That's a lot of lanyards.

"Mr. Mayor, I know you're wearing a suit on the outside. But this industry is all about hoodies, and I know based on who you are you're a hoodie on the inside," CEO Howard Lerman told Mike Bloomberg, presenting the mayor with his very own honorary pullover--Yext branded, of course.

As he took it, Mayor Bloomberg informed the shaggy entrepreneur that, "My mother would have said you needed a haircut." A room full of techies held up their smartphones for a digital souvenir of the moment.

Back in July, Yext, which helps businesses sync location data across the web, raised a $27 million series E at an eye-popping $270 million valuation. Scads had RSVP'd for the party, a housewarming for the startup's spacious new offices at One Madison Avenue. The spread was impressive, with bartenders pouring top-shelf liquor into wine glasses and stations staffed by local businesses like Luke's Lobster and Brooklyn Brewery scattered throughout. Betabeat spotted former Bloomberg spox Stu Loeser at check-in, and we bumped into GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci at the Wildwood BBQ table (he shared our positive assessment of the pulled pork).

"Now I can be an official Yext geek," the Mayor continued, "which I've always wanted to do. And when the bankers at Credit Suisse see you wearing these, they're going to be so jealous...maybe they'll become investors."

Mayor Bloomberg was appearing in his capacity as cheerleader-in-chief, so he quickly ceased the goofing to congratulate the Yext team on their growth (the startup doubled in size last year), and rattle off his usual Made in NY stats (more venture capital raised between '07 and '11; the number-one area for growth in the mobile apps industry, yadda yadda yadda). In less than five minutes, he'd concluded his remarks and melted into the background, stopping by Asia Dog on his way out.

"Well, that was fucking surreal," remarked one Yext employee to a friend. "Yeah, you don't often see the Mayor in your office," his pal replied.

Actually, Hizzoner's a pretty common sight if you work for a startup.

Naptime!

Sundancing in the Dark South by Southwest is basically right around the corner, but it seems several techies needed a break before March offers the excuse for a tax-deductible trip to Austin. Investor Scooter Braun is be there (for obvious reasons), as is VHX cofounder Casey Pugh, ABC News's Maya Baratz, onetime Myspace prez Jason Hirschhorn, and Thrillist cofounder Ben Lerer. Judging from Mr. Lerer's Instagram, Gary Vaynerchuk is also along for the ride.

Startups are taking advantage of the festival's halo of hipness. The creatives at Kickstarter have devoted a page to Sundance entrants funded on the platform, and cofounder Yancey Strickler says he'll be in attendance. Uber will be there--and handing out hot chocolate. "All you have to do is tap the Uber app and we will come wherever you are to deliver sweet salvation from the epic cold," the company promises. Not to mention helping sooth the pain of Uber's high fares.

Two of the cast members of "Start-ups: Silicon Valley," Hermione Way and Marcus Lovingood, are in Park City and hosting something called Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley. In case you'd like a reminder of why people sell out for reality TV, here is the view from their window, as tweeted by Mr. Lovingood:

Popcorny Lest anyone get the idea Mr. Lerer is all high-minded indie films, all the the time, we'd like to point out this little admission via Twitter: "I sorta want to see Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters (I understand this makes me a stupid and bad person)."

Don't Kiss, Do Tell Speaking of Ms. Way, it seems she's still a tad confused by the concept of "discretion." To recap: Earlier this month, she was caught in a hottub on Necker Island with several people, including her host Sir Richard Branson and One Direction's Harry Styles, fresh off his breakup with Taylor Swift. Naturally, at least one tab came calling, checkbook at the ready, but Ms. Way turned the offer down. She explained in a lengthy Facebook note that she couldn't bring herself to violate the privacy of her fellow guests on Necker Island, who were very high profile, you see.

Well, it seems Ms. Way has decided releasing just a few more details won't hurt. She's now written a piece about her week-long visit for the Next Web, promoted on her Facebook with the teasing title, "What really happened on Necker." Did she mention the quality time spent with famous entrepreneur Richard Branson?

