This is a return to form for Hippeau, who worked as a VC for Softbank Capital, landing legendary early investments in companies like Yahoo. 

According to Kara Swisher at All Things D, the addition of Hippeau as a general partner has Lerer Ventures considering a $50 million later stage fund to complement the $8.5 million seed fund they are still deploying from last year.

“I am really glad to be getting back into investing, since the New York area is especially vibrant at the moment,” said Hippeau. “And we are really determined to look at changing the way funds are organized.”

The firm will run on a mix of youth and experience, with a dynamic duo now tipping the scales on both sides. "“Ben [Lerer] and Jordan [Cooper] are especially plugged into the New York scene--these start-ups were created by their friends,” Ken Lerer told Swisher. “And Eric and I bring a different skill set and perspective on top of that.”

Considering the return Lerer and Hippeau just saw on the sale of HuffPo, it's no wonder ther're bullish on the NY tech scene. 

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper

It will no doubt come as good news then that her now-defunct Condé Nast title finished first in a Magazine Industry Newsletter poll of "most missed" magazines.

“So nice if you have to be gone, not to be forgotten also!” Ms. Needleman told MIN online.

Ms. Needleman wrote in an email to The Observer that her new undertaking will have a "Domino-like sensibility."

Talk about cyberpunks taking over the news!

Started in 2005 with a slate of top-notch investors—including The New York Times, Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer, Meetup’s Scott Heiferman and Craigslist’s Craig Newmark—Daylife began as an aggregator similar to Google News and Inform.com, but with some extra bells and whistles. News, photos, video and other content are gathered together with the latest technology, then tagged with detailed information like location and proper names. Even the tone of content is noted, i.e., something might be “snarky” or “positive.”

Last October, the company rolled out Daylife Select, a publishing product that Mr. Shardanand, 37, calls “the Huffington Post in a box.” With a paid subscription to Daylife’s aggregated database, one or two “RoboCop editors” can use the online software to create information portals with fresh content that would normally take teams of writers to scribe and developers to design.

Daylife’s clients include The Washington Post, NPR and the New York Post. Some publishers, like Newsweek, use their database for small projects, like their Threat Meter, which allows users to rate issues (such as terrorism, or real estate) on a colored scale and view articles with a negative slant on the subjects. USA Today’s Cruise Log section uses Daylife information to plump up hundreds of pages on different cruise lines, ports, styles and deals.

Currently, Daylife charges a flat, annual service fee—ranging from $3,000 to $30,000—for access to their database of content and technology. This fall, Daylife will release a new product that will make creating these kind of next-generation sites easier and even more customizable, Mr. Shardanand told The Observer.

But Daylife is also transitioning its focus from traditional media companies to brands and advertisers. Every organization seems to need an online presence that keeps up with the real-time Web. Hiring a blogger to write a few posts isn’t enough anymore (or perhaps not in the budget).

Whether a sports brand is looking for bios on baseball players or a pet store needs the latest articles on puppy nutrition, Daylife plans to be the go-to data aggregator for hire.

“IF YOU NEED more ads, there are places to go. But where do you go if you need more content?” said Mr. Shardanand, sitting in his office on Broadway near Canal, explaining the concept of Daylife. Mr. Shardanand has dark features, with wavy black hair that hangs in soft curls to his neck. He talks so fast that his words run into each other, as if his mouth can’t keep up with his brain.

“If you see a story about something happening in the Gaza Strip, wouldn’t it be great for people to say, ‘Who is that guy?’” added Mr. Shardanand. “What happened a week ago, a month ago, a year ago? How did we get there? It was taking that six degrees of separation and applying it to this concept of the news being Webified instead of these hermetically sealed packages.

“It’s not all about breaking news,” Mr. Shardanand continued, explaining Daylife’s name. “It’s about the day scale and the life scale—so you can have the long view and the short view.” It’s a metaphor for how media companies need to be looking at their technology strategy so they can survive in the new-media landscape, he said.

Daylife currently has a team of 26, mostly product engineers and computer developers, and has survived on $15 million in venture funding from The New York Times, two European venture capital firms, as well as angel investors (one of whom is Andrew Rasiej, co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum and partner with The Observer in the NYFI project).

“Until the end of ’08, it was really a slog trying to get people to—well, you know how it is,” Mr. Shardanand said, interrupting himself. “Publishers are stingy; they fear new things, and don’t work with start-ups.”

But more publishers are willing to experiment. The new NPR Web site launched this week is partially powered by Daylife content, for example. (The New York Times, for the record, doesn’t use Daylife’s services. It’s just an investor whose representatives contribute to “brainstorming” sessions, according to Mr. Shardanand.) He said Daylife’s profitability is “imminent.”

In Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 movie RoboCop (stay with us, here), the government created cyborgs to end crime in Old Detroit so they could build a new utopia. Perhaps RoboCop “writers” building information aggregators will be all that’s left in media’s post-apocalyptic future. Or maybe they just need to be armed with the latest technology artillery to fight for a better future.

greagan@observer.com

Broad Street on Monday, June 25, working up a frothy pitch about the Internet,

technology, high-speed access.

