Look out, Jay! (Photo: screencap)

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.

The source of the tension: Just last weekend, two Sidecar drivers were busted by NYPD as part of a TLC "sting operation," and Mr. Paul is apparently still fighting mad. "Let's be really clear: the TLC protects the taxi industry, and I don't think anyone in their right mind can deny that fact." This received a smattering of applause from the audience. Mr. Paul went on to argue that "it is the regulation of taxis that is an illegal restraint of trade."

"Regulators always come out with, 'Oh, this is a public safety matter.' Really? Why are practically all the questions we get about how much money we make, what's the business model" rather than about safety.

Mr. Chhabra, however, pointed out that the TLC has seized something like 800 cars this month, making the Sidecar drivers just a drop in the bucket. "That's the enforcement we have to do to make sure that when you stumble out of a bar at two in the morning, that the car youre getting into, someone has done the background check."

Caught in the middle, Mr. Bregman tried a little moderating. "You can be disruptive without being abrasive."

"Are you talking about anyone in particular?" asked Mr. Lawler.  He backtracked: "No no no, not anybody in particular--I love you Sunil."

"I'm a pretty mild-mannered guy most of the time. I'm just upset," Mr. Paul responded. Though as the panel closed, he had this parting shot: "If you're going to be disruptive, you've got to be willing to piss people off."

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

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.

As for Mr. Horowitz, the guys only had (and not surprisingly) praise for him: “We consider him a bro, not some Uncle Moneybags,” confessed cofounder Tom Lehman.

The LMFAO music video extras also hinted at future plans for their freshly funded company. Although offering few details, they plan to entice more rappers to enter its Verified Artists program. Pop rapper Mac Miller is already a fan--they revealed that he stopped by the RG’s HQ last night, but sadly they couldn’t chill with him for too long because they had Disrupt in the morning.

“The biggest pleasure of Rap Genius is when you have a verified account and you’re explaining your own shit,” summed up Mr. Moghadam

The guys also announced there’s going to be a freshman freshman literature class conducted in association with Rap Genius at Columbia University. They’re already annotating some classics like War and Peace, The Iliad and The Odyssey. “I consider Rap Genius to be a tuition-free university,” said Mr. Moghadam.

The panel wrapped-up with a quote that doesn’t need any explanation: "If you wanna ball major, you've gotta fucking drink the Kool-Aid,” said Mr. Moghadam.

Talk about baller status.

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 is almost here, and first up is the much-anticipated Iron Man 3, which opens Friday. It already had a monster international opening ($195M in five days from 42 territories) and is the number-one film in every market. With Cinco de Mayo also on Sunday, this is going to be one fun, crazy weekend! ;)

Wanna hang out with David Aronoff (Flybridge Capital), Brad Svrluga (High Peaks Venture Partners), Andrew Cleland (Comcast Ventures) and other top investors at the Funding the Best in Global Innovation conference? Of course you do! Well, you're in luck, because I have two free passes to the event. Hit me up!

Angelhack (a.k.a. the largest global hackathon competition) is back, yo! And this time it'll take place in Brooklyn. Last year's Angelhack NYC winner was selected for the AngelPad SF incubator. The event is on June 1. Get your tickets today (and get 35 percent off with discount code GG).

This month is Database Month, which means a bunch of cool database related events. Don't miss the Office Ninja Tech Mixer & Showcase on May 2 ($5 off with code iAMninja), Innovating for the Connected Home, Living Room and TV on May 7 (hosted by Mashable, Verizon & MIT Enterprise Forum) and the Founder and the Entity also on May 7 (learn team building and evaluating the right entity structure).

If you wanna apply to be a teacher for TEALS (a grassroots program recruiting software engineers to teach computer science to high school students), applications are due by May 1. Applications for NYC Seed Start's 3rd Accelerator class are also due by May 5, plus there's an info session this evening.

Submissions for the Innovation By Design Awards are due by May 6. The awards, a celebration of the year’s most inspiring design work, are brought to you by Fast Company and Co.Design. Finalists will be featured in the October issue of Fast Company.