The week was jam-packed with activities on Necker including morning tennis tournaments with Richard Branson, kite races to Anagada and yacht racing.

Has anyone ever been this smug about not making out with a pop star?

Corrections for $2,000, Alex? Foursquare made its third appearance on “Jeopardy,” this week. According to cofounder Dennis Crowley’s Instagram of the blessed event, the app-savvy woman guessed correctly and went on to win $40,000 that night. As Mr. Crowley pointed out, Alex Trebek’s prompt was actually 1 billion check-ins behind Foursquare’s current totals. “Gowalla,” one Instagram commenter guessed facetiously--name-checking the Foursquare competitor that was acquired by Facebook and then shuttered last year. Considering the recent PrivCo report that Foursquare will be acquired for less than it raised by the end of 2013, you might want to watch the schadenfreude.

Now You Know "What is the plural of Sex on a Beach?" angel investor and Tumblrer Rick Webb recently wondered aloud to himself on Twitter (as one does). Luckily, GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci was ready with a riposte: "It is plural, masterbate on the beach is the singular." And there you have it.

GIF Out of Here Buzzfeed is hiring an intern to run the company Tumblr. In keeping with the tech world's slouch toward goofy-ass job listings, the announcement asks, "Can you make an animated GIF of Joe Biden drinking a beer with a red panda?" If so, running Buzzfeed's Tumblr might be literally the only job in the world for which you are ideally suited, you crazy diamond.

Sartorial Corner Don’t get it twisted: In the wake of Michelle Obama’s bold new haircut, AllThingsD’s scoop mistress general Kara Swisher would like everyone to be aware that she, Kara Swisher, does not have bangs. “Side sweep. Never bangs, despite my mother’s best efforts at various D conferences where she got hairdresser under her thumb,” she tweeted in response to someone who suggested otherwise.

Who are you gonna believe, the fine-feathered Ms. Swisher or your lying eyes?

BuzzFeed also Instagrammed a photo of Mr. Peretti donning said shirt and drinking what appears to be a beer. YOLO, we suppose.

(Photo: Instagram)

New Year, New Guilt On January 2, even as many attempted to turn over various new leaves for 2013, Anil Dash had to go and remind us all that despite our best Code Academy-inspired intentions, barely anyone actually learned to code last year. He tweeted, "So did anybody learn how to program after signing up for New Year's resolution lessons last year?" Judging by the @replies, there are quite a few people no closer to Javascript mastery than they were 12 months ago.

If you're looking for some other promises to break this year, Get Instinct and Greatist will want to teach you how to be healthier and play guitar.

Jammin' The improvisational warhorses of Phish played several shows at Madison Square Garden this week, including New Year's Eve--and it seems several local techies turned out. Among the attendees: Aviary cofounder Michael Galpert, IA Ventures' Ben Siscovick, and GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci, who found this appropriately psychedelic photo on his camera the next day:

Trippy!

Missing in action was CrowdTap marketing director Ben Kessler, who took to Twitter to lament his absence: "Wish I caught Phish this run but I’m sooo tired. Maybe we’ll get some Hampton shows?" Nothing like being sunburnt and baked.

International Relations When last we checked in with Art.sy, a high-brow Pandora for fine art, the well-capitalized startup was hosting a beachside barbecue at Art Basel attended by Lenny Kravitz and a rompered, dancing Demi Moore. Things took a much darker tone today, however, when the company announced that it had permanently moved its URL from art.sy to artsy.net to avoid potential outages related to the civil war in Syria.

In a press release, Art.sy said, "The move comes following an outage with our art.sy domain, which was down for a period of 36 hours this week due to an issue with DNS servers in Syria." As has been widely reported, the authoritarian Syrian government is behind recurring Internet blackouts in an attempt to suppress activists.

