Connecting Journalists and Technologists — In the Public Interest
January 6th, 2010 · Comments - innonate
Guest Post by John Keefe
Senior Executive Producer for News, WNYC Radio
Sixty-five years ago, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia read milk prices to New Yorkers on our airwaves. Today, WNYC’s audience reports to us the price of milk in their neighborhoods — with surprising results.
While we’ve been “crowdsourcing” on our call-in shows for decades, this new decade has fresh possibilities for citizen participation, data-based journalism and news exploration. Add our audience of more than 1 million listeners weekly and a newsroom of talented journalists … and the possibilities are huge.
Yet our abilities are limited. That’s where you come in.
We want to connect New York technologists with our journalists to build new ways of finding, telling and exploring the important stories about our city — and to make public radio more public than ever through audience participation and digital media.
At the moment, we’re developing new tools for our journalists, eyeing rich data sets to cross and display, and dreaming up new ways to connect New Yorkers to their city and each other. And everything we’re learning, we’re sharing with our public radio colleagues across the nation.
If non-profit news innovation in the public interest interests you, please let us know. We are contemplating meetups and developer contests, creating rich partnerships with talented people and groups, and signing contracts to help build tools for our national morning show, The Takeaway and other public radio stations thanks to support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
We hope you’ll connect with us.
Editor’s Note: View the announcement John made at the January NY Tech Meetup in the video below:
New York Startup List
December 21st, 2009 · Comments - Jason Schwartz
It’s no secret that the New York Startup scene is seeing a major surge in activity. Michael Karnjanaprakorn put together a great list of startups and organizations here in New York. A post like like this is a ton of work, so thank you Michael. I tried to add ommisions, but I’m sure it’s still not comprehensive. Put additions in the comments and I will add them to the list.
STARTUPS
- 20×200 sells art for everyone at ridiculously affordable prices (Soho).
- Angelsoft is deal flow management software for Angel Investor and Venture Capitalists.
- Anyclip is a movie clip search engine that allows you to find any moment from any film, instantly.
- Aviary is a full suite of creative tools similar to Photoshop and Illustrator available in your browser.
- Behance organizes the creative world to make their ideas happen (Soho).
- Betaworks is an internet media company.
- Blip.tv is the next generation television network (Soho).
- By/Association is a private service for new introductions to remarkable people (Soho).
- Bug Labs is a modular, open source system for building devices.
- Boxee is the best way to enjoy entertainment from the Internet and computer on your TV.
- Carbonmade helps
ou build and manage an online portfolio website (Soho). - ChallengePost is a marketplace for challenges.
- Clickable is an online solution that makes creating and managing online advertising simple and effective.
- College Humo ris the best humor site on the internet.
- Designer Pages is a free social application for finding products in architecture and
interior design. - Drop.io allows simple real-time sharing, collaboration, and presentation.
- Etsy is the worlds most vibrant handmade marketplace.
- Foursquare lets you share your location with your friends as you discover new places in your city (Soho).
- gdgt is the new consumer electronics site by the guys behind Engadget and Gizmodo.
- Harvest allows simple online time tracking, timesheet, and reporting (Soho).
- Hello Health helps doctors communicate, document, and transact with their patients in person and online.
- Hot Potato allows you to find events, join the crowd, and share the experience.
- Hunch helps you make
decisions and gets smarter the more you use it. - KGB Web It’s a secret…but it’s bound to be hot
- Kickstarter is a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, investors, and explorers.
- Livestream is the most powerful live broadcast platform on the internet.
- Meetup helps groups of people with shared interests plan meetings and form offline clubs in local communities around the world.
- Neighborhoodr covers 60+ distinct neighborhoods in New York City, allowing anyone to share what is going on their block at any time.
- OMGPOP is the #1 place to play free multiplayer games with your friends.
- Parachutes aims to reinvent how people teach and learn.
- Quirky is a social product development company.
- ScoopSt features one killer NY deal a day.
- SeamlessWeb is the fastest, easiest, and smartest way to order food delivery online.
- Squarespace is a fully hosted, completely managed environment for creating and maintaining a website, blog or portfolio (Soho).
- Stocktwits Realtime stock tips community
- Tumblr is the easiest way to blog.
- Tweetdeck essential desktop app to manage Twitter
- UrbanBaby Launched in NYC 1998, acquired by CNET in 2006.
- Vimeo is a respectful community of creative people who are passionate about sharing the videos they make.
- Yext Local adverting with a pay-per-lead model
- Yipit scours NY for sample sales and restaurant deals and delivers only the ones that are relevant to you
- Yodle big player in the pay-per-call local advertising space
VIDEO
- NextNewNetworks Independent producer of online television networks
- RocketBoom Daily international news program and creator of the breakout success, Know Your Meme.