Summer Stage (a program of the City Parks Foundation) is looking for an app to engage its 280,000+ attendees at an annual summer-long festival. Deadline to apply is May 8.

Wanna leverage your enterprise tech experience and smarts to advise and mentor startups? Well then, check out this initiative by the NY Enterprise Tech meetup.

Could you go offline--100% unplugged, no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even Google--for a year? Sounds crazy, right? Well thats exactly what The Verge's Paul Miller did. He's now returning in a couple of days; what do you think he missed? Live event Tuesday at 11pm.

And finally, I'm no expert, but GarysGuide member Jennifer has pointed out that this is apparently THE time to go check out the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

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

TechCrunch Disrupt NY
Rockstar speaker list including Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures), Dennis Crowley (Foursquare), David Karp (Tumblr), Chris Dixon (Andreessen Horowitz), Bill Gurley (Benchmark), Jonah Peretti (Buzzfeed) and others.
Monday (Apr. 29), 9 a.m. @ The Manhattan Center, 311 W. 34th Street

Startup Grind NYC
With Bob Dorf (author, The Startup Owner's Manual)
Monday (Apr. 29), 6 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

Himelberg Speaker Series
The Story of Chobani Yogurt with founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya (a.k.a. "the Steve Jobs of yogurt")
Monday (Apr. 29), 6 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 W. 4th Street, 11th Fl.

NYC SeedStart Enterprise Accelerator: Info Session
Monday (Apr. 29), 7 p.m. @ NYU-Poly Incubator, 137 Varick Street, 2nd Fl.

US Israel Business Council (USI) Presents: TechCrunch Innovation Roadshow
Meet 17 Israeli and Brazilian startups participating at TechCrunch Disrupt. Panelists include Brian Feinstein (Bessemer), Roi Carthy (Initial Capital) and Ron Yekutiel (CEO, Kaltura).
Tuesday (Apr. 30), 6 p.m. @ Morgan Stanley, 1985 Broadway

IDEAS CITY Conference
Exploring the future of cities. Keynote by Joi Ito (Director, MIT Media Lab)
Wednesday (May 1), 9 a.m. @ The Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 E. 7th Street

[Database Month] Future of 21st Century Databases
With Eliot Horowitz (cofounder & CTO, 10gen / MongoDB), Barry Morris (founder & CEO, NuoDB) and Bob Wiederhold (president & CEO, Couchbase).
Wednesday (May 1), 6:30 p.m. @ AOL, 770 Broadway, 6th Fl.

TechCocktail NYC Mixer & Startup Showcase
Thursday (May 2), 6:30 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

Queens Tech Meetup 7
Mobile Tech with Sonar, WeHostels, Uber, Tracks and AT&T.
Thursday (May 2), 7 p.m. @ Hunter's Point Plaza, 47-40 21st Street, 10th Fl., Long Island City

Insight@NYU
With Justin Stefano (cofounder & co-CEO, Refinery29), Jason Baptiste (founder, OnSwipe), Zeeshan Zaidi (founder, HostCommittee), Gregory Besner (CFO, SecondMarket) and others.
Friday (May 3), 9:30 a.m. @ Helena & Martin Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square S.

Mothers (hack) Day
A one-day hackathon to build apps for your moms.
Saturday (May 4), 8:30 a.m. @ The Alley NYC, 500 7th Ave, 17th Fl.

NYC BigApps Healthy Living + Lifelong Learning Hackathon
Mega-hackathon, taking over two floors of the Huffington Post, for teams competing in two competition tracks: Healthy Living and Lifelong Learning. $10,000 in prizes. Nice!
Saturday (May 4), 10 a.m. @ Huffington Post, 770 Broadway

More events on the horizon...
Innovating for the Connected TV, Living Room and Home on May 7 @ Hotel Yotel
Women Entrepreneurs Rock the World 2013 on May 8 @ Altman Building
New York Digital Health Accelerator Demo Day on May 8 @ The TimesCenter
Investor Feedback Forum on May 9 @ Microsoft
Funding the Best in Global Innovation III on May 16 @ Dentons
NYC Tech Picnic - 2013 Kick Off on May 19 @ Chelsea Piers, Pier 63
Opportunities for Mobile UX in Complex Business Models on May 23 @ Venue
AngelHack NYC - Spring 2013 on Jun 1 @ Huge Inc

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.

