It’s been a whirlwind couple of days here in New York, as our expert judges watched earnest startups pitch their hearts out onstage at the third annual TechCrunch Disrupt NY. Thirty startups presented in the first two days, to be whittled down to six after much judge deliberation and founder bated breath: gTar, OpenGarden, UberConference, Ark, Babelverse and Sunglass.

Those six had to come back today to present again, this time in front of super-hardcore finals judges Fred Wilson, Roelof Botha, Marissa Mayer, Mike Arrington, Chris Dixon, Eric Eldon and Chi-Hua Chien, who dug deep into everything from customer acquisition strategy and revenue models to actual acquisition strategy in the cases of both UberConference and Ark.

Then the judges retired for an hour and a half of deliberation, and as always, had a hard time deciding on a winner because each of the final six had a compelling draw. We finally got down to two, gTar and UberConference, and, after more deliberation, decided that this year’s winner of TechCrunch Disrupt NYC is UberConference, a service that hopes to change the way you and I make conference calls by setting up the call around a visual interface.

gTar, a guitar app that attached to an actual hardware guitar to help you learn how to play, put on an impressive showing and is the official runner-up. But UberConference, founded by Google Voice creator Craig Walker, eliminates unwieldly PINs and the confusion surrounding not knowing who is who on a call by providing a slickly designed dashboard for conference calling. If you don’t think this is a problem, just ask our new COO Ned Desmond how he felt when we confused him for someone else on a conference call.

Thank you to partners Sequoia Captial, AT&T, Credit Suisse, Getaround, Google, Hatch, Outbid, Quotidian Ventures, About.me, AllStateBanners.com, CityGrid, Domain.com, .ME, IBM, Launchpad Ignition, Mobli, popchips, Smith & Keats Music, OpenTok from TokBox, twake, Udemy, Whit.li, Caraquri, Freshdesk, Connect by Getty Images, Mashery, ooVoo, Sedan Magic, Skookum Digital Works, SponsorHub, Thefuture.fm, Tremendous Theming by Themendous, TouchTunes, Worry Free Labs and Rent The Runway, Gilt and Warby Parker for providing wardrobe.

And if you want to learn how to pitch, check out UberConference’s winning presentation:

When you’re stuck for three days in a big warehouse with the same group of smart people talking about the future of tech innovation over and over and over again (+beer), you start getting really silly. And some of the unique circumstances of year’s TechCrunch Disrupt New York have given us plenty to be silly about.

For instance, there are birds, live birds (!) in the conference hall, and in fact I can hear them right now chirping LOUDLY while one of the demo companies presents onstage. The birds are so prevalent that they’ve spawned jokes from some of the speakers, like, “It’s so hip of you guys to hold a conference in a bird sanctuary” in addition to a fake Twitter account, @TechCrunchBird, which tweets stuff like, “*Frightened fluttering from music,* “”Disappointed chirp.,” “*quiet listening*,” and my personal favorite, 啁啾 ‪(‘Chirp’ in Chinese).

Along with the CrunchBird, we’ve got the “Josh Constine Asking The Hard Hitting Questions” meme, inspired by the fact that Constine, one of our newest writers, GRILLED CEO Tim Armstrong hard on his fumbled moves with TechCrunch and Aol’s other content properties. Because the image of floppy-haired Josh taking down the high-powered Aol exec was so hilarious, we thought about some other situations in history where Josh’s mad interviewing skills and unerring, bloodthirsty quest for the truth could have come in handy.

The sight of TechCrunch editor John Biggs riding around Startup Alley on a motorized beer cooler was so ridiculous that we turned into an equally ridiculous gif. And yes, you could pretty much watch this forever and never be sick of it.

You know what else we will probably never be sick of? Putting MC Hammer on stage, and this year we got him up there twice as a Startup Battlefield judge (because of confusion he showed up late), resulting in a slew of “Judge Hammer Presides” jokes.

The Hammer caption contest winner? Well “You have to ask yourself — how legit am I, in regard to my not quitting?” definitely has my vote.

And speaking of hammered, here’s a random picture of our head developer Vineet Thanedar getting drunk on Churchkey beer at 10am.

See you at Disrupt SF!

Silicon Valley is full of unsung heroes: Mike Krieger, Arash Ferdowsi, interns, the TechCrunch sales team, Heather Harde and the countless engineers that keep the products we love from failing to be the products we love. One of these unsung heroes is SV Angel’s David Lee, who has served as a mentor and sounding board for almost every smart person in the Valley as far as I can tell.

But as of today Lee is a little more “sung”; In a discussion with Michael Arrington on stage at TC Disrupt New York, investor Ron Conway made it even more clear that SV Angel is actually managing partner David Lee’s fund.

The fact that Lee, who used to work at StumbleUpon and Google before co-founding SV Angel, runs the fund is perhaps the Valley’s best-kept not-secret. While Conway actually is listed as investor and not partner on the firm’s Crunchbase profile, it doesn’t stop press and others from constantly writing stuff like, “Ron Conway’s SV Angel fund,” paying scant or no attention to the man actually behind the curtain.

“This is David’s fund,” Conway said to Arrington in response to questioning about financing rumors. “But I have a huge vested interest.” Conway is still the largest investor in SVAngel, which also loops in Arrington himself as a Limited Partner, Kevin Carter, Robert Pollak and Conway’s middle son Topher Conway. “I get to come in and help entrepreneurs, I get to do what I enjoy,” Conway went on.

Interestingly enough, LP Arrington pressed Lee and Conway to comment on the “rumors” that the fund might be raising $400 million, “We are exploring all options …” Lee responded, saying that they are indeed looking for investment but refusing to give more detail.