PUBLISHING
New York City has always been the epicenter of the publishing and advertising industries. And that hasn’t changed with this list of innovative companies changing the publishing and email businesses.
- CenterNetworks covers Web 2.0 and social media news, reviews, opinions and expert interviews.
- Curbed – Curbed, Racked, Eater blog network
- Daily Candy is a handpicked selection of all thats fun, fashionable, food related, and culturally stimulating in the city youre fixated on.
- Flavorpill is a daily guide to quality cultural events in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and London.
- Gawker is an online media company (Soho).
- Gilt Groupe offers luxury designers and fashion brands at prices up to 70% off retail.
- Huffington Post offers syndicated columnists, blogs and new stories with moderated comments.
- One Kings Lane offers exclusive sales on designer home accessories.
- Silicon Alley Insider top tier tech coverage.
- Tasting Table is a free daily email about the best of eating and drinking culture.
- TBD is a free email newsletter that delivers one world-changing idea and one collective action to improve our future.
- TheDeal News and analysis about deals, mergers, acquisitions, private equity, venture capital, LBO’s and dealmakers
- Thrillist daily emails sift through the crap to find the newest and best the Nation is hiding (Soho).
- Urbandaddy brings you the single thing you need to know every day about your city.
- Very Short List is a collection of distinct, free, daily e-mails that each recommend one must-see gem a day.
VENTURE CAPITAL
Every city needs a strong VC and angel community to support everything from seed to established companies. New York City has a strong list of investors supporting the entrepreneurs.
- First Round Capital is a venture capital firm dedicated to helping talented entrepreneurs build remarkable companies.
- Founder Collective is a seed-stage venture capital fund, built by a collection of successful entrepreneurs.
- Polaris Venture Partners invests in seed and early stage companies and in growth equity companies with substantial operating income.
- Spark Capital is a venture fund focused on the conflux of the media, technology, and entertainment industries.
- RRE Ventures focuses on expansion stage information technology ventures.
- Union Square Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm.
- Zelkova Ventures early stage venture capital firm specializing in software-as-a-service and digital media.
AGENCIES
CO-WORKING SPACES
Every new startup needs a place to work out of when they first get started. NYC has launched some new co-working spaces in the past year.
- Dogpatch Labs is an open source startup lab.
- Green Spaces is work space to launch green entrepreneurs.
- Hiveat55 new coworking space in Lower Manhattan at 55 Broad Street, 13th Floor. The space is sponsored by the Alliance for Downtown New York and NYC Economic Development Corporation
- New Work City is a community coworking space in Manhattan.
- Rose Tech is an incubator and co-working space in Madison Square park
EVENTS
Free events are essential to networking, culture, and innovation. Heres a list of some of the premier events in NYC.
- Arts, Culture and Technology Meetup is an event designed to explore the ways in which social media and technology can help bring arts and culture to the masses.
- Internet Week is a week-long festival of events celebrating New Yorks thriving Internet industry and community.
- New York Entrepreneur Week (NYEW) is the largest entrepreneurial movement through New York State.
- NextNY is the original tech organization in NY with a killer mailing list and great events every month.
- New York Tech Meetup is an event where entrepreneurs can demo something cool to New Yorks tech community
- The Feast is a series of programs addressing social innovation and new ways to make the world a better place.
INNOVATIVE NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
Whats a community without charity? These charities are re-inventing philanthropy.
- charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
- Echoing Green provides seed funding and support to social entrepreneurs with bold ideas.
- Freelancers Union is a national membership organization thats free to join.
- Pop!Tech is a network of remarkable people, extraordinary conferences, powerful ideas & innovative projects that are changing the world.
- StartingBloc educates, empowers, and connects emerging leaders to drive positive social change across sectors.
- TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.
GOVERNMENT
Every city needs the support of the government and politicians. The City of New York has made numerous commitments to support entrepreneurship.
- Mayor Bloomberg outlines 11 initiatives to support
New York Citys financial services sector and encourage entrepreneurship. - NYC Seed funds seed-stage technology entrepreneurs in New York City.
- New York City Investment Fund identifies and supports New York Citys most promising
entrepreneurs in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors.
EDUCATION
New York City has access to some of the top schools in the country for technology, design, and entrepreneurship.
- NYU ITP is a two-year graduate program who mission is to explore the imaginative use of of communications technologies.
- NYU Reynolds Program for Social Entrepreneurship is designed to attract, encourage, and train a new generation of leaders in public service.
- Parsons is the premier design and art school.
- Pratt Institute offers studies in architecture, art and design, and information science.
