million!

ABC reality series Shark Tank is on a nationwide search to discover the next successful entrepreneur. Think ya got what it takes to swim with the sharks and take on Mark Cuban? Well, here's the application packet!

Speaking of casting, NYC entrepreneurs are being cast for an upcoming TV series. You can get a free headshot and meet the producers at the Lemonade Heroes Rooftop Portrait Party (with celeb photographer Helene DeLillo) next Wednesday at the DL.

Also next week is Wear New York, a five-day event celebrating New York design. Use hashtag #WearNewYork and you could win gift cards and tickets to a fashion show!

More events coming up: How to Use Game Mechanics to Crush Your Competition next Tuesday, The Big Data Explosion next Wednesday and BuzztheBar Golf Tournament + Hoboken Bar Crawl on July 6.

Deadline for CROWDFUNDxNYC Challenge ($25k in prizes!) is next Monday. Matchpoint East, an oppty for health tech entrepreneurs to meet large stakeholders, is next Tuesday. Interested? Apply here! Ernst & Young is looking for great women entrepreneurs. Apply or Nominate someone today! Deadline is June 28.

FYI, the UKTI is hosting The Great Tech Awards! Five disruptive NYC startups will get a chance at a high-impact expansion to the United Kingdom. Get to meet UK VCs, attend the Wired Conference, complimentary flight on Virgin and much more! And check out the Regis Tech Accelerator Summer Academy. Six startups get free access to office space, interns and mentors. And it's free! - no equity, no warrants, no converts.

GarysGuide member Kohzy recently made the move from finance to startups, and he's starting an online comic strip, The Banker and the Startup Guy, to find funny situations in both worlds. About time, I say!

And finally, big props to Mayor Bloomberg for making the case for NYC in his Stanford commencement speech yesterday. In his words:“I believe that more and more Stanford graduates will find themselves moving to Silicon Alley, not only because we’re the hottest new tech scene in the country, but also because there’s more to do on a Friday night than go to the Pizza Hut in Sunnyvale and you may even be able to find a date with a girl whose name is not Siri!"

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

10th Anniversary Games for Change Festival
The largest gaming event in NYC! Technologists, content creators, game developers and designers exploring innovation and social impact in game design.
Monday (June 17), 9 a.m. @ New World Stages, 340 W. 50th Street

Mayoral Candidates Tech Policy Forum
With mayoral candidates Sal Albanese (Former NYC Councilmember), Adolfo Carrión Jr (Former Bronx Borough President), Bill Thompson (Former NYC Comptroller), John Liu (NYC Comptroller) and Anthony Weiner (Former U.S. Congressman). Moderated by Anjali Athavaley (Wall Street Journal) and Nilay Patel (The Verge).
Monday (June 17), 6:30 p.m. @ The Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Avenue

#140You - The Health Wellness Fitness & Food Conference
With Derek Flanzraich (founder, Greatist), Wendy Nguyen (founder, HealthyOut) and others.
Tuesday (June18), 8 a.m. @ 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue

The Rise of the Micro-Entrepreneurs
With Chris Muscarella (cofounder, Kitchensurfing), Althea Erickson (Policy Director, Etsy) and Vipin Goyal (cofounder, SideTour).
Tuesday (June 18), 6:30 p.m. @ Projective Space, 72 Allen Street, 3rd Fl.

The LendIt 2013 Conference
Presenters include Renaud Laplanche (founder, Lending Club), David Klein (founder, CommonBond), Jeff Stewart (founder, Lenddo), Pat Grady (Sequoia Capital) and others.
Thursday (June 20), 7:30 a.m. @ Convene Innovation Center, 810 7th Avenue

VC Insights: When and why you should take your startup global
With Paul Cianciolo (FirstMark Capital), Matthew Brennan (Bain Capital Ventures), Ryan Ziegler (Edison Ventures) and Judith Clegg (Takeout).
Thursday (June 20), 6:30 p.m. @ WeWork Lounge, 154 Grand Street

Lean Startup Machine & Friends Summer Soiree!
Join Lean Startup Machine, The Alley, ECHO Interaction, TechDrinkup, Lean Coffee Meetup and many more!
Thursday (June 20), 7:30 p.m. @ The Randolph, 349 Broome Street

Samsung Ventures: beyond mobile innovating in consumer markets
With Hyuk-Jeen Suh (Head, Samsung Ventures East Coast). Samsung is launching an incubator / innovation group in NYC which will work hand-in-hand with Samsung's Ventures America Fund.
Friday (June 21), 4 p.m. @ Hatchery, 1601 Broadway, 12th Fl.

Startup Weekend NYC
Come share ideas, form teams and launch startups!
Friday (June 21), 6 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Hacker Olympics
The first competition pitting hackers against one another in fast-paced code challenges to discover who is the top hacker in New York!
Saturday (June 22), 10 a.m. @ To be announced

ArtsTech & Damsels in Design: Summer Art Design Cruise
Open Bar, light appetizers, dance party and musical performance by Michael Feld & John Jagos. Mingle with the most interesting designers, artists, startups & techies in NYC!
Sunday (June 23), 2 p.m. @ East River Boat House, East 23rd Street and FDR Drive

More events on the horizon...
UWS Startup Breakfast on June 25 @ Aroma Espresso Bar
NYTECH Presents: How to Use Game Mechanics to Crush Your Competition on June 25 @ Venue
FoodTECH: Food, Tech and Funding on June 25 @ The Wix Lounge
UES Tech Breakfast on June 26 @ Eli's Manhattan
NYTECH Presents: The Big Data Explosion: Using Cloud Computing to Clean Up the Mess on June 26 @ 10gen
Women Leaders Summit: Empowering Women Forward on June 26 @ Regis High School
Startup Grind NYC hosts Jared Hecht & Steve Martocci of GroupMe on June 26 @ AlleyNYC
The Future of Retail Tech on June 26 @ Creative Realties Studio
Lemonade Heroes Portrait Party with Celebrity Photographer Helene DeLillo on June 26 @ The DL
ALOHA to Summer: A Fashion Tech Networking Mixer! on June 27 @ Magnet Media
Spotify Music Hackathon on June 28 @ AlleyNYC
Crowdfunding Cocktail Night - Meet Greet the Founders on July 11 @ MicroOffice
Social Retail Summit #5 on July 18 @ Dumbo Spot
Moonwalk NYC 2013 on July 20 @ Venue

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

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.

You get an Oscar. And you get an Oscar. Everyone gets an Oscar! Well, maybe not everyone, but spreading the love was very much the theme of Hollywood's big night, with awards divided fairly equally among Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables, Django, Skyfall and others. Best photobomb goes to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and @RichardDreyfuss took home best tweet: "I always dreamed that the score of one of my films would be used to play people off at the Oscars. We did it, Steven!" :) Also, really liked Ben Affleck's heartfelt and emotional acceptance speech: "‎It doesn't matter how much you get knocked down in life, you gotta get back up." Word.