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!

Next week is the Digital Content NewFronts where the likes of Google, Yahoo, Hulu, AOL and others will be showcasing original video content. Also coming up on May 7 is Innovating for the Connected Home, Living Room & TV, hosted by Mashable, Verizon and the MIT Enterprise Forum. It'll focus on ideas for new products and services for today’s high-speed-connected home.

Deadlines: April 30 is the last day to apply for the Co.Labs and Target Retail Accelerator. The winner gets a cool $75,000 and the chance to work with a leading innovator in the retail space, plus seven finalists will get $10,000 each. Applications for Matchpoint East are due April 29. It's an exclusive opportunity for health-tech entrepreneurs to meet large stakeholders like Kaiser, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Aetna. Yup, that can open doors! Innovate Health is also inviting locals to develop commercially viable technologies for urgent healthcare problems. Deadline is May 2.

Plus, the deadline for the National STEM Video Game Challenge has been extended to May 1. Last but not least, don't forget that the 30 percent early-bird discount (code: 'garysguide') for the Funding The Best In Global Innovation Conference expires May 1.

If you go to lots of conferences and events (like I do), I'd recommend you check out an app called Bizzabo. Its goal is to maximize your networking and help you discover new business opportunities. With TechCrunch Disrupt and Internet Week coming up, this might be just the ticket!  :)

You know what I'm excited about? The CitiBike Share Program, that's what. I think I can see myself riding a CitiBike around town--though maybe wearing my suit and red tie and riding a bike sounds a bit crazy. But hey, this is New York City. Registration for the program is now open. They launch in May so get a jump on it, people!

And finally, today is April 22, so Happy Earth Day, y'all! Hopefully Elon Musk will soon figure out a way to get us to Mars. But until then, remember we only have one planet to live on. So let's take good care of it!

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

The Phat Startup Presents: Music Tech, Funding & Branding in Hip Hop
Q&A with MICK (previously known as DJ Mick Boogie), who has worked with some of the most talented artists in the world including Jay-Z, Eminiem, Alchemist, Talib Kweili and Mobb Deep.
Monday (Apr. 22), 6 p.m. @ SkillShare HQ, 407 Broome Street

Mobile Health: from smart phone apps and sensor streams to behavioral biomarkers
A discussion on mobile health followed by a reception. With Professor Deborah Estrin (Professor of Computer Science, Cornell Tech Campus and Professor of Public Health, Weill Cornell Medical College)
Tuesday (Apr. 23), 5 p.m. @ NYU Africa House, 14A Washington Mews

NYC Data Business Meetup #15
With Alex Hawkinson (CEO, SmartThings), Peter Semmelhack (CEO, Bug Labs), Jon Bruner (O'Reilly), Steve Schlafman (Lerer Ventures) and Phin Barnes (First Round Capital).
Tuesday (Apr. 23), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Ave, 7th Floor

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
With Aswini Anburajan (Director of Partnership Development, BuzzFeed) and Ky Harlin (Data Scientist, BuzzFeed). Demos by Montaj and Feely.
Wednesday (Apr. 24), 7 p.m. @ Brooklyn Law School Feil Hall, 205 State Street, 22nd Fl., Brooklyn

#techdrinkup - Open Bar Party - NY tech + SF tech for Immigration Reform
Helping raise awareness for March for Innovation, a seriously awesome cause helping steer immigration reform to help the tech community big time.
Wednesday (Apr. 24), 8 p.m. @ The Hudson Bond, 215 W. 40th Street

NY Tech Day
A massive science fair for entrepreneurs to exhibit their startups to thousands of consumers, investors, first adopters, job-seekers, major companies, press and media.
Thursday (Apr. 25), 10 a.m. @ Pier 92, 711 12th Avenue