In response to questions from Betabeat, a representative said all of Art.sy's servers were in the U.S., but added, “We also did not want a domain that could be construed in any way as supporting the Syrian government.” Why not the more logical Artsy.com? The site “was not available,” said the company spokesperson. Whoever is sitting on the domain must be asking a pretty penny, if  investment* from the likes of Wendi Deng, Eric Schmidt, and Jack Dorsey wasn’t enough to tempt them.

Art.sy also announced that it was "simplifying" its name to Artsy. Perhaps startup names with a dot.suffix are going the way of CamelCase as well?

Chapel Check-In It’s not just your high school friends updating their Facebook statuses to “Engaged" lately. Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley proposed on a dark stretch of beach to his longtime girlfriend Chelsa Skees this week. “She said yes!” he tweeted. And check out that rock:

(Photo: Business Insider)

*Disclosure

There's a stylish skeleton just outside the frame, btw.

When Betabeat arrived downtown at a hulking brownstone bathed in red light with a double-digit Fifth Avenue address, there was already a line out the door. We were promptly assigned a pink wristband and told to head downstairs, where we discovered we'd be attending three classes over the course of the evening: Poker, music, and arts and crafts. So educational!

We'd arrived for the launch party of Experiences by GroupMe.* The company got its start with a group messaging service (which it parlayed into an $80 million acquisition by Skype) but recently expanded into the new group purchasing service, which allows numerous people to sign up for suggested events simultaneously and still split the bill.

The venue: the Salmagundi, an arts club founded in the mid-nineteenth century. GroupMe had conspired with event designer Adam Aleksander to send the service into the world in grand style. The suggested dress code was "elegant cocktail attire," but budget Kardashian would have to do for this reporter.

A quick look-see around the first floor uncovered a table full of tater tots and grilled cheese sandwiches, a bar handing out mint juleps, and a photo booth involving major costumes. The elegant Gilded Age interiors had been swathed in Christmas lights and streamers of varying shades.

Downstairs, we were met by Jeffrey, identifiable as a chaperone thanks to his blue-and-white striped tie. He explained that, over the course of the next hour and a half, we'd be shepherded to three different experiences. But he refused to divulge too many details about what each would entail, other than to say our first experience would be a poker lesson from underground champ Haroon (just the one name, like Cher).

There were about twenty people assigned to our particular group, including the cofounders of Small Girls PR, Mallory Blair and Bianca Caampued, Pushd founder Chris Carella and the cofounder of GroupMe himself, Steve Martocci. 

Unfortunately, it turned out that twenty minutes wasn't really enough to teach a room full of people of varying skill levels much about poker. Mr. Martocci's companion Kelsey gamely questioned Haroon about the ins and outs of the game. But the crowd didn't light up until our instructor mentioned something that sound an awful lot like venture capital. To wit: Sometimes an investor of sorts will pay his tournament entrance fees, in exchange for 50 percent of any winnings.

"You should get angel investors," suggested Ms. Blair with a cheeky grin. Another man asked about ROI, then yelled, "AngelList for poker!" Mr. Martocci swiveled around to inform him that poker players are notoriously bad bets and their backers therefore subject to even more significant reversals of fortune than the average early-stage VC.

Soon enough however, bells were ringing throughout the house and it was time for our music class. As we headed up the stairs, Mr. Martocci stopped to chat with someone who'd just been in a tango class and "crushed it." A glance at the map revealed that, elsewhere in the club, there were classes in etiquette, billiards, and other such arts. It was all a little bit like adult education crossed with one of those evenings of amusement that're always happening in Jane Austen novels and Anne of Green Gables.

The author's own Shrinky Dink. (Traced, naturally.)

We arrived upstairs to find musician Todd Reynolds waiting at the head of a small, claustrophobic room full of folding chairs, violin in hand and an iPad stationed on his music stand. Once the seats filled in, Mr. Reynolds picked up his violin and launched into an impromptu performance in which he used his electronic setup to layer sound upon sound, until there seemed to be an entire orchestra right there with us in the tiny room.