BUZZtheBar is a new mobile app (iPhone and Android) that allows you to order & pay for drinks on your phone. They're throwing an awesome launch party on March 5: classy 1940s meets modern-style boozing, games, giveaways and more! And with the discount code "GarysGuide," you can also get in for FREE. Offer only valid for the first 50 users, so ya better hurry! Once you sign up, you'll also get a $10 credit in the app. Nice. :)

Heard of Startup Chile? They give you $40,000 to spend six wonderful, relaxing months in the lovely country of Chile. Sounds crazy right? Well, of course you also have to work on your startup while there. But still--tempting. Deadline is March 11.

Speaking of $40,000, what if I told you you could get the same amount right here in New York City and in only four months? Say hello to the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator! Early application deadline is March 7.

And speaking of deadlines, applications for the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards are due by March 8.

If you have a high-school kid who's interested in tech/design, AIGA is offering a few free workshops this Sunday where they could learn how to make a mobile app, learn about graphic design or publish an e-book. This is part of their Inspire/Make Teen Program. Also check out TEALS, a grassroots program that recruits software engineers to teach computer science to high school students. Love this idea! More info here. They're looking to recruit up to 50 software engineers here in New York City and there's an information session next Monday on March 4. Interested? RSVP here.

Heard of International Business Week? They're a one-week program (March 4 to 10) bringing entrepreneurs from around the world to Israel to expose them to the nation's unique ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship. Interested? You can apply here.

Our "ULTIMATE Guide to SXSW Parties" is now at a whopping 225 events! Hope y'all have been busy RSVP'ing :) Some of the recently added parties I like: the Wall Street Journal Pool Party, Made In NY & American Express Sunset Rooftop Cocktails, Salesforce Rooftop VIP Party and the ff Massive Party. You had me at pool party!

FYI, the Red Tie for SXSW sponsorship is now sold out! But the demand is still strong so I'm opening up Overflow Sponsorship Slots on my lapels. Email me if interested!

My buddies @ General Assembly are giving away an Insider Access ticket for two to Silicon Valley. Roundtrip flights, hotel, tours of Apple, Facebook, Google, meetings with Sarah Lacy and Dave McClure and much more. Here's the link. Just promise me you'll come back to New York City. You will, right? Don't make me have to come there and get you!

Ever dreamt of having a 3D-printing pen that would let you draw sculptures in midair? Well, who says dreams can't come true? I give you The 3Doodler!

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

Entrepreneurs Roundtable 55
With Dayna Grayson (partner, NEA New Enterprise Associates)
Monday (Feb. 25), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern, 44 W. 4th Street

The Elevator Pitch Roundtables and Workshop
With Brad Gillespie (IA Ventures), Micah Rosenbloom (Founder Collective), Ellie Wheeler (Greycroft Partners), Matt Witheiler (Flybridge Capital) and Lisa Wu (Norwest Venture Partners).
Tuesday (Feb. 26), 9 a.m. @ Orrick @ CBS Building, 51 W. 52nd Street, 23rd Fl.

Silicon Harlem Launch Party + Around The Way Launch Party
Silicon Harlem supports tech entrepreneurs of color and creates technology-enabled job opportunities. Come network with the Harlem Tech Community!
Tuesday (Feb. 26), 6 p.m. @ MIST Harlem, 46 W. 116th Street

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
With Mark O'Neill (CTO, Thrillist). Demos by Tutonic and Advisoray.
Tuesday (Feb. 26), 7 p.m. @ Brooklyn Law School Feil Hall, 205 State Street, 22nd Fl., Brooklyn

AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/ Dan Senor
Featuring Dan Senor, coauthor of Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle.
Wednesday (Feb. 27), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg Tower, 731 Lexington Avenue

DUMBO Startup Lab Demo Day
Panelists include Owen Davis (NYC Seed), Ryan Armburst (ff Venture) and Harrison Weber (The Next Web).
Wednesday (Feb. 27), 6 p.m. @ DUMBO Startup Lab, 68 Jay Street, #718

Engineering @ Scale: Scaling Right Media - Architecting for hypergrowth
A fireside chat with Matt Philips (cofounder, Right Media) and Brian O'Kelley (CEO, AppNexus)
Wednesday (Feb. 27), 7 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street, 4th Fl.

Hack+Startup by First Round Capital
Bringing together engineering leaders to direct technical discussions on crafting superior software. The theme this time around is working with data.
Thursday (Feb. 28), 6:30 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 West 23rd St, 4th Fl

Speakeasy - A New Monthly Happy Hour for Community Managers
Hosted by Tina Yip (R/GA), Zack McCune (R/GA), Sarah Judd Welch (LoyalCX), Allie MacPherson (TEXT 100) and Arielle Calderon (Gotham Inc).
Thursday (Feb. 28), 7 p.m. @ Percolate HQ, 481 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

Startup! Real Stories & Life-saving Tips
With Rick Webb (Tumblr, angel investor), Allison Goldberg (Managing Director & VP, Time Warner Investments), Ryan Freitas (cofounder, About.me), Gino Zahnd (cofounder, Cozy) and others.
Thursday (Feb. 28), 7 p.m. @ Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue

2nd Annual NYU Entrepreneurs Festival
Rockstar group of speakers including Jack Dorsey (Twitter, Square), Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures), Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines), Alexandre Douzet (TheLadders), Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer NYC), Dan Porter (CEO, OMGPOP) and more.
Friday (Mar. 1), 10:30 a.m. @ Tisch Hall, 40 W. 4th Street

NYC EDU Startup Weekend
Friday (Mar. 1), 6 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

ITP Presents: Big Screens
Friday (Mar. 1), 6:30 p.m. @ IAC, 555 W. 18th Street

More events on the horizon...
BRITE 2013 Conference on Mar 04 @ Columbia University Lerner Hall
Founders@Fail: How To Build A Community on Mar 04 @ General Assembly East
Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator Happy Hour on Mar 04 @ Galway Pub
BUZZtheBar Launch Party! (Free with discount code GARYSGUIDE) on Mar 05 @ Hotel Chantelle
Spacebrew: A Toolkit for An Open Internet of Things on Mar 07 @ General Assembly
In NYC for SxSW? Join us for Brunch! on Mar 10 @ Venue
Unleash the Beast: How to Hack a Hackathon Save the World and Make Your Parents Proud on Mar 14 @ Internet Media Labs
Investor Feedback Forum (New York March) on Mar 14 @ Microsoft
March 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Mar 19 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Mobile UX Design Four-Part Series: Theory, Science, Optimization & Design on Mar 20 @ Frankfurt Kurnit

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

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.

Sooooo...it's that time of the year again. SXSW (a.k.a. Spring Break for Geeks) is right around the corner, running March 8 to 12 in Austin, Texas. And you know what that means: Parties, parties 'n more parties!! :) So, once again, we're putting together what we hope will be THE definitive guide to all this year's SXSW Interactive parties. We'll be updating this list regularly, so check back often. And email me if you're organizing an event or a party.

