While Facebook claims it's an effort to stop spam and promote apps that add value to the network, "Developers say the crackdown is an attempt to stifle applications that compete with Facebook-owned services," or pay for ads on Facebook, the Wall Street Journal reported last night.  

This past Friday, MessageMe joined the ranks of apps like Vine, Voxer, and Yandex's social discovery app Wonder, in getting blocked from Facebook's platform.

But it would be hard to make the case that MessageMe--a rich, incredibly easy-to-use app that lets users send doodles, locations, photos, Google images, videos, iTunes songs, and even Snapchat-like drawings on photos--doesn't add value considering Facebook reportedly tried to acquire the app.

Rather, cofounder Arjun Sethi told Betabeat, he was informed Friday that MessageMe was not compliant with platform policy guidelines related to duplicating Facebook's core services (i.e. Facebook Messenger) and that "they’d be shutting off access to our users to get to their friends list."

Mr. Sethi said his team "worked over the weekend and basically removed the feature. So if you looked at the app now it’s not there anymore." When we downloaded the app last night, the option to find friends on Facebook still showed up, which would have been a welcome option considering only seven early adopters from our contact list were already on the service, but MessageMe is that supremely rare app we actually wouldn't mind bugging our normal friends to join.

That explains why, in a blog post today revealing seed funding from True Ventures, First Round Capital, Google Ventures, SVAngel, Resolut.vc, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners and Social+Capital Partnership raised last year, MessageMe also announced that it picked up more than 1 million users since launching (with the Facebook connection) on March 7th.

The company said it's sending more than 500 notifications per second worldwide and that in the U.S. alone, users have shared more than 10 million doodles and more than 4 million songs on iTunes.

Facebook's social graph may be in the midst of midlife crisis, but MessageMe's features are perfectly suited to the current state of discourse, which seems to be frozen in adolescence.

Mr. Sethi said his team's background is in social gaming and they plan on introducing in-app monetization when the time is right, rather than advertising or selling data to third-parties. (The "stickers" and "money" buttons next "video" and "doodle" are currently turned off.) The same cofounders previously collaborated on a company called Lolapps, which was acquired by a Korean company.

When it came time to build MessageMe, they took their inspiration from the more personal social network Path and its so-called "stickers," as well as the Chinese messaging app QQ and the older BBM-style messaging on Blackberries. "When you look at our product, you can see there’s a PIN system so we focus a lot of our attention on that as well, rather than like some sort of public broadcast of usernames," he explained.

(An earlier version of MessageMe's blog post noted typically "Asian" messaging behaviors becoming more mainstream.)

And like Path, MessageMe sets its sights smaller. "We’re not focused on the replication of your Facebook graph," he explained. "We’re focused on having you communicate with people that you want to communicate with the most and people that you feel you can be yourself with." The average customer, he said, will have a network of 20 to 25 people they spend their time chatting with, rather than hundreds of Facebook friends.

That may be more than just a defensive posture. As John Herrman recently wrote on Buzzfeed, app developers at SXSW were "actively planning for the graph-rot contingency" by "leveraging to build separate graphs of their own." Besides at this point, getting booted off of Facebook offers its own little media boost.

Mr. Sethi acknowledged that tensions between Facebook and developers were rising. "I do feel like some developers are feeling the pain depending on the type of applications they’re making. It’s just part of like a natural cycle of any platform or ecosystem, depending on what is core to them."

However, that hasn't been the case between MessageMe and Apple. "Our product is competitive with iMessage and they’re not revoking access for us. So I think it just depends on the way each company thinks about the platform and product."

In the meantime, DM us if you want our MessageMe pin? We really want to spend the morning sending doodles and most of the people on our contact list are venture capitalists. :(

Too cute. (Via: Littlebits.com)

Local maker-minded startup LittleBits just announced a $3.65 million Series A, led by True Ventures. Also participating were Khosla Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Lerer Ventures.

Founder (and MIT Media Lab alum, and TED speaker) Ayah Bdeir told Betabeat that the round will help the company to--pardon the expression--kick it up a notch. "The first phase was really sort of a proof of concept," she said. The response did not disappoint: LittleBits sold better than expected, "so that we actually now know it's time to press the peddle."

The company describes itself as "an open source library of electronic modules that snap together with tiny magnants for prototyping and play." And what does that mean, precisely? Think wired Erector Sets.

The namesake "little bits" are small modules that snap together to create larger projects, like this car that goes when hit with a light or this "fire-breathing" Komodo dragon. The projects do not require a PhD in electrical engineering and are simple enough that a kid can assemble one without driving herself (or her parents) to distraction.

And those kids are exactly where LittleBits sees its biggest opportunity. While "open source" and "electronic modules" might trigger visions of enthusiastic geeks, Ms. Bdeir said that 60 to 70 percent of their sales are individuals who are "outside the circle."  "They're not hobbyists. They're not geeks. They're not engineers," she told us. Hence she's looking to education and educational toys as their largest potential market, and she's already pushing hard on why LittleBits is better than whatever throwaway tchotchke becomes this year's must-have:

"The toy market is a very large market, but the toy market unfortunately has been really sort of dominated by companies that are more interested in selling plastic toys that break than things that are of value."