But it was the last of the evening's activities--the least in keeping with the Sleep No More styling and the swanky attire--that inspired the most apparent delight: making shrinky dinks in a brightly light arts and crafts room. A room full of suddenly gleeful adults each took a piece of plastic and began drawing, finally waiting politely in line to shrink them in toaster ovens.

That concluded the program for the evening, though the party was scheduled to last for another two hours. Attendees dispersed accordingly to their activities of choice, to the photobooth and the dance floor--though the Shrinky Dink room remained popular as this reporter saw herself out.

*Disclosure.

A little less than a year after being acquired by Skype for an estimated $80 million, GroupMe's* founders Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci are still in startup mode. Today the company released "Experiences by GroupMe," the biggest expansion beyond its core group messaging function.

The service, which was released to select New York users this morning, offers groups of friends a handpicked list of events like, say, a concert, dinner, or UCB improv showcase in Central Park. Each event comes with an "I want to do this" button and lets users create a landing page with a unique URL to recruit friends to sign up. Experiences then lets you split the bill--using standard Visa, Amex, and Mastercard options that won't charge your card until all the spots have been reserved. Better still, GroupMe builds a group around the event for you to communicate with everyone who's attending.

"We own the experience end-to-end," Mr. Hecht told Betabeat over the phone.

The events and experiences space makes sense for a service that proved its utility to the masses at SXSW. But Mr. Hecht said this has actually been part of the plan since GroupMe first launched at TechCrunch Disrupt. They put together a product road map, "with the idea that we would ultimately want to get to a place where we could help groups of people make decisions better, where we could help them get together better in the real world and where we could ultimately help them buy things together."

For the privilege, GroupMe takes an "industry standard" percentage of gross sales for every Experience.

Beyond monetization, it doesn't hurt that Experiences also give people another reason to use GroupMe. "We really do believe that we have the most fun when we’re with our friends, doing activities, sharing moments, communicating with them in private," added Mr. Hecht.

There are also plans down the road for a self-service option, Mr. Martocci explained. "We’e starting with great curated stuff from our team, but we envision this going into things like empowering people to create their own experiences." Hopefully in time for summer-share season next year?

*Disclosure.

GroupMe, the humble startup that went from hackathon to $85 million exit in less than two years, is now officially owned by Microsoft. But they're still GroupMe from the block! The startup is offering a meet-and-greet through Sidetour, a TechStars startup trying to create a freelancer-powered activity market. "Talk Startups and Play Pinball With GroupMe" will set you back $20, which goes to benefit the HackNY startup internship program.

Hear the inside story behind their success straight from the founders, Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht.

Take a peak at GroupMe’s new Union Square office and chat with both of them to learn about life in the flourishing New York start-up community. Most of the team will be around for this special Happy Hour, where you’ll get a chance to throw back a few beers before putting your skills to the test on GroupMe’s famed Medieval Madness pinball machine.

No doubt there are some young entrepreneurs who would love to pick the GroupMe brain. The company is the first startup to list an activity on Sidetour, but we're sure we'll see more. Push-ups at SinglePlatform? StarCraft with Fitocracy? Tour of schmancy East Village eateries with Naveen Selvadurai?

Skillshare is also hosting classes from New York VCs and entrepreneurs who are donating the money to HackNY, with the goal of raising $15,000.

GroupMe co-founders Jared Hecht (left) and Steve Martocci (right), with GroupMe app model (and Mr. Hecht's fiance) Carrie Weprin.

"We feel fantastic! It's great. We feel very good about it, it's a really great thing for us," GroupMe co-founder Jared Hecht told Betabeat when we reached him this afternoon. Mr. Hecht sounded as polished and level-headed as usual, if not terribly articulate while co-founder Steve Martocci claimed to be recovering from last night's celebratory karaoke. The pair were in the backseat of a taxi on the way to film an interview about the 16-month old group messaging start-up's recently many-million dollar acquisition by  Skype. "GroupMe and Skype as a whole is just a positive thing."