Of course, I'll be at SXSW ... attending all (or as many as humanly possible) of the amazing parties, mixers, networking events, lounges, panels, keynotes, BBQs, nuclear taco nights, concerts, happy hours, karaokes, food trucks, block parties and what-have-you.

So if you can't make it down to Austin this year but still wanna get the word out about your amazing startup / company / firm / service / app / project, you can do so. How, you ask? Well, by sponsoring my Red Tie of course, and covering it in your company's awesome logo stickers and giving me your company's elevator pitch. If you're interested, shoot me an email at gary@garysguide.com for more details.

In the meantime, here's my blog post / highlights from last year's SXSW to give you a little taste of what to expect.

FYI, next week is probably the most exclusive hackathon of the year. Google's Project Glass will be holding a two-day hackathon (February 1 to 2) in New York City that'll allow developers to get an early look at Glass so they can start developing for the platform. Google engineers will be on site to help at any point in the process, and developers will have the opportunity to show off what they’ve been working on.

So, how to score an invite: Your guess is as good as mine! If you were one of the smart ones who shelled out $1,500 for the early access to Google Glass you're on the list. Or you could try pinging Googler Aygul Zagidullina and hope you get lucky! Well, for those of you who don't make it, here's a pic of Sergey Brin sporting his Google Glasses on the subway.

In other news, the NYC EDC is partnering with the Lawrence Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College to create Competition THRIVE, and they're seeking original, innovative strategies and programs that help immigrant entrepreneurs succeed in business. In Round 1, $25,000 will be awarded to five semi-finalists to pilot their program and create a business plan. And in Round 2, $100,000 will be awarded to one grand prize winner to further scale their program. Submission period is February 1 to March 7. For more information, check out the website or email competitionthrive@baruch.cuny.edu.

On January 30, my buddy Haithem is organizing the Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party. It's gonna be a crazy night of dancing, drinking, mixing and mingling--on a yacht.
You'll be getting photographed on a red carpet, and you'll have a shot at an audition for an entrepreneurship TV series and book.

More stuff you don't wanna miss this week: AppNexus Speaker Series (with Fab.com CEO Jason Goldberg) on the 23rd, PandoMonthly Presents (with Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson) on the 24th and Amusemi's 1 Year Anniversary Party+Dinner on the 26th.

Last week my buddy Charlie Todd & the folks at Improv Everywhere organized their twelfth Annual No Pants Subway Ride. Over 4,000 participants showed up. Here's the recap and video. And my friends Jen and Allison are back with another hilarious edition of Blogologues, playing this week on the 24th, 25th and 26th at Under St Marks (and yes, there will be giveaways!).

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

DUMBO Improvement District Annual Meeting
All members of the DUMBO community are invited to hear the latest on hurricane recovery efforts and learn what's in store for the neighborhood in 2013. The coveted DUMBO "Magic Feather" awards will be given to Rachel Haot (New York's chief digital officer), Susan Feldman (artistic director, St. Ann's Warehouse) and Jerry Hultin (president, NYU-Poly).
Tuesday (Jan. 22), 5 p.m. @ Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street

Next Top Makers: The Business of Design
Join the creators of New York’s Next Top Makers for an evening of education, guidance, and networking. Hear from IDEO storytelling gurus why good design doesn’t always speak for itself, and learn about the role of a designer in a world of 3D printers.
Tuesday (Jan. 22), 7 p.m. @ 3DEA Pop-Up Store @ Eventi Hotel, 835 6th Avenue

The Future of Education #1: New Models for 21st Century Learning
Panelists include Brad Hargreaves (founding partner, General Assembly), Kane Sarhan (cofounder, Enstitute), Juliette LaMontagne (founder & director, Breaker) and Abigail Besdin (head of Skillshare's education team).
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ Centre For Social Innovation Pop-Up Space, 601 W. 26th Street, #360

AppNexus Speaker Series
Brian O'Kelley (CEO, AppNexus) will host a fireside chat with Jason Goldberg (CEO, Fab.com) and Jared Cluff (VP Marketing, Fab.com).
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street

How to Build Great Communities: Lets Collaborate!
With Sheila Karaszewski (community manager, Airbnb), Tony Bacigalupo (cofounder, New Work City), Andrew Wagner (director & editor-in-chief, Krrb) and James Wahba (cofounder, Projective Space). Moderated by Melissa Young (founder, Let's Collaborate!)
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 7 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

#ArtsTech 4 Year Anniversary Party!
Open Bar with 3 Pernod Absinthe cocktails from 7-8 pm. Variety of grilled panini appetizers. Photobooth by Styleblaster. Tunes by DJ Winslow Porter. Video art by Sabrina Ratte, Mr. Div, Yoshi Sodeoka and Andreas Nicholas Fischer
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 7 p.m. @ The Counting Room, 44 Berry Street, Brooklyn

PandoMonthly Presents
A fireside chat with Chad Dickerson (CEO, Etsy)
Thursday (Jan. 24), 6 p.m. @ Projective L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

dd:COLLECTIVE - The Changing Retail Environment (Presented by Digital DUMBO)
Featured speakers include Philippe von Borries (Co-Founder, Refinery29), Keith George (General Manager, Gilt Man by Gilt Groupe) and Claire Mazur (Co-Founder, Of a Kind).
Thursday (Jan 24), 6:30 p.m. @ Huge, 45 Main St , Ste 220, Brooklyn

Dinner, Cupcakes, Wine & Technology!
Introducing the inaugural NJ Tech Gals meetup!
Thursday (Jan 24), 7 p.m. @ Hoboken Business Center, 50 Harrison Street (2nd Fl), Hoboken

Nike+ Accelerator (powered by TechStars) Recruiting Tour
Join the team from Nike and TechStars to hear about the Nike+ Accelerator. Some local quantified self demos. And the team from Nike will be bringing along some SWAG, including some Nike+ FuelBands!
Thursday (Jan 24), 7 p.m. @ TechStars NYC HQ , 36 Cooper Square, 6th Fl.

Power Breakfast
With Susan Feldman (cofounder, One Kings Lane)
Friday (Jan. 25), 8 a.m. @ Fordham Graduate School of Business, 113 W. 60th Street, 12th Fl.

