By Kelly Faircloth 5/03 8:24am

Linkages

Why won't it work?! (Photo: Rob Bateman, www.nukomp.com, via Flickr)

Booting Up: Does Your Smart TV Work? Have You Tried Connecting It to the Internet?

Twice as many households have “smart tvs” as streaming devices–but only 69 percent of them are actually connected to the Internet. Grandparents! [GigaOm]

“When I got here, I was very emotionally touched by all the great companies in this area….These were all the companies I had heard of since I was a kid. I felt like I should be here. Like I belong.” [New York Times]

Here is how you remove tagged Instagram posts from your profile. [Wired]

Earlier this year, Mt. Gox and CoinLab teamed up in a partnership to reach the American market more efficiently. Now CoinLab is suing for $75 million in damages. [Gawker]

Do you trust your friends enough to give them the extra set of keys to your Facebook account? [L.A. Times]

By Nitasha Tiku 4/09 1:30pm

Visiting Dignitaries

Screen Shot 2013-04-09 at 11.24.29 AM

YC-Backed Hipset Launches YouTube Network to Help Clients Like Tyga, Soulja Boy, and Rob Zombie Make Money Off YouTube

At this point, it seems fair to say that celebrity-associated tech startups occupy their own stratum of Startupland. There’s the celebrity-backed startup, benefitting from the digital ambitions of investors like Scooter Braun, Ashton Kutcher, and Lady Gaga. Then there’s the celebrity “cofounded” company (see: half the startups in Los Angeles). There’s even startups that help brands harness the buying power of, say, Team Breezy.

Coming soon: a celebrity-backed venture capital fund, with a hashtag in the title, of course. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 3/27 11:30am

Teach Me How to Startup

Screen shot 2013-03-27 at 10.10.46 AM

Hot New Startup Trend: Trying to Make Money

Yesterday, Y Combinator (Silicon Valley’s ur-accelerator) hosted its biannual Demo Day at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

As cofounder Paul Graham announced last fall, YC downsized both the number of startups and the size of the investment in this current class. And fears that the accelerator bubble is about to pop were not lost on the 47 startups who presented, nor the 500 or so investors in attendance. Read More

By Patrick Clark 2/25 10:24am

Teach Me How to Startup

San Quentin. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Since There Are Incubators Everywhere Else, Why Not Put One in a California Prison?

So the tech world likes incubators. Indeed, even as new players enter the field, there are signs that the incubator model is bursting at the seams. Y Combinator downsized to less than 50 companies in its most recent class, from 84 last summer. When 500 Startups decided to establish a base in New York, it opted for a coworking space instead of an incubator. TechStars keeps growing, but its most recently announced additions have been abroad or in more narrowly-defined niches. Read More

By The Editors 12/27/12 4:30pm

In Hindsight

BETA BEAT Celebrates The Pitch Series

The Best of Betabeat: A 2012 Retrospective

As 2011 came to a close, we looked back at our most popular posts. But this year, we’re a little older (a mature year and nine months!), a lot wiser, and thought we’d try something a little different. Thank you for reading!

LONGREADS

Ultra-Orthodox Jews Take a Hard Line on the Internet at Rally of 40,000 Men (And Me) In which our intrepid reporter sneaks into Citi Field in drag. 

Faith, Hope, and Singularity: Entering the Matrix with New York’s Futurist Set It’s the end of the world as we know it, and they feel fine. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 2:30pm

The Real TechStars of New York

Screen Shot 2012-12-20 at 1.20.14 PM

Investors Wonder About the Future of TechStars New York

At any startup accelerator, Demo Days are a relentlessly upbeat affair–a parade of promotional pitch decks and stats about market size that somehow always reach up into the billions. But in New York City, Techstars’ biannual showcase takes the cake.

Founded in Boulder, the program launched in New York in 2011 (just as the startup scene cried out for tent poles to rally around) and easily fills auditoriums. Companies often announce “soft-circled” funding or even that the round has already closed. Mayor Bloomberg even called the number of investors who fly to New York to check out presentations, “proof positive that the TechStars is going to change this world and certainly change America and this city.”

Or as TechStars mentor Joel Spolsky put it before introducing one of the startups at Webster Hall: ”Time to get my company oversubscribed.” Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 12/10/12 11:00am

Servicey

14 Photos

Tubes, Andrew Blum

Gift Guide: The Best Books to Buy for the Technologist in Your Life

They make great presents, but books are deceptively difficult to give: You don’t want to buy some random bestseller off the front table at Barnes and Noble, but wander very far into the store and it’s easy to become overwhelmed with options. To lend a hand, we’ve combed through this year’s techie-targeted releases (and tossed in a couple of old favorites, as well). Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 12/03/12 8:27am

Linkages

(Photo: Wikimedia)

Booting Up: Is Facebook Picking Up a New Mobile Messaging App?

“If you put yourself in the position to ask for something that is already legal, you’ll find you’ll never be able to roll out.” Perpetual bull-in-a-china-shop Uber is having some issues with regulators. [New York Times]

After ballooning to 84 companies this summer, Y Combinator is cutting back to less than fifty fundees. [YC]

Looks like Facebook is still hacking away at the problem of mobile: Now that Instagram has been fully assimilated, there’s talk of the social networking buying the paid mobile messaging app Whatsapp. [TechCrunch]

The battle for same-day shipping supremacy is commencing, and it ain’t gonna be cheap. [Wall Street Journal]

Free your miiind, man: Cast off the finance lens, with its talk of “bubbles,” and focus on the product lens. That means asking not whether a sector is overfunded, but something more like, “have the products in area X caught up to the best practices of the industry? Are they reaching their potential?” [Chris Dixon]

By Jessica Roy 11/27/12 8:20am

Linkages

(Photo: Twitter)

Booting Up: Fake Press Releases Edition

Nintendo is releasing a Wii Mini on December 7th, just in time for the holidays. [The Verge]

Startup incubator Y Combinator has announced a VC program, allowing YC students access to guidance and an $80,000 investment from firms like Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst. The program will replace the Start Fund. [Y Combinator]

First we worried that tech sites were turning into press release regurgitation factories; now it turns out some of those press releases aren’t even true. Here’s how PRWeb helps distribute fake and sketchy press releases. [Search Engine Land]

Tumblr has broken into the top 10 sites in the U.S. with a worldwide audience of 170 million people. [Tumblr]

Don’t worry: the Pentagon says a human will always decide if a robot kills you. Feel better now? [Wired]

Kickstarter is being sued for patent infringement over a $3 million 3D printing project. [The Daily Dot]