NY Tech Day After-Party: Big Data Bash
With Knewton and BuzzTheBar. Complementary cocktails for the first 50 guests and 50 drink codes will be given away at the Knewton booth.
Thursday (Apr. 25), 5:30 p.m. @ Hudson Common at Hudson Hotel, 356 W. 58th Street

NYC BigApps Rackspace Pitch & Projects
Learn about telling stories, purpose driven development & nailing your pitches & projects. With Cameron Koczon (BrooklynBeta and TeuxDeux)
Thursday (Apr. 25), 6:30 p.m. @ Harvest, 16 W. 22nd Street, 8th Fl.

Business Development and E-Retail
With Amy Jain (BaubleBar), Dana Mauriello (Etsy), Amanda Peyton (Grand St), Adam Schwartz (Bustedtees), Justin Semine (Harrys) and Alex Taub (Dwolla). Moderated by Eric Batscha (AppNexus).
Thursday (Apr. 25), 7 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street, 4th Fl.

Music Startup Meetup: Entrepreneur Stories - Rap Genius
With Mahbod Moghadam (Cofounder, RapGenius)
Thursday (Apr. 25), 7 p.m. @ Union Square Ventures, 915 Broadway, 19th Fl.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day
By invitation only. Startups include Acquaintable, Cognical, Consignd, EasyPairings, Monaeo, Startist, Suitey, TheSquareFoot, Trendalytics and Vocalize.
Friday (Apr. 26), 8:30 a.m. @ IAC, 555 W. 18th Street

Start-Up City Conference
With Scott M. Stringer (Manhattan Borough President), Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) and NYC Mayoral Candidates.
Friday (Apr. 26), 8:30 a.m. @ New York Law School, 185 W. Broadway

#ArtsTech Unconference
With Daniel Doubrovkine (Artsy), Kathryn Jones (Virtual Arts), Ariele Krantzow (Wix), Cesar Kuriyama (1 Second Everyday), Allison Goldberg & Jen Jamula (Blogologues) and others.
Saturday (Apr. 27), 9 a.m. @ AOL HQ, 770 Broadway

TechCrunch Disrupt NY Hackathon
The hack is back and better than ever!
Saturday (Apr. 27), 12:30 p.m. @ Manhattan Center, 311 W. 34th Street

Tribeca Hacks Festival
Discover the projects created over 48 hours at the inaugural Tribeca Film Festival hackathon. Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres will be served.
Sunday (Apr. 28), 6 p.m. @ Center for Social Innovation, 601 W. 26th Street, #325

More events on the horizon...
Entering the European Market: Lessons from Serial Entrepreneur & Investor Jos White on May 1 @ Venue
Office Ninjas Tech Mixer & Showcase on May 2 @ Alley NYC
Innovating for the Connected TV, Living Room and Home on May 7 @ Hotel Yotel
May 2013 NY Tech Meetup on May 7 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Funding the Best in Global Innovation III on May 16 @ SNR Denton
NYC Tech Picnic - 2013 Kick Off on May 19 @ Chelsea Piers, Pier 63
AngelHack NYC - Spring 2013 on Jun 1 @ Huge Inc

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.

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.

Want $40,000, four months of free office space and access to Esther Dyson, Jeff Stewart, David Pakman and John Frankel? Well, duh. You, my friend, need to apply to the awesome ERA Accelerator, pronto! Deadline is March 7.

Speaking of accelerators, DreamIt is holding a meet-and-greet event next Wednesday, where you'll get to meet some of their partners, alumni and heavy hitters. In more accelerator news, west coast pirate Dave McClure and his merry band of 500 Startuppers will be coming ashore this Friday to give us all a little taste of what they've been building at their Demo Day. And in still more accelerator news, The New York Times Company  is launching timeSpace, a new incubator initiative to bring entrepreneurs to their HQ for four months to refine and grow their businesses. They're looking for three to five early-stage companies focused on the media space with a product launched. Deadline is February 19.