That's where the open-source aspect comes in. Ms. Bdeir explained the approach is rooted in a desire to "make the very individual bricks of electronics available, accessible and allow them to be creative tools," with the aim of creating a relationship to technology that's "very symbiotic and very creative."Considering it's practically impossible to so much as change a carburetor any more, that goal seems both noble and much easier said than done.

And then there's the matter of scaling. Asked about how the company's growth changes the open source element, Ms. Bdeir told us, "It changes in a good way." Without elaborating, however, she shifted gears into the challenges such an approach presents.

"When you say you're open source, the number of investors that are interested starts to shrink." But the VCs that ultimately signed on "got involved because they believe in the mission. It wasn't an afterthought," she added.

It sounds like the number of orders really did catch the team by surprise. Ms. Bdeir also emphasized that LittleBits is "ramping up our production to really meet demand, demand which we really didn't expect so fast." To that end, company is handing over production to supply chain management company PCH International, while the LittleBits team will be focus on product design, marketing, and so forth.

With a Series A in the bank, Ms. Bdeir told us, the company can begin building out its product line, with new modules and kits already in the works. LittleBits will also be expanding its "really small" team of eight people with hires in education, sales and distribution, engineering--"really every facet," Ms. Bdeir said.

Regardless new startup Pinwheel, which launched out of private beta last night, seems to fit her comfort zone. The app lets users "find and leave notes all around the world." The notes, which are pinned on a specific location on a map, can be both private or shared with an individual or group, as well as organized into sets.

For example, “Every place that you told me that you loved me, circa 2008" (one of the potential sets Ms. Fake offers) you might want to keep private. Whereas "Find me a Nearby Toilet NOW," (another example from Ms. Fake) might be a question you pose to a group. There is, of course, a social networking element, with the opportunity to follow both friends and sets:

"And in the future, you will get notifications on your phone from who and what you choose. Following sets is useful, because that friend of yours with the great taste in coffee shops may also have an unhealthy obsession with, say, 1970s glam metal band KISS, and frankly, in childhood you were traumatized by a photograph of Gene Simmons and don’t need to repeat that in your dotage."

Next on the docket is an iOS version of Pinwheel. Although the startup is seeding community and content in advance, Ms. Fake says she expects the primary experience to be mobile, where monetization would come in the form of sponsored posts, say from a realtor looking to drop a note about its services.

She also anticipates potential deja-vu:

But, that’s like…Flickr for Places!

You said it, not me. Is it like Flickr for Places? Ish. Part of why making Pinwheel is so fun, is so exploding with possibility, is that a note, like a photo, can be a container for all kinds of things. It is the perfect social object. Stories, advice, jokes, diatribes, information, memories, facts, advertisements, love letters, grocery lists and manifestoes can all be put into a note. It is the perfectly constrained, perfectly open thing that you can make into what you want.

What she probably didn't anticipate is the accusation that Pinwheel looks an awful lot like a little-known startup called Repudo. As TechPP points out:

That sounds nice for sure for many people, but for me it sounds like an echo. I remember hearing it somewhere else. Remember Repudo? Here is how Repudo works-

"Repudo is a platform to handle digital objects in the real world. With Repudo, you can drop all kinds of multimedia such as photos, text, video and audio messages at any location."

Ouch! Digital objects turn into notes and that’s it. The concept still remains the same. Both Repudo and Pinwheel are location based with multimedia thrown in to the mix.

We think the bigger hiccup might be the mandatory location-based element. Where exactly would you drop that “Every place that you told me that you loved me, circa 2008" list? And, unless its flooded with content, scrolling around on a wide open map could be an unfulfilling experience. That said, we'd love to see this baked into Google Maps.

In any case, it doesn't look like she'll be returning East anytime soon. For now, on its jobs base, Pinwheel says seven-person team is based out in Hayes Valley, San Francisco.

Om Malik bows before the great Arrington

Mike Arrington warned on Twitter that the New York Times was playing with fire after David Carr wrote a column castigating him for running a venture fund while acting as editor in chief of TechCrunch.

"The saddest part about the NYT drama is that I hold the nuclear card. They know it, and they know I won't use it. Unless I do.'

Today on stage he played that card, pointing out that the NY Times is an investor in True Ventures, which backs GigaOm, the tech blog founded by True Ventures partner Om Malik.

Last week Mr. Arrington issued this sly tweet: "I look forward to co-investing with the NYTimes" and linking to this page, where the NY Times discloses its investments and acquisition.

In its extensive coverage of the Crunchfund story and GigaOm's potential conflicts with True Ventures last week, the NY Times made no mention of its own investment in True.

The NY Times technology section also syndicates content from GigaOm with no special disclosure about the connection between the two companies.

Betabeat has reached out to the NY Times and Om Malik for comment.