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Visiting Dignitaries

By Jessica Roy 4/22 12:31pm

Visiting Dignitaries

(Photo: Flickr)

Grooveshark CEO Says He’s ‘Broke,’ Calls 2012 the ‘Year of Getting Punched in the Face 10,000 Times’

Grooveshark CEO Sam Tarantino has a case of the Mondays, only this one’s lasted every single day for over a year. Between 2011 and 2012, both Google and Apple pulled Grooveshark, a music streaming service, from their respective app stores. Then Spotify launched with star-studded support and millions in funding and Pandora, another Grooveshark competitor, successfully IPO’d. Oh, and this was all before the lawsuit. By the end of 2012, Universal Music Group had filed against Grooveshark and its employees for allegedly uploading copyrighted music. Read More

By Jordan Valinsky 4/18 1:54pm

Visiting Dignitaries

Beast mode. (Photo: Hashgram)

Alicia Keys Is BlackBerry’s Annoying Go-Getter Intern All the Other Interns Hate

It looks like BlackBerry’s new social media intern “global creative director” Alicia Keys is settling into her new gig quite nicely. AdAge reports that her workday doesn’t solely consist of forcing people to make ugly cryfaces while she belts out “Girl on Fire” in the cafeteria for the 800th time. Rather, she’s being super hands on by actually going to meetings and stuff. Read More

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 Jessica Roy 4/04 3:55pm

Visiting Dignitaries

(Photo: Criterion.com)

Hipsterdom Collapses in on Itself as Steve Buscemi Plans to Direct Live Stream of Vampire Weekend Show

Character actor and meme muse Steve Buscemi will sit in the director’s chair once again. But rather than tackling episodes of shows like 30 Rock and Nurse Jackie, as he has in the past, Mr. Buscemi is heading to the Roseland Ballroom.

Digital Spy reports that Mr. Buscemi has agreed to direct the live stream of a Vampire Weekend concert taking place there on April 28. Apparently, Vampire Weekend’s bassist recently discovered Mr. Buscemi is actually a distant cousin.

And with that, all of Brooklyn fell silent in awe.

By Nitasha Tiku 4/04 11:30am

Visiting Dignitaries

Screen shot 2013-04-04 at 10.43.41 AM

Dear Vanity Fair, a Word About Your Best Dressed List

That Sergey Brin sighting amid the hedgerow at Vanity Fair‘s Oscar party must have gone to the glossy’s head. Today, they attempted to catalog “Silicon Valley’s Most Stylish.”

Try as Jack Dorsey might with his “modified Mandarin collars,” this is a crowd that once compared its colorful sock flair to boardroom “gang signs,” so the bar was already low–especially considering that the New York Times already marked and tagged the every pair of Louboutins in the Bay Area. Read More

By Jordan Valinsky 4/04 9:40am

Visiting Dignitaries

The glove. (Photo: YouTube)

Beyonce’s Cyborg Glove Makes a Triumphant Return

Power Tumblr User and Self-Quantifying Empress Beyonce riseth once again. In a new one-minute spot for R.C. Cola, Bey dances and violently gyrates against the floor with previous iterations of herself. But one star manages to almost upshine the queen herself: the cyborg glove, which made its debut in the “Single Ladies” video, is back with a vengence. Leave it to Beyonce to make even wearable tech look cool. Read More

By Jessica Roy 4/03 12:19pm

Visiting Dignitaries

(Photo: Venture Village)

Columbia English Majors, Ashton Kutcher Wants YOU for His New ‘Consumer-Oriented’ Startup

Who says majoring in English is worthless? A leaked job listing from a Columbia English major listserv obtained by Salon proves that even professional wordsmiths can delve into the star-studded startup world. You could toil away at a publishing company for $25,000 a year, or you could work at the hot new startup from self-described brainiac and actor/investor Ashton Kutcher. Read More

By Jessica Roy 3/29 3:45pm

Visiting Dignitaries

Not how you will look in Glass. (Photo: In.com)

Famous People like Soulja Boy, Brandy and Neil Patrick Harris Already Forming Google Glass Clique

Though Google Glass makes even models look vaguely dorky, a host of celebs are lining up to try them out. Stanford computer science doctoral student Andrej Karpathy analyzed the winners of the #ifihadglass contest and pulled them into a neat little table organized by follower count. The result makes it super easy to see which celebrities were chosen as part of the lucky 8,000 winners of a Glass explorers kit. Read More