Applications to the 2013 TechCrunch NYC Disrupt Startup Battlefield are open. Deadline is February 22. TechCrunch is also holding a pitch-off competition + meetup tomorrow.

Congrats to the Drobe team for winning the Hearst Fashion Hackathon yesterday!

Don't forget, if you wanna help the city reinvent the payphone, submit your prototype idea by February 18. And if you wanna hang with Zac Posen 'n Dennis Crowley at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, I have an extra pass. Email me if interested.

AIPAC Technology Division is having its launch event on February 27 at Bloomberg HQ, featuring Dan Senor (co-author of Start-Up Nation: Story of Israel's Economic Miracle). AIPAC Tech's host committee includes Alan Patricof (Greycroft), Avi Fogel (NY Angels), Jordan Levy (SoftBank) and others.

Startup Bus (where you get on a bus with 30 strangers and hack your way across America) is going to SXSW. Here's your invite code. Got questions? Email Jon Gottfried, your StartupBus East Coast Conductor!

As you all know, red is my favorite color (gasp, surprise). And lately it's been everywhere, from the red carpet at the Grammys last night to the red roses many of you are getting on Valentine's Day and, of course, red is the color for Chinese New Year. To all my friends who celebrate, Gong Xi Fa Cai! (and hope you get lots of Red envelopes ;-))

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

On Deck Sports and Technology Conference
With rockstar list of speakers including Bob Bowman (MLB Advanced Media), Tiki Barber (former NFL), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Ben Lerer (Lerer Ventures), Ryan Spoon (ESPN Digital Media) and others.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 8 a.m. @ Bohemian National Hall, 321 E. 73rd Street

Cocktails & Conversation
85 Broads invites you for cocktails and conversation with Joanne Wilson (angel investor) & Rohini Dey (restaurateur).
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6 p.m. @ Vermilion, 480 Lexington Avenue

TechCrunch NYC Meetup
60-second pitch-off competition for entrepreneurs looking to launch their product at the Disrupt conference in May. Plus there's beer. Enough said.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6 p.m. @ Santos Party House, 96 Lafayette Street

NY Enterprise Technology Meetup
Demos by Aerohive Networks, DataSift, MapR Technologies, Datadog and Videolicious.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas

Startup Weekend Strategic Partnership Series
With Nancy Jo (VP Strategy & Biz Dev, Bravo Digital Media), Leora Schacter (VP Digital Strategy and Planning, Food Network) and Ryan Osbourne (VP Digital Innovations, NBC News).
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Digital Disruption: Media in Non-Profits
With William Baker (President Emeritus WNET / Channel 13 PBS), Don Undeen (Media Lab, Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Suzy Gooch (Director, Metropolitan Opera).
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 6 p.m. @ McMahon Hall, 155 W. 60th Street, #109

NYC Real Estate Technology Startups Demos
With Efrem Weiss (PivotDesk), Oisin Hanrahan (Handybook) and Nate Friedman (Living There).
Wednesday (Feb 13), 6:30 p.m. @ TechStars NYC, 36 Cooper Square, 6th Fl.

Visas for Startups: A Panel on Immigration Policy and Entrepreneurship
With Jeremy Robbins (Director, Office of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg), Michael Wildes (Wildes & Weinberg), Owen Davis (NYC Seed), Cyrus Mehta and moderated by Professor Jonathan Askin (Brooklyn Law).
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 7 p.m. @ Geraldo's Cafe at Brooklyn Law, 205 State St, 1st Fl., Feil Hall, Brooklyn

One Of A Kind Party
Open Bar / Clothes Donation by StartupThreads, Amicus, AlleyNYC & Coalition for Queens.
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 8 p.m. @ 1Oak, 453 W. 17th Street

Decoded Fashion - Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week
Keynotes by Zac Posen (fashion designer) and Dennis Crowley (Founder & CEO, Foursquare), as well as the fashion hackathon finale. The top three ideas will be presented on the runway and the winning app will be launched by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Thursday (Feb. 14), 9 a.m. @ Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th Street