"We have to expand broadband," the Democratic candidate said

at the campaign stop. "The next Mayor has to sit down with Verizon and AOL Time

Warner and do a survey right away, and then make sure that all businesses and

families in our city have broadband and I.S.P. connections."

Mr. Green's staff had chosen the setting to emphasize his

coziness with New York's business and technology honchos-and to give him a

chance to show off his big plans for a fully wired city, lorded over by a city

tech guru.

But the companies Mr. Green named that afternoon seemed to

be carefully selected as well. While AOL Time Warner would have occurred to any

Mayoral candidate talking about the Internet that day, Mr. Green had an added

incentive to bring them up: He has important friends there.

Or as his spokesman, Joe DePlasco, put it: "Mark Green has a

lot of support at AOL."

Ken Lerer, the executive vice president, is a former

roommate. Bob Friedman, president of AOLTV, is a close friend, as is Richard

Bressler, the former chief financial officer of Time Warner Inc. who's now the

chief financial officer of Viacom. And if that wasn't enough, Mr. Green's wife,

Deni Frand, is a vice president at the AOL Time Warner Foundation.

Sources in the company also said that Bob Pittman (co–chief

operating officer of the company and one of the founders of MTV), Michael

Lynton (president of AOL Time Warner International) and Neil Davis (vice

president of interactive marketing) are all Green supporters.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Pittman said: "Bob Pittman is a friend

and admirer of Mark Green," although she said that Mr. Pittman is not

supporting him. The other two did not return calls for comment.

Part of the support is related to Mr. Green's background,

and the kinds of acquaintances he made at Harvard and through Nader's Raiders,

public service and other runs for higher office. Part comes from being on the

New York social scene, connecting with many young, similarly ambitious players

along the way.

"A lot of his old friends are now in very senior positions"

in New York media, said one executive at AOL Time Warner. "We were 25 years old

building cable, and as we grew up, Mark was growing up. Then new media came

around. Now you're looking and you're saying, 'Jesus, there are seven company

presidents who are friends with him!'"

Part of the support is also related to the personality of

AOL Time Warner-and, indeed, the personality of other new-media and

entertainment companies in the uniquely liberal (at least on social issues)

business community of New York.

"People grow and evolve over time, and I think Mark has,"

said one AOL Time Warner executive, referring to Mr. Green's amicable

relationship with business. "New York is a better place for many of the

pro-business things that have happened during the last administration, and I

think Mark recognizes this. But he also stands for not ignoring the pro-social

things."

Still, AOL Time Warner

executives insist that no company-wide endorsement exists.

"He's one of my best friends and I love him dearly, and I

hope he becomes Mayor," said Mr. Lerer. "But," he added, "there's no

institutional support."

Indeed, the upper ranks of Viacom's companies are also rife

with Friends of Mark: Andrew Rasiej, a Silicon Alley fixture, is his point man

on technology. And Mr. Green's liaison to Wall Street is none other than Bruce

Wasserstein, the legendary banker.

Sources at AOL Time Warner also cited as Mark backers Matt

Blank, chief executive officer of Showtime; Tom Rogers, chairman and chief

executive of Primedia; Judy McGrath, president of MTV; Tom Freston, chairman of

MTV Networks; and John Sykes, president of VH1. All of those people declined to

comment for this article.

Some of these connections were made during Mr. Green's years

as New York's consumer-affairs chief, some as Public Advocate, some because he

was often front, center and outspoken on social and economic issues that

affected the quality of life in the city-and kept his profile in the media.

"He's been around a long

time," said Mr. Lerer. "He's won a few things, he's lost a few things and he's

gotten to know a lot of people."

But Mr. Green's connections to AOL Time Warner are

particularly extensive, and particularly important given his campaign themes.

In addition to putting the city's government bureaucracy

online-"transforming city government into E-government," as the press release

reads-Mr. Green wants to speed along the languishing initiative to create a

Board of Education portal and provide free at-home Internet access to every

public-school student and teacher in New York. To sell such involved plans to

the City Council, he'll need more than the services of the city's largest

Internet, telephone and cable companies; he'll also need to show that the

project has their support.

The Board of Education sent out a request for proposals for

the portal project last year and is now selecting vendors.

"The other candidates probably don't even know what the

Portal I.S.P. project is," said Mr. Rasiej, who first met Mr. Green in the

early 1990's when he owned the club Irving Plaza and butted heads over street

posters with the then Commissioner of Consumer Affairs. "Mark has been thinking

about technology and talking to technologists about New York for five or six

years now …. The technology community is behind him."

Mr. Rasiej said that Mr. Green's plan not only is to employ

certain companies to install servers and cables, but to make "partnerships"

with corporate "donors" who would take an active role in teaching the

technology to students.

But Mr. Rasiej emphasized that "Mark is completely unaware

of the bidders," referring to the Board of Ed's proposal request. "I can't

imagine AOL not being happy" about Mr. Green's ideas, Mr. Rasiej said, "but I

can almost completely assure you that no one at AOL has talked to Mark about

it."