NYC Mobile Startup Weekend
Where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and buddying entrepreneurs gather together to share ideas, form teams and spend the weekend building and launching a startup.
Friday (Jan. 25), 6 p.m. @ WeWork Soho Lounge, 154 Grand Street

2013 Brooklyn Inventgenuity Festival: Digital By Hand
A popular annual winter celebration of making things for kids and their parents. With public projects and workshops led by Beam Center’s faculty of artists, engineers and big thinkers. This year’s theme: Digital by Hand.
Saturday (Jan. 26), 11 a.m. @ The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen Street

Amusemi 1 Year Anniversary Party + Dinner
Celebrate the anniversary of our first startup dining event. Register for Amusemi to get on the guest list.
Saturday (Jan. 26), 7 p.m. @ TBD

More events on the horizon...
TEDxBroadway: Industry leaders envision the future of Broadway on Jan. 28 @ New World Stages
NYC Gaming January: Demo Night on Jan. 29 @ Microsoft
Brooklyn Tech Meetup with Victoria Brown on Jan. 29 @ Feil Hall, Brooklyn Law School
Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party featuring a chance to Audition for a TV Series! on Jan. 30 @ Hornblower Inifinity
Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry on Jan. 30 @ Professor Thoms
dd:SOCIAL - 4 Year Anniversary & dd:A-LIST Crowdfunding Launch on Jan. 31 @ The DUMBO Loft
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb. 06 @ Pier 60
UX Design and User Experience Optimization Trends on Feb. 06 @ Anchin
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 09 @ Hearst
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower

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

Tumblr's Mr. Karp (Photo: wikipedia.org)

PartyHat.GIF Tumblr just passed a huge traffic benchmark by finally reaching 170 million global users a month. It's now the ninth most visited site in the U.S., according to Quantcast. David Karp took to the Tumblr Staff site to congratulate his users and say, "You guys have earned an audience bigger than the biggest TV networks, and you continue to make some of the most thought provoking, insightful, inspiring, funny, diverse, and compelling content being created today."

Young Money Also worth noting is that Tiffany & Co launched their official Tumblr today. It's called From Out Of The Blue. The blog contains a couple pictures of necklaces containing an unfathomable number of diamonds and a promotional video that would make any tween ask their parents for a diamond tiara. That's what Tiffany is going for, right?

Put Your Skills To Good Use The New York tech community organizing group, NY Tech Responds, is putting on a grouping of events dedicated to helping Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. On December 1st and 2nd, they'll be having a talk called the Sandy Relief Agency Conference, a hackathon, and a reception to kick off their Sandy fundraising campaign. Registration for the hackathon is now open and you can get tons of more information on their website. Use your skills to help those in need!

Custom Giving Is Good Makeably, a marketplace for custom goods started by two ex-Googlers, has just launched a campaign with New York Cares called Make for Good. Kids from the Bronx have drawn their ideal Christmas wish and when a Makeably user sponsors the project, it gets made by one of the site's custom makers. Since its launch, the project now has around 150 makers helping out in 15 countries. Buyers no longer need an access code to help out.

Finna Reschedule That Startup Weekend's plans to team up with the FinTech Innovation Lab and the NYC FinTech Startups meetup for the first-ever FinTech Startup Weekend were squashed by Hurricane Sandy. But have no fear! The event has now been rescheduled for December 7 to 9 at Alley NYC. Throughout the weekend, there will be mentors, including VCs, lawyers and designers, stopping by to give teams advice on what they’re doing.

Nick Gavronsky, an OpenFin employee who helps run Startup Weekend with Frank Denbow, told Betabeat earlier this month that FinTech weekend is “not really like a hackathon, it’s more for first-time people” who want to start building something.

More Exploring Now Possible The gamified city exploration site, Stray Boots, announced today that it completed a $2 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Milestone Venture Partners and joined by Correlation Ventures, Great Oaks, and several angel investors. This is Stray Boots’ first venture capital raise.

Cabs Are Expensive Apparently a lot of people don't feel like spending money to get to the airport to see their families. Shairporter, the site that lets you split the price of a cab to get to the airport, told Betabeat that its user base grew 70% over Thanksgiving weekend. Founder and CEO Winston Wu told Betabeat that the company is still in continuing discussions with NYU dorms for their next big push for the holidays in December. The company also gave away free cab rides to NYU students who shared their page on Facebook on Thanksgiving.

Vamos De Compras Bêmbele, Latin America’s new men's and women's e-commerce site, went live yesterday. The company is a joint venture between New York City based private equity firm PanAmerican Capital and two other significant organizations in the Latin American region. CEO Dean Schaffer was quoted in a press release sent to Betabeat as saying, "Bêmbele takes care of every aspect of the logistics process for our customers –including duties, import taxes, and shipping expenses– and delivers an order directly to their door at no additional cost.”

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.

Hola folks,

Batten down the hatches. Stock up on the liquor (and food). Bring out the candles and flashlights. Because Hurricane Sandy (a.k.a. #frankenstorm) is almost upon us. And now, at almost a thousand miles wide, it definitely has our attention. Hopefully by this time y'all are safely at home (and not still slumming in Zone A) with eyes glued to the twenty-four-hour news coverage, watching weathermen expound on "cones" and "surges."

As you know, the MTA has shut down all subway and buses, and pretty much every event on Monday has been cancelled or postponed including AllThingsD's Dive Into Mobile conference, Google's Android event, Facebook's engineering open house and our own Big Apple Smackdown Silicon Alley ping-pong tournament (which will be re-scheduled).

At this time, the Tuesday events (and the rest of the week) seem uncertain too. They're still listed below, but I'd highly recommend you confirm first with the event organizers. In the mean time, stay safe, keep your fingers crossed that the storm turns out to be a mild one and don't forget to check Miguel Bloombito's Twitter feed for the latest updates!

Lots of really awesome events coming up in the next few weeks ...

November 8 is the city's preeminent startup event, Ingenuity, organized by the New York Venture Capital Association (NYVCA). Who's coming? Tim Armstrong (CEO, Aol), Julius Genachowski (chairman, FCC), Mike Richter (New York Rangers), Bob Pittman (CEO, Clear Channel), Michael Barrett (Chief Revenue Officer, Yahoo) and many more.

Also on November 8 is Red Innova, an intimate event to create a better understanding of Latin American Internet market opportunities and trends. Featured speakers include Martín Varsavsky (FON), Fabrice Grinda (OLX), Andrew Mclaughlin (Betaworks) and Matías Recchia (Vostu).

On November 9 is Capital On Stage, an unconventional conference about funding where, in a twist, top-tier investors will present themselves to the world’s finest Internet startups. David Aronoff (Flybridge), David Teten (ff Ventures), Tom Wisniewski (NY Angels), Brad Svrluga (High Peaks), Lucas Nelson (DFJ Gotham), Jahan Ali (NYC Investment Fund) and others.

My friend Shaherose Charania (Founder of Women 2.0) is organizing the highly anticipated Women 2.0 Pitch conference on November 14. Keynote speakers include female founders of Match.com, Cisco, Oxygen Network, Urban Decay and talks and panels feature women entrepreneurs who've run super successful Kickstarter projects and grown massively successful companies from the ground up. Don't miss it!

The good folks at the upcoming Angelhack hackathon (on November 17) are offering a few free tickets to GarysGuide members. Just use the discount code GG.

When the theme of an event is 'Rise of the Machines' and the keynote speaker is author Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near and the recent How To Create A Mind), all I can say is--sign me up! That would be the upcoming TEDxSiliconAlley event on December 3. Other keynoters will be Bre Pettis (founder, Makerbot), Francessca Ferrando (Philosopher of Posthumanism and visiting scholar at Columbia), Jincey Lumpkin (Attorney and Huffington Post sex columnist) and Ken Segall (creative director of Apple's "Think Different" campaign).

