THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK START-UPS…
SHAKE-UPS: Richard Blakeley leaves Gawker after five years to join Thrillist. Mr. Blakeley will act as a liaison between the editorial and advertising sides of the company, CEO Ben Lerer told Betabeat, which now operate completely independently, and in general push harder to monetize content.
MOOTYKINS: C. Poole spent all day yesterday answering questions on Reddit to drum up interest in his new start-up, the web-based image remixer Canv.as. Canv.as requires Facebook authentication right now, which is counterintuitive given Mr. Poole’s position as king of the anonymous English internet and caused many Redditors to balk. “How do you justify rallying against the lack of anonymity that Facebook provides and then requiring it for your next project?” one Redditor asked. “Facebook Connect on Canvas is temporary. We’re only planning to use it for the private beta period,” Mr. Poole said, because it keeps the content somewhat sane. Canv.as is aiming to be SFW, Mr. Poole has said.
LAUNCHES: SalesCrunch beta-launched its browser-based, socially-informed sales presentation service, CrunchConnect, then pitched it at TechStars. The service–basically a web-based chatroom at this point with some flair–is simple compared to older technologies like WebEx or GoToMeeting. But the simplicity makes it easy to invite someone who has never used the service before and SalesCrunch tracks a mountain of information (who is clicking on what, who has looked away, on which PowerPoint slides a client lingered and for how long) that can be used to analyze sales techniques.
ANNALS OF TWITTER: TweePLayer, a DVR for tweets, launched in beta yesterday and the start-up’s spot is getting rather blown up, thanks to a Mashable article and a retweet from @twittermedia. TweePLayer records tweets about a certain television event in real-time, then lets you play those tweets back as you watch the show after the fact. TV accounts for most of the action, but it’s also possible to use TweePLayer for Livestreams of conferences, for example, or podcasts or any type of live media or event.
COURTNEY LOVE VYOU: Radar founder Maer Roshan launched a news and gossip site all about addiction and recovery this week called The Fix, and Courtney Love, Colin Quin and others have hopped onto a VYou channel, answering questions about addiction and rehab as a complement to the site.
GROUPME REGROUPS: GroupMe now has a baker’s dozen employees; things are getting a little cramped at 113 Spring, the office the swag-up shares with Jumo and Buzzfeed. GroupMe is moving to an office this weekend on 17th Street near Union Square, joining General Assembly, Dogpatch Labs, The Coffee Shop and other start-up loci. The area is arguably the current hub of Silicon Alley, in contest with the Shake Shack at Madison Square Park.
