By Abraham Riesman 3/26 11:00am

Visiting Dignitaries

Video

Screen shot 2013-03-26 at 10.36.18 AM

Douglas Rushkoff On The Terror of Time [VIDEO]

Over the course of 20 years, 15 books, and countless speeches and articles, media theorist Douglas Rushkoff has established quite a following among technophiles.

With titles like 2010’s Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, it’s no wonder folks like Andy Weissman quoted Mr. Rushkoff to explain why Union Square Ventures led a $2.5 million investment in Codecademy, a startup that teaches anyone programming languages like Ruby and Javascript. (Not long after, Codecademy announced Mr. Rushkoff would be joining their team as a “code literacy” evangelist.) Read More

By Jessica Roy 1/10 9:00am

Viral Video

Video

(Photo: YouTube)

McDonald’s Employees Glimpse Into Their Freaky Driverless Car Future in Viral Prank

Though driverless cars are on the road (heh) to becoming legal in many states, it will definitely take some time for the American populace to adjust to the sight of a car functioning without someone in the driver’s seat.

YouTube user MagicofRahat took advantage of that dissonance by creating a costume that looked just like his car’s seat back and placed it over his body, giving the impression that his car was driving itself. Then he drove the car through a number of fast food drive-thrus and scared the crap out of the unsuspecting employees. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 2:09pm

It's Zuck's World We're Just Living In It

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Ain't care. (Photo: Facebook.)

And Now Facebook Reportedly Wants to Put Video Ads In Your Newsfeed–With Autoplay

Caught your breath from Instarage yet? We sure hope so, because here comes another move that’s sure to inspire another round of e-riots on Planet Zuck. Ad Age reports that Facebook is prepping to launch video ads by April of next year. They’ll appear both on the desktop and mobile versions of the site.

Worst of all, sources tell Ad Age they’ll be set to autoplay. Bold move, Mark! Facebook might even enable the audio, which would probably be the most annoying thing Mr. Zuckerberg has done since, well, ever. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 12/05/12 5:20pm

STYLE

Video

EXCLUSIVE.

Cancel All of the Gift Guides: Everyone Gets This Sean Jean Pullover With Built-In Video Screen

Get your wallet and brace for one-stop holiday shopping. CNET reports that Macy’s has teamed up with Diddy-owned clothier Sean Jean to create THE must-have gift for the men in your life: A fleece sweater that comes with a video screen sewn into the sleeve.

Stylish does not even begin to describe it. Also it’s great for costume parties, in case you want to dress up as a Times Square billboard. Read More

By Jessica Roy 11/07/12 2:47pm

Disruptions

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Mr. Kobo (Photo: Admin5)

Pheeding Phrenzy: New Star-Studded Social Network Pheed Launches an iPhone App

Launched just two weeks ago, the Los Angeles-based social networking startup Pheed has already seen a fair amount of ink spilled over it, perhaps most notably in a Forbes piece which wondered if the hyped platform was “the new Twitter.” With an iPhone app released today, that buzz is bound to build. But O.D. Kobo, a longtime internet entrepreneur and Pheed’s cofounder, argues that these comparisons are moot, and that Pheed is in fact blazing a brave new trail in the social networking world.

“I read one journalist compare us to App.net,” he told Betabeat, sounding slightly mystified. “We’re original. I think that’s obvious.” Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 10/12/12 4:00pm

IPO Party

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Mr. Oringer (Photo: Twitter)

Shutterstock, New York City’s First Tech IPO in Years, Goes Swimmingly

Yesterday was the first IPO of a New York-based tech company since May’s Facebook fiasco. In fact, it was the first IPO of a New York-based tech company since 2010, says Bloomberg News. Stepping up to try her luck: stock photo marketplace Shutterstock, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SSTK. Jitters notwithstanding, things seem to have gone respectably well.

Businessweek reports that the company sold 4.5 million shares at $17 a pop, giving the company a market cap of $558.3 million, and they closed up 27 percent, at $21.66.

When Betabeat spoke to founder and CEO Jon Oringer, he sounded pleased as punch. ”Everyone at Shutterstock is very excited. I’m excited. It all worked out great,” he said.

In its nine-year history, Shutterstock has sold a whopping 250 million images. Last year it made $120 million in revenue and paid out $30 million to its 35,000 contributors. The company, which has 250 employees, now sells two images every second.  Read More

By Jessica Roy 7/19/12 8:27am

Born To Yodel

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(Photo: Yahoo)

Marissa Mayer on Running Yahoo in 2010: ‘Smart Acquisitions’ are Key to Staying Relevant

Back at Le Web Paris in December 2010, then-TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington hosted a fireside chat with Marissa Mayer, who was recently named Yahoo’s CEO. In the video, unearthed by commenters at The Verge, Mr. Arrington poses a series of hypothetical questions to Ms. Mayer, including–quite presciently–”If you ran Yahoo, for example, what would you do?” (Michael Arrington: modern day Nostradamus?)

Ms. Mayer launched into that well-known machine gun giggle, perhaps at the notion of answering hypothetical questions, or maybe even at the concept that she would some day come to head the sinking web property. She then began a diplomatic response, lauding then-Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz for some of her work. Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/26/12 4:22pm

Badvertising

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Beautiful people only, plz. (Photo: Veetle)

Mobile Ambassadors Needed for Video Streaming App, No Uglies Allowed

Sometimes when it’s a boring news day, we like to troll the depths of Craigslist for story ideas, and today we unearthed quite a gem. It’s an ad posted to the NYC jobs section, seeking “mobile ambassadors” for the Valley-based startup Veetle, a Viddy-like service that allows users to stream live video clips.

Of course, you need active users to build a successful service like Veetle. If Reddit built their site with an army of fake accounts, Veetle will build its platform with an army of beautiful people, ugly users be damned.

“We’re looking for actors and actresses to be Mobile Ambassadors – aka use our free mobile app to broadcast their lives on a semi-regular basis,” reads the ad entitled “Good looking people needed.” “You will use the mobile app to to broadcast live (can be anything – trips to the store, gyms, conversations, anything random in your life… ).” Because who wants to watch ugly people doing mundane things? Read More

By Jessica Roy 6/21/12 11:39am

Crowd Power

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Ms. Klein (Photo: Pulse2)

Indiegogo Campaign for Bullied Bus Monitor Karen Klein Quickly Gives Way to Self-Promotion

On June 19th, just before a heat wave clutched New York in its punishing grip, a YouTube user named CapitalTrigga uploaded a video to YouTube entitled “Making the Bus Monitor Cry.” The video shows a gaggle of middle schoolers from Greece, New York hurling vicious insults at a senior citizen bus monitor named Karen Klein, who is forced to don her sunglasses to hide the fact that she’s crying. The cruelty drags on for a painful 10 minutes and 9 seconds. Anyone who was bullied as a kid will certainly find it difficult to watch.

The local school district quickly moved into damage control mode and held a press conference about the video, but several enterprising Internet denizens decided to take matters into their own hands. A Ukranian nutritionist named Max Sidorov started an Indiegogo campaign with a goal of $5,000 for Ms. Klein to help raise money for a much-needed vacation following the incident. As of this writing, the campaign had raised over $175,000. Read More