And if you're a startup, don't forgt to check out the "Who Would You Fund" TechStartup Challenge 2012, where I'll be one of the judges. It's a contest to find the best startup pitch videos out there. Add your startup promotion video and you just might win the opportunity to make a live pitch to the ARC Angel Round Capital Fund.

And now let's see what might be going down in the Alley this week...

The {c}0dEd Costume Carousal!
A Halloween celebration of the New York coworking startup community.
Wednesday (Oct. 31), 7 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

NYC UNCUBED (Startup and Scale)
Bringing together emerging companies and talented attendees in an exciting and informative environment that showcases startup culture.
Thursday (Nov. 1), 1 p.m. @ The Altman Building, 135 W 18th Street

Food Network and Ad Age Present: Brand Hacks
Six startups will be selected to pitch partnerships, new tech and integration ideas to a panel of top Food Network execs and industry pros. The best idea receives $25,000.
Thursday (Nov 1), 6 p.m. @ Food Network Studios, Chelsea Market, 75 9th Avenue

Behind the scenes at Gawker: Publishers, Brands and Native Ads
Get the scoop on Gawker's native ad process, strategies around scaling, building effective, measurable products and more.
Thursday (Nov 1), 6 p.m. @ NewsCred, 27 West 24th Street, Ste 202

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here Part 2
With Josh Miller (founder, Branch), Ben McKean (cofounder & CEO, Savored), Vinicius Vacanti (cofounder & CEO, Yipit), Kathryn Minshew (CEO & cofounder, The Daily Muse), Kellee Khalil (founder, Lover.ly) and moderated by Rachel Sklar (Change the Ratio).
Thursday (Nov 1), 6:30 p.m. @ NYIT Auditorium, 1871 Broadway

State of the Startup: Politics
With Mattan Griffel, Harrison Weber, Alexis Ohanian, and Reshma Saujani.
Thursday (Nov 1), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Mashable Media Summit 2012
With David Carey (President, Hearst Magazines), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Kay Matadi (head of entertainment & media, Facebook), Jason Seikin (SVP, PBS Interactive), Bonita Stewart (VP Partner Business Solutions, Google), Raman Kia (Executive Director Digital Strategy, Condé Nast) and others.
Friday (Nov 2), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street

2012 NYU Entrepreneurs Festival
Rockstar speaker list including Jack Dorsey (cofounder Twitter and Square), Herb Kelleher (cofounder & former CEO, Southwest Airlines), Alexandre Douzet (cofounder & COO, TheLadders) and Rachel Sterne Haot (Chief Digital Officer NYC).
Friday (Nov 2), 12:30 p.m. @ Tisch Hall, 40 W 4th Street

NYC Startup Weekend FinTech Edition
Bringing together financial technologists with the goal of building consumer and enterprise financial applications with tools provided by several API and data partners.
Friday (Nov 2), 6 p.m. @ The Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Foursquare Hackathon
Build something amazing and you might just find yourself ringing the NASDAQ closing bell, rocking tickets to SXSW, partying with an action figure version of yourself, or wearing the infamous Foursquare hackathon TITLE BELT.
Saturday (Nov 3), 9 a.m. @ Foursquare HQ, 568 Broadway

November DemoDays
Part of the NYU Entrepreneur Week. Students take the stage to showcase what they've been working on.
Saturday (Nov 3), 5:30 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Founders@Fail: Pitching Publishers on Nov 5 @ General Assembly
Ad:Tech New York on Nov 7 @ Javits Convention Center
Daniweb Presents: Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer on Nov 7 @ Highland Park
Ingenuity 2012 on Nov 8 @ New World Stages
NYTECH Fall Networking Cocktail Reception on Nov 8 @ National Showroom
Capital On Stage on Nov 9 @ Goodwin Procter at NY Times
Hack & Jill: Hacksgiving on Nov 9 @ Etsy
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov 13 @ SNR Denton
Women 2.0 PITCH NYC 2012 Conference & Competition on Nov 14 @ Manhattan Center
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

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

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.

This Sunday I'm co-organizing The Big Apple Smackdown! (the Silicon Alley ping-pong tournament) at SPiN. Duking it out will be some of the city's hottest startup entrepreneurs, execs, investors and bloggers, including: Kevin Ryan (founder/CEO, Gilt Groupe), Seth Godin (author, Tribes), Jared Hecht (cofounder, GroupMe), Brian Schechter (cofounder, HowAboutWe), Malcolm Ong (cofounder, SkillShare), Jordan Crook (writer, TechCrunch), Nick Ganju (cofounder, ZocDoc), Gene Munster (senior analyst, Piper Jaffray), Jordan Cooper (partner, Lerer Ventures), Kathryn Minshew (founder, DailyMuse), David Aronoff (partner, Flybridge Capital), Vin Vacanti (cofounder, Yipit) and many, many more! Featuring DJ Premiere of Gang Starr + Bunny Love. It's going to be an epic night of beats and bounce!! :)

Think your startup has what it takes? Then check out the "Who Would You Fund" TechStartup Challenge 2012, where I'll be one of the judges. It's a contest to find the best startup pitch videos out there. Add yours, and you just might win the opportunity to make a live pitch to the ARC Angel Round Capital Fund.

The good folks at the upcoming Angelhack hackathon (on November 17) are offering twenty free tickets to GarysGuide members. Just use the discount code GG.

It's also DataWeek, and there are a bunch of events as part of it, including Strata, PyData Conf & Hackathon, Data Business Meetup, DataGotham, Startup Showcase, BigDataCamp & more.

Don't miss the Software Engineers Job Fair this Tuesday. Later this week, my friends Jen and Allison are performing another edition of Blogologues (the spooky election special!) with an after-party at KGB. The latest entrant in the tech breakfast series is the Palisades Tech Breakfast, bringing together folks across the Hudson. Next month, IncubateNYC (which is redefining the incubation model) is organizing a bootcamp at Google. And Daniweb is throwing another bash, The Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer, for Ad:Tech.