When GroupMe first called Skype to explore potential partnerships a few months ago, Mr. Hecht had in mind something like adding a Skype-powered video chat feature to the GroupMe app. But as talks went on, the teams discovered they really liked each other! And, they started to realize, they had the same goals.

For Skype, on track to become a Microsoft property, Mr. Hecht said that vision is to become the "communication choice for a billion people across the globe," with a focus on families and people with close connections. Whereas for GroupMe, it's helping change the way people communicate with their "real-life network"--family and friends, real people in their lives.

It was a gradual decision to join Skype/Microsoft, Mr. Hecht said, but ultimately a "no brainer." GroupMe and its 20 employees will remain in New York and operate as an independent start-up within Skype/Microsoft. Mr. Hecht declined to say who else had been in talks to buy GroupMe, but implied Skype wasn't the only one interested. "We've always been exploring new opportunities," he demurred when Betabeat asked who's heart was broken when GroupMe chose Skype. "Interesting opportunities over there, other cool potential partnerships over there."

The already-prolific GroupMe team can iterate much faster with access to Skype's bazillion (north of 560 million registered users, about 175 million monthly users) and Microsoft's roughly brazillion dollars. It's a huge advantage over the other group texting applications, already far behind GroupMe in terms of branding and exposure--and, it's not too much of a leap to guess, user adoption as well.

"The GroupMe team has created an incredibly sticky group messaging experience that works across mobile devices and platforms, making it a perfect addition to our voice, video and text products," Skype CEO Tony Bates wrote on the company blog today. "We're excited about introducing their disruptive product to our global user base."

The co-founders will eventually become Microsoft employees, but they're not sure what their titles will be yet. Likewise, they couldn't say if or when GroupMe might be bundled into the Windows Phone 7 software. Integration will happen slowly over time as GroupMe continues to build out its product. Mr. Hecht mentioned casually that GroupMe and Skype see eye-to-eye on where "social" trends will be in five years. "They do not want to slow us down," Mr. Martocci said. "They don't want any kind of Microsoft integration to slow us down ... GroupMe is GroupMe, just business as usual just with a whole lot more traffic on the web."

Was Mr. Bates a GroupMe user, we were curious to know? "I think he was a GroupMe user when we met him," one of the co-founders answered. "We're in a group with him right now."

What's the group called? we asked.

"SkypeMe!"

The wizard Martocci casts a spell over Twitter (via Steve Spillman)

When the news broke yesterday evening that Skype acquired hometown start-up GroupMe, New York's digerati took the party to Twitter. Indeed the acquisition and its hefty price tag, which Betabeat's sources pegged between $50 million and $100 million, caused such a stir among a certain swath of tech circles that "GroupMe" even made into a New York City Twitter trending topic last night--albeit below penetrating questions plaguing tweeters such as, "Chris Brown OR Justin Bieber."

The deal was the first major exit for Lerer Ventures, Thrive Capital and BoxGroup's David Tisch, so much of the tweeting action consisted of ebullient pats on the back. But a few notes of skepticism arose from the din. In case you were too busy watching Libyan rebels end a 40-year dictatorship, here's what you missed.

Betaworks co-founder Andy Weissman couldn't help getting a little nostalgic, tweeting out:

"Fact: @jaredhecht and @smart named the original @GroupMe entity after a Disco Biscuits song, which I spelled wrong in our term sheet w/ them"

Followed by the even more humble:

"Other fact: I wouldnt originally take a meeting with @jaredhecht and @smart because, I wrote them, I wasn't "feeling" the product yet."

Lerer Ventures Jordan Cooper decided success was no time for humility, asking:

"@aweissman what Made you change your mind ?? ;)"

To which Mr. Weissman dutifully replied, albeit sans emoticon:

"@jordancooper a little birdy named Jordan"

Bnter's Lauren Leto pulled a pattern out of the M&A landscape, noting:

"the tradition of "any company @mattlanger is part of gets bought" continues."

