By Kelly Faircloth 5/01 3:10pm

Ride or Die

Look out, Jay! (Photo: screencap)

Hailo’s Now Approved for the TLC’s Taxi App Pilot, But Sidecar Sure Isn’t

Guess the Taxi and Limousine Commission is willing to let bygones be bygones. Last week, Hailo launched a “beta test” of its ehail app; almost as quickly, the TLC said that actually Uber was the only company that’d officially been accepted into the pilot program, meaning Hailo had no clearance to operate. But at a TechCrunch Disrupt panel this morning, CEO Jay Bregman announced they’ve got the go-ahead and will begin operations today.

He got a couple of minutes to shine, calling for a round of applause for the TLC, before the panel turned into a tiff between the TLC’s Ashwini Chhabra and Sidecar CEO Sunil Paul. Read More

By Jordan Valinsky 5/01 11:26am

TechCrunch Disrupt

The future of news. (Photo: Instagram/Owen Thomas)

Rap Genius Will Now Save Journalism Thanks to ‘News Genius’

The bros from Rap Genius opened up the final day of TechCrunch Disrupt NY with a very special announcement. They’re launching soon a new vertical called News Genius, which follows the paradigm of Rap Genius. However, instead of analyzing 2 Chainz lyrics, the site will explain news-related clippings and documents. That sort of sounds like journalism!

“I want Barack Obama to explain the news, the constitution and Jay-Z’s ‘99 Problems,’” semi-joked cofounder Mahbog Moghadam, adding that “there has to be a legal explanation behind that.” The site, which was the idea of investor/”godfather” Ben Horowitz, has already softly launched judging by its Twitter account. Read More

By Gary Sharma 4/29 9:20am

Goooood Morning Silicon Alley!

sponsor_garys_red_tie_new

Best Tech Events This Week (TechCrunch Disrupt, IDEAS CITY, TechCocktail, Database Month, NYC BigApps, Queens Tech Meetup, Startup Grind)

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.

Get ready, people! Summer blockbuster season Read More

By Gary Sharma 4/22 9:30am

Goooood Morning Silicon Alley!

sponsor_garys_red_tie_new

Best Tech Events This Week (NY Tech Day, ERA Demo Day, Disrupt Hackathon, #ArtsTech, Brooklyn Tech Meetup, TechDrinkup, BigApps)

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 was cool to shake hands with astronaut Ron Garan at the NASA Space Apps Hackathon this weekend! Congrats to NYC SpaceCal and Tiny Sea Bots, who’ll be going on to the global competition, as well as all the other honorees:  Droid Hopper, Chillin’ On Mars, Versioning Goat, Asteroid Mapper, Star Map Sculpture, WhyWeExplore, Spacerac.es and Le Big Blue.

This Thursday is NY Tech Day (a.k.a. the world’s largest startup event). Free mocktails from BuzzTheBar when you walk in! Don’t forget the after-parties, like the Big Data bash with Knewton and Get Acquainted with Acquaintable.

This Friday is the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day. Good luck to all! Read More

By Gary Sharma 2/11 8:49am

Goooood Morning Silicon Alley!

sponsor_garys_red_tie_at_sxsw_2013

Best Tech Events This Week (HackInteractive, TechCrunch NYC, OnDeck Sports Conference, One of a Kind, Decoded Fashion, Columbia PE/VC Conference)

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.

First things first: Stop reading this and go watch “House of Cards” on Netflix. Yup, it’s that good. You’re welcome!

Back? Okay! Hope y’all survived the weekend #snow-pocalypse (a.k.a. Nemo) and had a blast sledding in the park, hurling snowballs at each other and making elaborate snow sculptures. Here’s an awesome Vine mashup of the storm that my friends Kelsey and Steve made.