And now lets see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Ignite NYC 15 - Truth is a Moving Target: Oddities Anomalies and Wonders with Data
With talks by Hilary Mason ("In Search of an Optimal... Cheeseburger"), Max Shron ("How to Kill Your Grandmother with Statistics"), Erik Norlander ("Game Show Theory"), Andres Glusman ("The Truth Is Out There") and more.
Monday (Oct. 22), 6:30 p.m. @ Sheraton NY Metropolitan Ballroom, 811 7th Avenue

NYC Gaming October: Demo Night
Demos by Bruno Kruse (Enter Thy Name), Mike Christatos (Worm Run), Matt Parker (Recurse), Patrick Lynch (Escape Run), Jesse Freeman (Super Resident Raver), Christopher Garrett (QatQi) and Brian Chung (Carried Away).
Monday (Oct. 22), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

Girls Who Code Inaugural Gala
Support the young women who are New York City's future entrepreneurs and engineers as they unveil the apps built during the Girls Who Code program.
Monday (Oct. 22), 6:30 p.m. @ New York Stock Exchange, 2 Broad Street

Tow-Knight October Startup Demo Night
Media startups demoing include Branch, Narratively, PolicyMic, Ganxy and Percolate.
Monday (Oct. 22), 6:30 p.m. @ CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, 219 W 40th Street

Wired for Change
Rockstar group of panelists including Sir Tim Berners-Lee (inventor, World Wide Web), Esther Dyson (investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist), Brad Burnham (cofounder, Union Square Ventures), Jon Leibowitz (chairman, FTC), Baratunde Thurston (author, How to Be Black) and others.
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 9 a.m. @ Ford Foundation, 320 E 43rd Street

New York Software Engineers (NYSE) Job Fair
Please bring your resume, working code and applications you've developed. There will be break-out rooms, talks from awesome speakers, and robots on patrol taking pictures!
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 5:30 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th floor

[DataWeek] NYC Data Business Meetup #9
With Mike Abbott (partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), Roger Ehrenberg (founder and managing partner, IA Ventures), Ping Li (general partner, Accel Partners) and Matt Ocko (cofounder and partner, Data Collective).
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Avenue, 7th floor

Best Practices: Building a Successful Startup in NYC
With Wiley Cerilli (founder and CEO, SinglePlatform, acquired by Constant Contact for $100 million) and David Kidder (cofounder, SmartRay Network, acquired by LifeMinders for $36 million).
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 West Fourth Street, Room 2-60

StartOut Demo Day NYC 2012
Demos by Waywire, Artify, D'marie, Dtime, Fanatiks, Getbooked, Routehappy, Tasklite, Unigo, SocialPicks, SideTour, Wantmegetme and Zokos.
Tuesday (Oct 23), 6:30 p.m. @ Tribeca Grand Hotel, 2 6th Ave

FIT Presents: The Finance & Fashion Forum
A conversation on the state of the economy, with Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 7 p.m. @ FIT - Morris W. and Fannie B. Haft Auditorium, Seventh Avenue at 27th Street

Startup Weekend Presents the Partnership Series
With Faye Iosotaluno (sr. director of biz dev, MTV Networks), Bill Shapiro (editor-at-large, Time Inc) and Shane Rahmani (VP, head of biz dev and strategy, Thrillist).
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th floor

The Open Internet and the 2012 Election
A Conversation with Fred Wilson, Clay Shirky, and Susan Crawford.
Thursday (Oct. 25), 6 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 West 4th Street

Enterprise Tech Meetup: Making and Retaining Key Hires
Panelists include David Teten (Partner, ff Venture Capital), Sean Maclsaac (CTO, Yext) and Debbie Madden (Senior VP, Cyrus Innovation).
Thursday (Oct. 25), 7 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

The Fourth Annual HallowMEME Costume Party
Drinks, goodies, and other surprises provided by Tumblr and Giant Media.
Thursday (Oct. 25), 8:30 p.m. @ The Bell House, 149 7th Street

More events on the horizon...
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park
App Development for iPhone & iPad on Oct 29 @ 3rd Ward
#Startupfix at Culturefix on Oct 30 @ Culturefix
The {c}0dEd Costume Carousal! on Oct 31 @ Alley NYC
NYC FinTech Startup Weekend on Nov 02 @ Alley NYC
Ad:Tech New York on Nov 07 @ Javits Convention Center
Daniweb Presents: Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer on Nov 07 @ Highland Park
Ingenuity 2012 on Nov 08 @ New World Stages
CapitalOnStage New York on Nov 09 @ Goodwin Procter at NY Times
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov 13 @ SNR Denton
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

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

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of Gary's Guide 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.

iPhone 5 Day is coming, and you know what that means. That's right--long lines are already starting to form outside Apple stores all over the world as folks clamber to get their hands on the all new slimmer, lighter and faster iPhone 5. A shout-out to Gary's Guide member (and founder of a new social media startup, Vibe) Hazem Sayed, who is first in line outside the iconic 5th Avenue "Big Glass Cube" Apple Store. Go Hazem!

My friend Dave Lifson (product manager at General Assembly) along with Christina Chaey (associate editor at Fast Company) will be doing a free livestream this Wednesday at 2pm EST, on product management for non-product managers. You'll learn what it takes to turn your ideas into functional products. And did I mention its free? :) Oh, and everyone who registers gets a free copy of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian's new e-book, Making Something People Love. So go sign up!

The new Cornell NYC Tech campus has started accepting admission applications for its beta class of computer science students, slated to start January 2013. Deadline is October 1.

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

Startup Roundtable 17
With David Aronoff (general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners)
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 6 p.m. @ Chadbourne & Parke LLP, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 36th Fl.

PushStart + AngelCube Demo Night
10 companies from PushStart and AngelCube (two Australian-based accelerators) will exhibit their latest products. Featured startups include Adbiddr, Gimmequotes, Surfed.At, Tonight, Werdsmith and Wingman.
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
Demos by Temboo, Appreciation Engine and Bar & Club Stats.
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 7 p.m. @ Huge, Inc., 45 Main St., Brooklyn

GoGreen '12 New York
With Seth Pinsky (President, NYC EDC), Andrew Revkin (Pace University and New York Times), Cyrille du Peloux (CEO, Veolia), Pamela Gill Alabaster (L'Oreal), David Bragdon (Mayor's Office, NYC) and others.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street

Fashion Forward Conference
Bringing over 300 bloggers together for a one-day conference filled with fashion shows, style tips, informative panels hosted by industry experts, interactive stations and more.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 11 a.m. @ 404 NYC, 404 10th Avenue

Product Management for Non-Product Managers w. David Lifson (General Assembly) and Christina Chaey (Fast Company)
Based on student submissions, Dave will walk through best practices for fleshing out ideas, identifying risks, validating assumptions, and ultimately launching a minimum viable product.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 2 p.m. @ Livestream, Online

Digital Cocktails - The Power of Sound: Music Advertising and Brands
With Sharon Colombo (executive director, corporate marketing, JPMorgan Chase), Debora Koyama (VP marketing, L'Oreal), Elliot Lum (VP, Columbia Records), Eddie Martin (director of marketing excellence and CSR insights, Hershey Company), Josh Rabinowitz (SVP and director of music, Grey) and Mark Sherwood (director of strategy and head of integrated planning, Saatchi & Saatchi).
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 6 p.m. @ The Sony Club, 550 Madison Avenue

Art.sy Tech Talk
Art.sy will open their doors to the NYC engineering community for an evening of conversation around making technical choices at a startup from day one. This invitation is for software engineers/web developers only.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 7 p.m. @ Art.sy, 401 Broadway, 25th Floor

Design for Manufacturing Summit
With Ping Fu (cofounder & CEO, Geomagic), Mark Hatch (CEO, TechShop), Stephan Clambaneva (Industrial Designers Society of America), Tara Stand (ITAC), Michael Greenstein (Polytechnic Institute of NYU), Benedetta Piantella (Adjunct Professor, NYU-ITP), James Wolff (Buildatron), Xanthe Matychak (Innovation Center, Rochester Institute of Technology) and Kostika Spaho (3D Printing Artist).
Thursday (Sept. 20), 3 p.m. @ Dumbo Spot, 160 Water St, Brooklyn

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day
Presentations by the Summer 2012 class of ERA including AngelPolitics, Bizodo, CaterCow , Glossi, HealthyChic, Houdini, Jetaport, MxHero, SaleMove and VidRocket.
Friday (Sept. 21), 8:30 a.m., by invite only

Startup Weekend NYC
A global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures.
Friday (Sept. 21), 6 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 Seventh Avenue, 17th Fl.

