LAME. The evil music labels are considering a lawsuit against Turntable.fm, according to a high-level source on the West Coast, but haven’t decided how to proceed. Meanwhile, Turntable lookalike Rolling.fm is knee deep in lawyers trying to figure out how to keep the service up outside the U.S.
MIXED MESSAGES. A couple weeks ago, Betabeat noticed that Skillshare founder Mike Karnjanaprakorn was out in San Francisco for the launch of Skillshare in that city. Had he picked up some cash while he was out there, we wondered? Skillshare raised $550,000 in January, which was made public in May, so the company certainly could have sustained its five employees on that–especially with MK’s militant lean start-up mindset and the bit of cash it’s getting from the website. So when Mr. Karnj said he hadn’t raised a new round, we said ‘Oh okay.’ But then we kept hearing, over the transom, that Skillshare has raised a fresh round. And they’re trying to fill up their sweet Soho office with a backend developer, community team and founder apprentice. Any insights? Drop us a tip.
#UNDERSHARING. “Now that I’m forced to use new Twitter I will be using Twitter much less,” declared Hashable CEO and Betabeat frenemy Mike Yavonditte, known for purveying plethoras of pithy proclamations in the form of #tweets. RIP, a source intimated sarcastically, he will be missed! But it appears Mr. Yavonditte has gotten acclimated to his new environs: 15 tweets today.
A/S/L. Michael Galpert’s iPhone decided to go from being jailbroken to just broken, pulling a factory reset in the middle of updating to iTunes, and the Aviary CEO co-founder no longer had anyone’s number the night of his big party. Hilarity ensues! “Not having anyone’s numbers in my phone is turning out to be the best game evar,” he said on Twttr, to which Barbarian Group’s Colin James Nagy replied, “Everyone prank Galpert!”
Q AND NOT U. In the course of AOL’s attempts to hip-ify, Aol Ventures’s Q Labs has become a super-cushy gig. Hackers reportedly get high salaries and excellent terms–“six figures and 20 percent equity, or something like that”–says our source, to hack on projects in a gorgeous space at AOL Ventures in Noho/East Village. Caveat: We hear the wifi sucks, and incubate-ees have to work off Verizon MiFis. Got a Q Labs story? Email us!