- SVA is a fine art and graphic art school in New York City specializing in art education for aspiring professional artists.
NYTM’s Testimony at NYC City Council
December 16th, 2009 · Comments - adam
This morning, I testified on behalf of the NY Tech Meetup at and joint hearing held by the New York City Council Committee on Technology in Government, and the Council Committee on Small Business, Technology Community, Entrepreneurs, and Developers.
Several other stakeholders were there and testified, including our very own Charlie O’Donnell.
Below was my official testimony as entered into record. I welcome any feedback you may have. These discussions with City officials are on-going and I’m always pleased to include your messages to them.
Best,
Nate
Testimony to: Council Committee on Technology in Government, Council Committee on Small Business, Technology Community, Entrepreneurs, and Developers.
Delivered by: Nate Westheimer, Executive Director of the New York Tech Meetup
Date: December 16th, 2009
Good Morning. I’m Nate Westheimer, the Executive Director of the NY Tech Meetup, a not-for-profit community of over 11,500 technologists working, creating, and building the future of New York City.
On the first Tuesday of every month, over 700 of us pack an auditorium at FIT to watch some of the most exciting startups in New York City demonstrate the latest and greatest technology innovations being built right here. In the past year alone, over 8,000 people have attended our events and we have nearly doubled our total membership. In our view, our community and industry is undergoing explosive growth. But don’t just take my word for it, please consider this as an open invitation for you to attend our next event on January 5th, and see and feel for yourself the energy, enthusiasm, and creativity that permeates our local industry.
Aside from our monthly events and online discussion groups for startups, what makes the NY Tech Meetup special is how it’s served as a platform for the entire tech community – not just those in its membership rolls.
Throughout the five years of our existence, and certainly over the past year, the NY Tech Meetup has offered itself as a platform for other communities to emerge, making it the epicenter of this vibrant industry. In 2006, Charlie O’Donnell stood up at one of our events and invited our members to form nextNY, an organization aimed at young entrepreneurs, now with a few thousand members. Just this past year, we’ve seen organizations like Fashion 2.0 Meetup explode in membership and groups like the Gaming 2.0 and SoundCtrl – a music and technology organization – take root and add value to our ecosystem. Just last week, over 100 people came together for a day of community service through a group called Techies Give Back – and all of this has happened not inside of the NY Tech Meetup, but in part because of the NY York Tech Meetup and our ongoing commitment to building a thriving ecosystem for the technology industry in New York City.
Of course, as we consider the list of fellow organizations with a part in promoting the growth of the tech industry, we look for opportunities for the City Council and the Mayor’s office to step up and fulfill their responsibility in fostering the sector and helping startups thrive. After all, there are things only we can do, as a community of startups, and things only you can do, as our government.
For instance, where we, as a community, can harness and engender the culture of entrepreneurship in New York City, the City should create economic incentives for entrepreneurs in other parts of the country to choose New York as a place to start their next venture.
While our startups can create new jobs that ultimately educate workers in the high tech industry, the City Government – through programs like JumpStart NYC – can make it more economical for us to provide this high quality, workforce education at a lower cost.
Meanwhile, as our startups attract tens of millions of dollars of investment capital from outside the City, resulting in hundreds of million dollars in taxes, the City can reinvest in the sector by supporting Math and Science programs in our public schools and universities, building a richer pool of local software engineering talent.
On this last point, New York City really needs to focus. We are a city rich with brilliant people trying to tackle big problems, and we have the community to support them; but, we have a structural deficiency of high-quality engineering talent – and this has become the single biggest factor negatively effecting startups in this City.
Of course, growing this pool of talent requires focusing on both long term and short-term solutions. To reach our short-term needs, the City needs to find ways incentivize software engineers to move to our City, and the City needs to provide scholarships so that students choose to graduate from our Universities’ computer science departments.
In the long run, the City needs to invest in computer science classes in our public schools, and make sure wireless and broadband Internet is freely available to the young and working class in the City.
Lastly, as you weigh the importance of high tech industry versus the challenges you face in other industries, the City should consider reviewing how it measures the size and vibrancy of sectors like the communication industry. The communications industry as you understand it now is undergoing massive layoffs in traditional media businesses like magazines, newspaper, and television; but, because it is so closely linked to the technology industry, the sector is being reinvented by startups building websites, iPhone and other mobile apps, or even games.
One way to do this is for the City Council to fund and economic impact study to fully quantify the importance of our industry to inform your future policy making decisions. From where we stand, the technology industry is in a leading position to drive growth New York City’s future and we look forward to working with the City and we build the future here.
Thank you very much and I hope to see you on January 5th, at our next event.
