From A TC40 Win To A $1...

With Disrupt NYC 2012 literally a day away ( tickets here ), it’s hard not to think about the past success of our former Battlefield startups. I’ve taken a close look at quite a few over the past couple weeks, and to be honest none have come as far as Mint.com. The company...

Morning, Hackers! The 2...

It’s been a long, caffeine-fueled ride for the hundreds of hackers who have set up at our big Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon, but the furious process of taking a wild idea and turning it into something real is finally winding down. Projects were being finalized, UIs were being tweaked,...

Sure, Draw Something. J...

Pictures of the Prophet Mohammad have always been a highly contentious issue — they’re not explicitly prohibited in the Qu’ran but many Sunni Muslims forbid the idea, while others do not seem to mind as much. Among the latter group are those who feel that banning such...

ClarityRay Battles Ad B...

Some of you are probably reading this post with ad blocker right now — and to be honest, I don’t blame you. Sure, there’s the occasional amusing or genuinely useful ad, but not terribly often, so why not install a plugin and avoid the whole mess? Of course, those ads make...

$FB Is Blowing Up On St...

Another startup cashing in (figuratively speaking) on the FB IPO: StockTwits . Earlier this week, the social network for investors added Facebook to its  StockTwits Social Heatmap , a feature on the site that provides a visualization of what the StockTwits some 200,000 investors and...

XKCD: Kill Me If I Use ...

I don’t understand Klout . I’ve convinced myself that it’s best that way. I just avoid it, really. Grading a person’s social media influence on a scale of 100 seems like something popular girls would do in high school. Like Alexia said last year , nobody gives a...

The Smart Si Thermostat...

This is the age of thinking thermostats and, not to be outdone by a well-known circular model, hardware startup Ecobee has released the Smart Si . It is a smart thermostat with small color screen and a web interface so temperature wonks can update their heating models on the fly. The...

Pulse Is Getting Ready ...

Pulse , the popular free mobile news reader for iPhone, iPad and Android, could soon get ads. Until now, Pulse, which launched its first app in May 2010, was ad free and the company focused more on user acquisition than monetizing its service. A new job posting on Pulse’s site ,...

We Talk To Two Exciting...

Last night, Time Inc. threw a pretty badass party in Manhattan to celebrate “Ten NYC Startups To Watch.” Among the ten were Fancy Hands , a site that offers up a personal assistant for every and any need you might have, and Stamped , a social network that lets you put your...

Balloonduck: Where Pint...

We first wrote about Balloonduck back in March . At the time, the social network was accepting invite requests prior to a full launch, so as to avoid empty room syndrome. But today is the big day: Balloonduck has hit 1,500 invite requests and is now officially live. If you perchance...