Mashable Social Good Summit
Speakers include Todd Park (CTO, United States), Forest Whitaker (artist & UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador), Nick Kristof, (columnist & two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, New York Times), Rebecca Moore (Engineering Manager, Google Earth), Hans Vestberg (president & CEO, Ericsson), Deepak Chopra (bestselling author & founder, The Chopra Foundation), Wendy Harman (director, social strategy, American Red Cross), Kathy Calvin (CEO, UN Foundation) and more.
Saturday (Sept. 22), 9 a.m. @ 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd St

More events on the horizon...
Coming To America: Immigration Entrepreneurship & the Economy on Sept. 24 @ New York Law School
Enterprise Insights: Go Big (Data) Or Go Home on Sept. 25 @ Microsoft
NYTECH Presents: UX Cognitive Modeling Methods on Sept. 27 @ New York Institute of Technology
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 51 on Sept. 27 @ NYU Stern Room 2-60
Startup Grind NYC Hosts Scott Kurnit (Founder of Aboutcom / Keepcom) on Sept. 27 @ The Alley
Cleanweb Hackathon NYC on Sept. 28 @ AlleyNYC
NYTECH Presents: Content Marketing: Beyond Liking and Tweeting on Oct. 02 @ Anchin
Daniweb Presents: Advertising, Marketing and Media Mayhem! on Oct. 02 @ Slate Lounge
FOCUS100 Symposium and Pitch Bootcamp on Oct. 05 @ Ogilvy & Mather
Talk NYC Presents: 2nd Annual Tech Madison Avenue Conference on Oct. 17 @ Crosby Street Hotel
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct. 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park

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

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder & CEO of GarysGuide, Mentor at ER Accelerator and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can follow him at @garysguide and reach him via email at gary [at] garysguide.com.

An absolutely crazy, crazzzzzzy week in tech coming up with a ton of really good events including hacker townhalls, demo days, Startup Weekends, TEDx-es, hack days, incubator openings, happy hours, roundtables and more. Lets take a look, shall we? ...

January Hacker Townhall
Pizza, beer and hanging out with other fellow hackers, technologists, tinkerers, and thinkers? Life just doesn't get better than that, my friend! :)
Monday, 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway 4th Floor

MIT Enterprise Forum of NYC Presents: Business Plan Presentations: Innovations in Digital Commerce
Panel Speakers include Albert Wenger (Partner, Union Square Ventures), David Teten (Partner, ff Venture Capital), Eric Nordlander (Engineering Partner, Google Ventures) and Sim Blaustein (Principal, BDMI). Companies presenting include Agnik (data analytics for distributed, mobile & embedded), Echoer (Finalist at Le Web), Moviecom.tv (Red Herring Global 2011 Winner), Megawatt Hour (decision-making platform for energy purchasing) and WishMash (The social wishlist platform).
Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. @ Chadbourne & Parke LLP, 30 Rockefeller Plaza

BMW i Ventures Incubator opening
With Mitchell Moss (Director, Rudin Center for Transportation Policy), Kurt Buecheler (VP BizDev, Streetline), Bill Schwebel (Senior VP, Inrix), John Schmid (Chairman, Green Parking Council), Anthony Eskinazi (CEO & Founder, ParkatmyHouse), Ulrich Quay (MD, BMW i Ventures) and Alexander Diehl (MD, BMW i Ventures).
Tuesday, 6 p.m. @ BMV i Ventures, 95 Morton St 7th Floor

Making Startups Work - Optimizing the Front End
With Damian Galarza (Thrillist), Pau Santesmasses (Tumblr), Mike Singleton (Foursquare), Ahmed Hashim (Etsy) and Benjamin Wilson (Refinery29).
Tuesday, 7 p.m. @ Refinery29, 30 Cooper Square 4th Floor

500 Startups Demo Day NYC
Back by popular demand! Go check out Startup Pirate (Aarrr!!!), Wearer of 500 Hats and Super Angel Extra-ordinaire Dave McClure and his 500 Startups Accelerator's 3rd batch (Fall 2011) of startups.
Wednesday, 10 a.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway 4th Floor

Xconomy Forum: New York’s Venture Emergence
Rockstar speaker list including Fred Wilson (Founder & Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures), Todd Dagres (Founder & General Partner, Spark Capital), Barry Silbert (Founder & CEO, SecondMarket), Nick Beim (General Partner, Matrix Partners), Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and Alexis Maybank (CoFounders, Gilt Groupe), Rich Levandov (Managing Director, Avalon Ventures), Dave Morgan (Founder & CEO, Simulmedia), Peter Stern (CEO, bitly), Eric Wiesen, General Partner (RRE Ventures) and more.
Wednesday, 2 p.m. @ Apella Event Space at Alexandria Center, 450 East 29th Street 2nd Floor

The Business Side of Dating
Dating can be fun (or not). But there is no doubt that there is a lot of ka-ching! to be made in the business of dating. Featuring the-guy-who-started-it-all Gary Kremen (Founder, Match.com), Brian Schechter (HowAboutWe), Adam Sachs (Ignighter) and Dana Kanze (Moonit).
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. @ Goodwin Procter, 620 Eighth Avenue Floor 26

BD Meetup Happy Hour
Boozin' and schmoozin' with the biz dev crowd!
Wednesday, 7 p.m. @ Gallery Bar, 120 Orchard St

Expanding Your Business into Europe for Early Stage High Growth Companies (NY)
With Matt Meeker (Partner, Polaris Ventures), Terry Jost (CEO, Mycroft), Peter Melerud (CoFounder & COO, Kemp Technologies), Adrian Crawford (Partner, KPMG) and Mark Gallagher (SVP, Silicon Valley Bank).
Thursday, 6 p.m. @ Dogpatch Labs, 36 E 12th St

Meet DreamIt Alumni in NY
Interested in applying to DreamIt accelerator? Then go hang out with DreamIt alumni including Adapt.ly, ClothesHorse, Easel Learning, LearnBop, LetsGiftIt, Parse.ly, Postling and SeatGeek
Thursday, 6 p.m. @ Solas, 232 E 9th Street