Brew PR's Brooke Hammerling also noticed a pattern: the companies she represents have been pretty much killing it:

"Amazing to see the inner operations of such amazing teams. 1st, PayPal buys @Zong, now Skype buys @GroupMe. #humbled cc @BrewPR"

Silicon Valley Bank's Shai Goldman saw the deal as a boost for the city's new tech economy:

"GroupMe acq is great for NYC tech scene 1) Founders are now experienced successful entrepreneurs 2) Founders will likely be angel investors"

Although he agonized over how the valuation might sway other starry-eyed local start-ups:

"Groupme $85M acquisition is going to provide a false sense of value to other startups "I'm a 1 year old mobile startup, so I'm worth x"

Poornima Vijayashanker, who left Mint after the company was acquired to launch BizeeBee, concurred:

"@shaig yeah that's very true! hype is an interesting phenomenon. being a startup u have to know what ur worth, when to sell & whom to sell 2"

Lean Start-up Machine founder Trevor Owens wondered whether the acquisition changed venture capitalist Mark Suster's mind about GroupMe's business proposition:

"@msuster what do you think of groupme now?"

Mr. Suster tweeted out that it hadn't:

"@to2 same as I always did. Great product. Well marketed. Group texting on its own not a company"

Mr. Owens wanted to know more:

"@msuster would love to know your thoughts on how/when features can become a business"

But while Mr. Suster promised a blog post on the subject, ff ventures' John Frankel jumped into the fray:

"@to2 Features become a product when they generate revenues. They then become a business when revenues exceed costs. cc @msuster"

Brooklyn techie Jonathan Wegener thoughtfully contemplated his own role in closing the deal:

"I like to think the acquisition happened because I decided to wear my @groupme shirt today."

GroupMe community manager (and friend of Betabeat) Steve Spilllman couldn't help but see the romance:

"What a big day- first the Kardashian wedding and now comes news that groupme is marrying skype."

Meanwhile, David Tisch was more preoccupied with how GroupMe's Pat Nakajima figured into the $50 million plus figure:

"Wondering what the price for @nakajima was in the @groupme deal…"

According to Mr. Nakajima some imposter tweeting under the totally fake Twitter account @PatNakajima, he may have made a killing:

"I got a sweet deal. 47 signed Taylor Swift CDs!"

Entrepreneur and former VC Steve Cheney was already thinking about the road ahead, tweeting just the word "Skype!" followed by:

"Next stop: monetization."

But the GroupMe team were too busy belting their hearts out at karaoke to hear him, at least according to Ms. Hammerling's tweet:

"This is happening. Cc @GroupMe@BrewPR@nakajima@PatNakajima"

Hopefully somebody snuck in Steve Martocci's bottle of Johnnie Walker blue.

Disclosure.

Bachelorette 25 + Bachelor 18 = Magic

Betabeat pulled an all-nighter in midtown last night. First a quick roll at the Renzo Gracie's academy, then back to the office for a dinner of street meat, change into our game face, and off to the Hudson Hotel at West 58th for GroupMe's one year anniversary party.

The first person we recognized entering the cavernous basement space was GroupMe co-founder Steve Martocci. Happy anniversary, brah.

"Dude, you like Talking Heads?"

Who doesn't?

"We got this Talking Heads cover band, just finished their first set. They're amazing." Never forget, GroupMe was inspired by Martocci's troubles communicating with his friends and fellow fans who were following the Disco Biscuits around on tour.

The circle widened to reveal two of New York media's eligible free agents chatting it up. "You want a drink," offered bachelor # 18, TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid, the smell of sweet California sun still lingering around the newly-minted New Yorker. "Yes please," replied bachelorette number #25, Megan McCarthy, who left San Fran a few months before Mr. Kincaid to run MediaGazer.

Betabeat joined Mr. Kincaid at the bar, which was free Heinekens, but cash the rest of the way. A little disappointing since last time we were at the Hudson, (for TechCrunch Disrupt afterparty, natch), hard liquor was free. But hey, the start-up winter cometh, and not everyone can spend paper like AOL.