Now that you’ve had your winter fun, it’s time to get ready for spring. And that can only mean one thing: internships! That’s right. It’s that time of the year again, when bright-eyed young kids will be running around your offices eager to learn the ropes, change the world, and…err… get you your early-morning fix of decaf-grande-mocha-soy lattes.  So, who’s looking for interns? Everybody, that’s who! Squarespace, Metamorphic Ventures, UrbanDaddy, HowAboutWe, ff Ventures, MoviePass, Birchbox, Artsicle, Learnvest and many, many more. Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/05/12 11:25am

Kickstarted

Ms. Hu (lark.com)

Dismissive VCs Drive Hardware Startups Straight to Kickstarter

Imagine that you invented this really cool wristband alarm clock, and you think it could be a real ‘disruptive’ technology. You spend months mocking up a presentation to give to investors at TechCrunch Disrupt, but on the morning of your demo, rich assholes incapable of summoning empathy shit all over your startup, simply because it’s a hardware idea.

That’s pretty much exactly what happened to Julia Hu, the cofounder of Lark, according to CNN. Napster bad boy Sean Parker literally laughed her off the stage:

Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 2:30pm

Find Meee

Mr. Martin just a year ago. (Photo: Getty/AOL)

Sonar Adds New Features, Wants to Be Your ‘Here-Now’ Social Network

The news just keeps rolling out of TechCrunch Disrupt. (Guys, please save us a few stories for next week.) Sonar.me debuted last year on the battlefield and came close to taking home the grand prize. Today, they’re debuting several new features with the goal of becoming your “here-now social network.” Here’s what’s new: First off, they’re adding tweet-like status messages, which’ll show up for friends and other relevant people nearby. They’re also adding notifications, so connections’ll get a ping when you show up nearby. (They’ll see your status message.) You can also now privately message someone who shows up in your vicinity. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/22/12 4:05pm

TechCrunch Disrupt

We tried to find a picture of Mr. Blodget with a puppy but could not.

HERE ARE HENRY BLODGET’S 5 BEST ZINGERS FROM TECHCRUNCH DISRUPT

Guys, Henry Blodget is mad entertaining. He is especially entertaining when he gets going on the subject of new media and its best/worst practices. The man charged into his mid-morning TechCrunch Disrupt panel on the matter with guns blazing, apparently ready to defend to the death “linkbait” and whatever else you might want to take issue with, by God.

Of course, he had reason to come ready to rumble. Joining Mr. Blodget on the stage were TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis, BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti, and Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera. An illustrative moment: Ms. Tsotsis asked the panelists what they see as new media worst practices; Mr. Peretti offered up, for one thing, sites that arrange headlines and bylines to “look like it came from writers at that site who actually don’t write for that site.” “Any specific examples?” Ms. Tsotsis asked rather pointedly. Business Insider’s name slipped out into the conversation (though we didn’t quite catch who said it.) Also, note the lede on the TechCrunch coverage of the panel.

Mr. Blodget responded with a barrage that made us very thankful he was not, let’s say, our Little League coach.  Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 5/22/12 2:51pm

TechCrunch Disrupt

Mr. Borthwick

Betaworks CEO John Borthwick Refuses to Stir the Pot, Until He Does (A Little)

After a brief interlude, wherein an organizer appealed to whichever publicity-seeking startup might have released the still-chattering bird high aloft in the rafters, TechCrunch marched onward. M.G. Siegler (formerly of TechCrunch, currently of CrunchFund) opened with what sounded like an invitation to coffee, rattling off the overlap between their respective organizations’ portfolios and concluding, ”We should probably talk more.” Betaworks CEO John Borthwick didn’t bite: ”We probably should, but we’re doing just fine.” He also added rather pointedly that, “as you know, we are not a fund,” though Betaworks, of course, has investments.

Mr. Borthwick proceeded to, at Mr. Siegler’s inquiry as to how they work with investors on the sunnier side of the country, essentially dismiss any notions of conflict: ”This bicoastal thing, I think it’s fun and games” but added that “the market is bigger because of the complementary skills that both coasts offer the market and entrepreneurs and so it’s not, it’s fun to sort of pit one coast against the other, but companies are better for having East Coast and West Coast investors.” Some companies might be a better fit for one coast or the other or both, but regardless, more options are better.  Read More