Columbia Business School 19th Annual PE/VC Conference
Keynote by Steve Case (chairman & CEO, Revolution and cofounder, America Online)
Friday (Feb. 15), 9 a.m. @ Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University, 2920 Broadway

HackInteractive
An education-themed, code-for-a-cause hackathon. Amazing prizes, access to awesome APIs, and delicious food. Hack the weekend to benefit CampInteractive’s programming. Hosted by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.
Saturday (Feb. 16), 9 a.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
NY Tech for Local Business Meetups Social Media Week event: SoLoCo on Feb. 18 @ Wix Lounge
NYTECH Presents: Killer Strategies from the Worlds Greatest Innovators on Feb. 19 @ Morgan Stanley
Business Design & Tech Transforming The World on Feb. 19 @ Centre For Social Innovation Pop-Up Space
Funding the Best in Global Innovation II on Feb. 20 @ SNR Denton
Get To Know DreamIt - NYC on Feb 20. @ Bulls Head Tavern
NJ Tech Meetup 33 on Feb. 21 @ Howe Center
Unleash the Beast: How to Hack a Hackathon Save the World and Make Your Parents Proud on Feb. 21 @ Internet Media Labs
Fireside Chat with Kickstarter Cofounder Charles Adler on Feb. 21 @ Meetup HQ
Analytics Roundtable on Feb. 26 @ SNR Denton
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/ Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower
2nd Annual NYU Entrepreneurs Festival on Mar. 1 @ Tisch Hall
NYC EDU Startup Weekend on Mar. 1 @ Alley NYC

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

Ms. Hu (lark.com)

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:

"That was a charmingly quirky presentation, but I'm not sure," said Sean Parker, a serial entrepreneur and partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund. "I mean, is this a company?"

Hu's pitch, made at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010, didn't dazzle any of the investors on the panel. Almost laughing, Parker added: "I just have a hard time believing you're serious."

Ms. Hu picked herself back up and took her project to Kickstarter, where she raised all the necessary funds and even gained the attention of Apple, which now sells her product in its stores.

CNN reports that hardware startups--like the infamous Pebble--are swarming Kickstarter in impressive droves, due in part to the risk factors associated with hardware that tend to keep VCs at bay. As CNN writes, "SV Angel partner David Lee puts it bluntly: Venture capitalists are 'allergic to hardware.'"

We reported on this phenomenon last month, when we noticed that spots for Disrupt's Hardware Alley filled up much faster than usual. CNN puts it more succinctly: "We're becoming our own venture capitalists."

Of course, not everyone can be as successful as Ms. Hu or the Pebble crew, but sometimes it's worth a shot. After all, we're getting so sick of apps.

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

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. On top of all that, you can now run the app in the background, meaning you don't have to check in or sign on for your friends to see you're around. That should make it a lot easier for Sonar to convince, let's say, locked-in Foursquare users that they might want to try the service. (Although now you’ll just have another thing you need to remember to turn off if you’d like to make a solitary beer run un-accosted or without hurting someone’s feelings.) Founder Brett Martin told Betabeat the changes were about realizing that here-now vision. "There’s a lot of people, you know, apps that are telling you there are strangers nearby, or telling you that there is someone who also likes boating around the corner," he said. "And so we’re trying to say, 'How do we build a communications platform to connect and share with the people, you know, firiends and interesting people, here right now.'" The new features are designed to advance that goal, he told us. The status message in particular is "like a tweet, but directed solely at the people nearby," he said. "Twitter and Facebook and platforms like that are terrible platforms for asking, 'Who's around right now? Who wants to grab a drink right now?'" “I think a big problem with this space is relevance. Why?” he added. It's like you're reading our mind, Mr. Martin! Do go on. “Why do I care about getting notifications that some person is around the corner?” His pitch for relevancy? “Sonar is focusing very much on solving real problems,” like coordinating a large group of event attendees, or communicating with coworkers in a large office, he said. Mr. Martin also speculated about a more brand-friendly use case: bands who want to release a special mp3 to concert attendees.