A pair of tall, striking brunettes noticed us at the bar. One of them had met Mr. Kincaid at an event a few months prior. "I saw you were on the bachelors list," she said with a mischevious grin. Mr. Kincaid smiled at Betabeat, and offered to buy this round of drinks.

GroupMe super-meme and Free Agent Mashup artist Matt Langer strolled over, cleanly shaven and sporting a dapper suit. Mr. Langer explained that he couldn't find the right algorithm to parse the text from the male and female suitors, but the end result, a sort of dada-ist dating language, definitely hit the right note. "I think it was like 2am when I pushed the site live and I was pretty drunk, but people seem to like it."

Schematic Labs CEO Steve Jang, who makes the popular @SoundTracking app, joined the circle, along with Aviary's Biz Dev wizard Alex Taub. "Dude, Aviary saved my life," Mr. Jang declared. He has been at his brother's wedding in Mexico, and was in charge of running the "fond memories" slideshow that played during the reception. But the program he was using only worked if the music track fit the length of the visuals. "I jumped on Aviary on the hotel computer, went into the audio editor, and spliced the song to repeat a second time." Remember kids, HTML5 saves lives and marriages.

@stevejang, @Megan and @chelsa

Betaworks Director of Finance and Operations Antonia Abraham stopped by to say hello. "Ron Conway is up in the VIP room. He is sitting by himself at a table. It was like, very VIP," she said with a laugh. Betabeat learned we had been on media blackout from Betaworks, based on some clueless posts we wrote when we first started covering tech for the NY Observer. Luckily our recent piece on patent trolls, seems to have earned back a bit of goodwill. "I think you're officially off the hit list."

Emboldened by that knowledge, Betabeat snuck up into the VIP section to find Mr. Conway, who sadly had already skeedaddled. We watched the band storm through a rendition of Once in a Lifetime, with dozens of NYC techies flailing on the dance floor. A quick discussion on the finer points of how to avoid gross pick-up artists on the street with the charming @chelsa (we both agree, headphones, even without sound) and then it was back to the Observer offices for a well deserved sleep on @espiers couch. On the way out, we heard a Jumo employee was looking for Betabeat, hoping to give a fist bump.

Not here yet, but getting close.

When GroupMe co-founder Steve Martocci threw out his desk chair for a Bosu ball to lose "the founder fifteen," we had an inkling it was only the beginning. After all, at least some of those early Fitocracy adopters had to be coming from inside the tech scene. Then we found out Michael Galpert--Aviary's own, personal self-quantifying fiend--was trying to foster (healthy!) competition in the workplace through a shared employee database measuring weight loss down to the pound.

But ff Venture Captial partner David Teten has really gone and done it. He emailed Betabeat to let us know that that ff's new ergonomically-optimized 5,000 sq. ft. office space on 6th Avenue can basically tell GroupMe's single Bosu ball can suck it, although not in so many words.

In a blog post that reads not unlike a motivational sermon, Mr. Teten explains that, like any good techie, ff was aiming for disruption, namely of the broken white collar model of sitting at a desk for 8-12 hours and thinking that three gym sessions a week can offset that. (Based on the massive crick in our neck that doesn't show any signs of healing, we're with him on that.)

Mr. Teten explains that since they had the luxury of building the space from scratch for ff's team and portfolio companies like Parse.ly and Phone.com, they did it with a few maxims in mind. Motion over statis. Standing over sitting. No added costs to living well. And flat surfaces. Did you know, for example, that "up to a third of women suffer permanent problems as a result of their prolonged wearing of heels, ranging from hammer toes and bunions to irreversible damage to leg tendons"? We wish we could forget it!

In any case, here are just some of the amenities ff staffers and its start-ups can expect: "a standing desk with anti-fatigue comfort mat," conference rooms with ball chairs, hand grippers (for flexing during tense term sheet phone calls), pedometers, wobble boards, and "walking meetings." Although those are technically outside the office.

Did we say the craze was official? Maybe we meant officially crazy.