Deni Frand, Mr. Green's

wife, also claimed that communication between her husband and her company has

been minimal.

"I am excited about him advocating on these issues, but I

really haven't been part of his policy planning and thinking," she said. A vice

president at the AOL Time Warner Foundation, Ms. Frand specializes in

public-education initiatives involving the Internet.

Mr. Green's AOL friends have been helpful in raising money

for him. Last year, Mr. Lerer co-chaired a fund-raiser for Mr. Green with

Messrs. Friedman, Blank and Bressler. Mr. Bressler declined to comment. Also

last year, Mr. Friedman co-hosted a fund-raiser with film and television

producer Steven Haft ( Dead Poets Society , Jakob the Liar ).

Mr. Lerer met Mr. Green in 1974, when they were working on

the Senatorial campaign of civil-rights lawyer Ramsey Clark. Mr. Green was an

idealistic young attorney working for Ralph Nader; Mr. Lerer was Mr. Clark's

deputy campaign manager. Although Mr. Clark lost, the two men hit it off,

became roommates and even met their wives together. Unlike his friend, Mr.

Lerer got out of politics and, in the early 1980's, went to work for Time

Warner. Later he started a corporate communications consultancy, left that in

the mid-1990's to go to AOL, and now finds himself back, merged with his old

employer, in New York. Mr. Lerer has gradually moved his way up the corporate

ranks, all the while staying close with Mr. Green.

"Mark has a lot of relationships throughout the entertainment

and information business in New York," said one executive at AOL Time Warner.

"Here's why: These are people who didn't want to move to L.A. They are die-hard

New Yorkers, as is Mark."

Utah Sex, Drug Scandal Stirs the Troops at CSFB

Credit Suisse First Boston's morning call on June 21 was

going along just fine: the analysts doing their usual bland run-down, the

troops on the receiving end casually throwing down cups of caffeine. And then,

into their midst, there came one of those spit-out-the-coffee moments.

By the way, reported an analyst whose group includes the

Zions Bancorporation of Utah, the bank's C.F.O. has been arrested. On sex and

drug charges. It was news, gossip, scandal, and the troops-hardened New York

bankers though they are-feasted upon it for the rest of the day.

Zions Bancorporation is a Mormon bank, founded by Brigham

Young himself. Its chief financial officer, 41-year-old Dale Gibbons, had been

charged with felony counts of methamphetamine possession, dealing in material

harmful to a minor and endangering a child.

The police apparently had been brought into the case by Mr.

Gibbons himself, who had called 911 on Monday, July 11, after finding his

19-year-old girlfriend and 15-year-old daughter nearly comatose from what

police thought was an overdose of either ketamine, an animal anesthetic also

known as Special K, or GHB, a date-rape drug.

"He said his 19-year-old girlfriend tried to commit suicide

because she had been raped four hours earlier, but he'd been with her all

night," said Salt Lake City Police Sergeant Darren Carr. Further, Sgt. Carr

said, Mr. Gibbons had been uncooperative on the phone with 911. Asked "Is she

breathing?", Mr. Gibbons allegedly replied, "I don't know." They advised him to

administer C.P.R. and learned later that he hadn't. "He didn't want to touch

her," said Sergeant Carr.

When police arrived,

they allegedly found the girlfriend naked, sprawled on a bed. A video camera

and tripod were set up nearby.

Mr. Gibbon's daughter

was found passed out in another bedroom-along with seven hard-core porn

magazines, several spent nitrous-oxide containers and rave beads personalized

with the name "Dale" on them, police said.

Police also said they

found a gram of methamphetamine in Mr. Gibbon's night stand.

Police said neighbors had been complaining of large, noisy

parties. "Underage kids started showing up passed out on neighbors' lawns,"

said Sgt. Carr. Police also said Mr. Gibbons would pull up to nightclubs in a

stretch Jaguar limo with a license plate that read "ROLLING"-"basically

advertising Ecstasy," Sergeant Carr charged.

Mr. Gibbons has hired Robert Shapiro, formerly of the O.J.

Simpson "Dream Team," to defend him. Mr. Gibbons is free on bail, which was

originally set at $200,000, but lowered to $75,000 on July 12.

"We're convinced of our client's innocence," said Sara

Caplan, a member of the Shapiro firm.

Mr. Gibbons, who'd been at the bank since 1996 and was

responsible for $21 million in assets, was immediately suspended. He resigned

on June 28, saying in a statement: "I regret reaching this decision at this

time; but I feel strongly that I must put my personal considerations and those

of my family first …. As an innocent man, my focus must be on the court

proceedings ahead." The next scheduled court date is Aug. 14.

Meanwhile, those jaded New York traders and analysts were

titillated by the story-but not tainted. An analyst at Credit Suisse First

Boston, whose group deals with the Zion stock, said: "We think Mr. Gibbons is a

key component of the management team, but until they say what his long-term

future is, we'll know better" whether or not to downgrade the stock.

In fact, the stock went up after the arrest-from $56.24 on

June 11 to $57.67 on June 25. It closed on Monday, July 16, at $57.84.