Progress on the poster for the Brooklyn Makers panel at TechCrunch Disrupt. (Photo: twitter.com/imjamesjlopez)

Those crafty Brooklynites! TechCrunch Disrupt's "Brooklyn Makers" panel this morning featured a lineup of hands-on hackers from the better borough, who chatted about the wonders of Kickstarter and the question of manufacturing in China.

Until you get to a certain critical mass of units, like 100,000 or whatever it is, make your product in America, advised Makerbot's Bre Pettis. Otherwise, you risk making a boatload of products only to discover a defect after the fact. "Get intimate with your technology. Make it at home."

"There is this new model of making gadgets," said Amol Sarva of Peek, which used to make Twitter and email PDAs and now sells software services. The new model relies on small-scale production, he said.

Peter Semmelhack of Bug Labs (open source hardware) agreed. "There are markets that are not measurable in millions of units but are still good markets," he said, pointing to how small-scale manufacturing allows for targeting niche markets "which is a much more coherent and logical and sane way to do it, versus going out and raising a bunch of money and making a bunch of things."

Ayah Bdeir of littleBits has to do her manufacturing in China, she said, because littleBits makes low-cost mass market pieces for electronic modules kits. "It's very difficult to make it in America," she said.

"China's changing," Mr. Pettis countered. "Over the last year, wages have doubled."

He bemoaned the fact that Kickstarter wasn't around when Makerbot started. "We would have been able to raise that money without giving away part of the company," he said.

Duncan Frazier of Bit Banger Labs, who launched a highly-successful Kickstarter campaign for a mask that is supposed to aid in lucid dreaming, was also on the panel. The campaign for Remee raised $572,891 on its $35,000 goal. Who wouldn't envy those terms?

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

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. 

1. "I assumed, when I read the title of the panel, it was obviously a joke. The new media hasn't won squat." Right out of the gate, he was disagreeing with the thesis of the panel. And lo, we were suddenly awake. Sure, old media has taken a couple of body blows, but even the Times is still valued around a billion. TechCrunch was reportedly sold for "30 million? Maybe 10 million in revenue?" His voice fairly dripped with skepticism.

2. "You know Fox News generated $500 million in operating income last year. OPERATING INCOME!" Yes, he yelled it. We're pulling this one out all on its lonesome because ouch, Fox News.

3. "I still hear people in old media sometimes start saying [and here imagine an "old coot shaking cane at teenagers" voice] 'Hm, aggregation, hm, so bad.' I'm sorry, but there are five million sources of information out there. In a world like that, aggregation is immensely valuable." Well that's a pretty clear message re: their aggregation practices.

4. "This word 'linkbait' that people occasionally throw around, like [imagine some faux-outraged flailing] OH! LINKBAIT! You know what 'linkbait' means? It's a story that people want to read and share and link to. You know what? We will produce news like that all day long. And if somebody else wants to produce all the stories that nobody wants to read, fine."

5. "You can say to Jonah [Peretti], 'Oh, yeah, you would be a good site if only you didn't have an entire section devoted to "cute."' That's what people want to pass around all day. Jonah's smart to take advantage of that.

Mr. Borthwick

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. 

Well, there went our high hopes for another massive East vs. West linkbait shitstorm.

But wait! He did have a little bit of comparing and contrasting to offer. Asked about the investment scene at the moment in New York (loaded question, much?), Mr. Borthwick basically suggested that while New York is very busy, the scene isn't as... inflated as the Valley. To wit:

"What happened last time in 1998, 1999, 2000, sort of the incredible flood of capital brought a lot of lazy entrepreneurship," he said, continuing, "I haven't seen that yet." "I think that New York is still not as heated as the West Coast, which I think is a good thing."

"We've got a ton of things we need to build, right, in this market. At the end of the day we're, at Betaworks, we're makers. We love building stuff," he added. "I think we're just at the beginning of this. We've got so much more to build. And when you think about how to humanize the computing experience... I think there's a lot more than has to be done."