Startup Roundtable Series 7 - Mobile
Panelists include Nihal Mehta (CEO, LocalResponse & Partner, ENIAC Ventures), Veronika Sonsev (CEO, inSparq.com & Founder, Women in Wireless) and Brett Martin (CEO, Sonar.me).
Thursday, 6:30 p.m. @ Select Office, 116 West 23rd Street

18th Annual Columbia Business School Private Equity & Venture Capital Conference
Throwing a little bit o' private equity into our usual mix of Startup and VC related events. Keynoting are Tim Draper (Founder, Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Bob Nardelli (CEO, Cerberus) and David Rubenstein (CoFounder & Managing Director, The Carlyle Group).
Friday, 12 a.m. @ Columbia Business School, Alfred Lerner Hall

NYC EDU Startup Weekend
StartupWeekend is back for another red-bull and pizza fueled all night coding and hacking and startupping weekend. This time the focus is on education. Oh yeah.
Friday, 6 p.m. @ The Mandell School, 795 Columbus Ave

API Hackday NYC
Time to get ur hack on, yo!
Saturday, 8 a.m. @ Mashery, 597 Broadway 2nd Floor

TEDxBigApple presents Disruptive Ideas
Its gonna be all about disruptive ideas with near-term impact in housing, biotech, local spaces, biomimicry, fashion, business and much more. Looks like its gonna be off the hook. :)
Saturday, 2 p.m. @ Saatchi & Saatchi, 375 Hudson

More on the horizon…
February 2012 NY Tech Meetup on Feb 08 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
#Techdrinkup (Open Bar) Huge Pre-Party for Social Media Week on Feb 09 @ The Parlour
2012 NYC Pipeline Fellowship Conference on Feb 10 @ Goodwin Procter
SecondMarket Presents: Capitalyze on Feb 15 @ Dream Downtown
NY Beta :: Media & Entertainment Edition on Feb 16 @ GreenSpaces
NYC Gaming February Meetup on Feb 23 @ General Assembly
Lean Startup Machine NYC on Feb 24 @ GrindSpace
Photo Hack Day 2 on Feb 25 @ General Assembly

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends!

Startup Weekend Edmonton. (flickr.com/mastermaq)

CONQUER THE WORLD. Startup Weekend just closed a partnership with the Kauffman Foundation; now it's announced a two-year agreement with Google. "Google is supporting Startup Weekend through a global sponsorship, which will not only allow for the expansion of current operations, but also enable the global roll-out of pre-Startup Weekend Google developer workshops and vertical specific initiatives in areas such as education and health."

SAVE AMIT. Seth Godin, Michael Galpert, and Jakob Lodwick have pledged $10,000 each for the first person whose marrow matches that of Amit Gupta, recently diagnosed with leukemia. Party and cheek swabbing session on Friday at New Work City.

CROWDED ROOM. "IAC (NASDAQ: IACI) announced Crowded Room, a new location-based service created to connect users who frequent similar places, have shared interests and mutual friends. The service makes socializing, networking and dating easier by digitally identifying common bonds and putting personality to the faces in a crowded room."

BIRCHBOX LAUNCHES FOR MEN. Birchboxman.com.

HIRING. The New York Times needs a front end developer, a business intelligence lead for R&D; Y Charts, which just raised$3.25 million, wants a senior developer; Warby Parker needs an operations associate.

BETAS. Unroll.me, for removing email subscriptions. GoalSay, a goal-tracking app. Rawporter.com, citizen journalism. AppQuu, Instapaper for apps.

SYNDICATES. "Any blogger can signup with tid.al to get more exposure for their posts by having them syndicated on top brands and publishers. We programatically pick the most influential bloggers and their best posts." Tidal launches with Google/Zagat (forkandtell.zagat.com) and Condé Nast (fashion.teenvogue.com).

POACHED! "NYC-based Adaptly has appointed Paul Turner as Adaptly’s new GM of EMEA to lead its expansion from New York to London. Paul comes to Adaptly from Google where he was head of EMEA for Invite Media (acquired by Google/Doubleclick last year)."

(flickr.com/photos/ericwahlforss/)

STARTUP WEEKEND. Startup Weekend is now an affiliate of the Kauffman Foundation, the same entity that funds AngelList. "While Startup Weekend will continue to operate autonomously, becoming a Kauffman affiliate will allow the organization to increase its geographical reach, conduct more frequent events, and build long-term sustainability. Startup Weekend events bring entrepreneurs and supporters together and teaches them how to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch companies, all during a 54-hour crash-course weekend."

MORE STARTUP WEEKEND. "As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) 2011, a weeklong celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship, Startup Weekend events will take place in more than 50 [UPDATED --ed.] 20 U.S. cities, fostering new companies that change industries and create jobs. Two of these hosts will be in New York City and New Jersey." GEW takes place from Nov. 14 to 20.

RAISE CACHE FOR HACKNY. The highly-anticipated fundraiser is coming up. "Raise Cache has brought together more than 75 companies, from the hottest start ups, to the biggest corporations, to create a once in a lifetime event that highlights the power of our community and the passion of our city. On November 17th, we will bring together more than 1,000 members of New York tech, fashion, media, and arts under the roof of the State Armory to raise $100,000 in cache for hackNY."

THRILLIST APP. Thrillist Rewards NY will be available to download for free on iPhone and Android devices on Thursday (Nov. 10th). "Users will receive mobile notifications of new Thrillist Rewards in New York, each week, as soon as they become available, and can quickly, easily and securely purchase the Rewards through the app. Rewards can be redeemed by simply presenting a voucher built within the app to a participating merchant – no schlubby printed coupons required."

SECOND SCREENS. NYC-based Umami debuted an app yesterday, "a significant new second screen TV app for the iPad ... The app also serves as a scaleable publishing platform for TV programmers, with National Geographic Channel first on board."

LOCAL LAUNCH: CAPSULE. "Remember The Fridge? We learned about them just a week before they were acqui-hired but our product is vaguely familiar even though we're going at it from a different angle. Capsule is sorta like an Evite or Facebook Group... the way espresso is sorta like a cup of coffee. We're making it easier for people to share photos and memories in private groups centered around events rather than individuals (experience graph vs social graph). We're in private beta but here's a quick tour: http://bit.ly/v36QlN."

WHO'S HIRING? Want to work at SportsPickle.com? College Humor is looking for a PHP/MySQL engineer.

11/11/11. That's the date of the next Silicon Alley Talent Fair. So far 70 companies have signed up to meet job seekers at the Altman Building in the Flatiron. 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

CAPITAL FACTORY DEMOS. The Austin incubator is having a demo night tonight.

STARTUP BUS UNCONFERENCE. A six hour intensive workshop for entrepreneurs who like to think fast, and under pressure. Saturday, Nov. 19.

STARTUP PARTIES. This time it's Gojee, the recipe-suggester, on Saturday at WeWork; and SNAP Interactive kicking off the holiday party season with an office-warmer near Penn Station on December 1. With ping pong.