When asked what startups were particularly interesting to SV Angel, the dynamic duo listed Pinterest (of course), Airbnb, Stripe, Square and Boku. When asked the same question of VC firms, Lee and Conway singled out Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Greylock, Accel and General Catalyst as top choices.

In terms of where he saw the fund’s investment trajectory headed, Lee said that he read somewhere on TechCrunch that the way people are shopping is drastically changing (I’m going to hope he was talking about this post) and that he is most excited about companies like Warby Parker and Pinterest that are transforming the way people consume content, create relationships, and well buy stuff.

“The sharing economy,”"the open graph distributed economy,” and the “P2P sharing” model all got shout out as ecommerce movements that could soon see an influx of (new?) SV Angel cash. SV Angel’s last raise of $20 million happened a year ago last April and, with a rapidly expanding portfolio, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the “rumors” Arrington alluded onstage to are indeed true.

As we covered earlier today, the fashion vertical in tech has exploded, with myriad unique companies clamoring to take a bite out of Amazon’s lunch, and a chunk out of the trillion dollar apparel industry. One of the most unique premises I’ve seen thus far is StyleSaint, a startup which at first glance seems like a Pinterest for fashion, but with a unique real-life twist.

To use StyleSaint in its current form, log in with Facebook or Twitter and create an account, once logged on, you can choose from over 55K “tear sheet” images from which to create your own Stylebook, once you’ve got more than ten tear sheets loaded, you can hit the “Create Stylebooks” link in the top right and StyleSaint will automatically import, then publish, the last ten sheets you’ve torn. Alternatively you can drag-and-drop the tears to create a custom stylebook. Click on “Create” to publish to the site.

In addition the resulting books are Facebookable, tweetable and embeddable, the embeddable stylebooks function as an overlay on embedded sites, preventing traffic re-direction. In addition to social sharing layer, users who want to drill deeper into the StyleSaint community can apply to be part of the StyleSaint Creative Collective, the group of passionate editors that scours the web looking for, linking to and tagging stunning, fashion-related images.

While the stylebook portion of the site is delightful as a content play, the most compelling thing about StyleSaint is that co-founders Brian Garrett and Allison Beal eventually want to use the collective data from the style booking activity to come up with its own line of clothing. “StyleSaint is the only company editorializing the phenomenon of image discovery and curation and combining it with a manufacturing, vertical eTailer ecommerce model,” Beal writes. “It will definitely be the hardest part of our site.”

Hoping to come up with a new, wholesale product (5-10 SKUs) every couple of weeks, Beal tells me that all pre-production on the clothing line will take place in LA, as the company has teamed up with the same manufacturing partner who is responsible for producing the Mary-Kate & Ashley line, The Row, STQ, James Perse and Vince. Beal views the site’s competition as Modcloth, NastyGal & ASOS once the the eCommerce components come into play. The company wants to unveil the offering around fashion week next fall.

StyleSaint is currently seed funded by Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Crosscut Ventures and LA angel investors. Beal hopes to raise a Series A in the next couple months, to finance its commerce arm.

Judges Q&A

Q: How exactly do you use the stylebooks to build fashion?

A: We use them collaboratively, and build a meta-stylebook.

Q: Have you thought about changing the business model? To pre-order or subscription?

A: Yes, we’ve thought that pre-order wasn’t for us, and many people do subscription better.

Q: You’ve talked a lot about inspiration, but I haven’t heard very much about your business model.

A: We’d like to think of ourselves as Net-A-Porter meets Zara. The “Shop” button is going to be right next to “Explore” and “Create” on the site.

Earlier today we spoke to Fab.com CEO Jason Goldberg at TechCrunch Disrupt, on the anniversary of his company’s pivot from gay social network to design-focused flash sales site, and a week after its mini-pivot to curated social shopping site.

In addition to expounding on the past, Goldberg spoke about his expanding vision for the new eCommerce, and how he saw Fab as essentially competing with retail giant IKEA, rather than other eCommerce sites like One Kings Lane and “some companies that recently went public.”

During the talk, the fact that Fab was raising another Series C round was alluded to, “nine figures” at a valuation of over a billion according to one source. After some investigation, we’ve figured out that Fab is indeed looking to raise $100 million, and according to two of those sources the valuation is under $1 billion, at $700 million pre-money.

In addition we’re hearing (we keep hearing things) that VC firm Atomico has already expressed interest in dropping $50 million into the pot, and existing investors have committed to $25 million. We’re also hearing(!) that Fab might have even higher offers and hasn’t committed to anything just quite yet.

The company has good reasons to keep its options open; A little over a year after Goldberg made the decision to change course, the company has amassed over 4.5 million users, over 2 million orders and will surpass $100 million run-rate in 2012, hoping to garner a half a billion in revenue by 2013.

Speaking at Peter Thiel’s class at Stanford last week, investor and entrepreneur Mark Andreessen called out retail as a “particularly promising” vertical for tech innovation.

We’re seeing and will continue to get e-commerce 2.0, that is, e-commerce that’s not just for nerds. The 1.0 was search driven. You go to Amazon or eBay, search for a thing, and buy it. That works great if you’re shopping for particular stuff.

The 2.0 model involves a deeper understanding of consumer behavior. These are companies like Warby Parker and Airbnb. It’s happening vertical by vertical. And it’s likely to keep happening throughout the retail world because retail is really bad to start with. There are very high fixed costs of having stores and inventory. Margins are very small to begin with. If you take away just 5 or 10%, things collapse.”

Nowhere is the revolution in retail more evident than in the fashion industry, where aesthetic elitism, a tradition of craftsmanship and a super hierarchical structure have staved off the impact of startup culture. Until now. Between startups that aim to build a “Universal Closet” (99Dresses) to startups that allow you to design your own pair of shoes from scratch, we’re seeing a massive wave of the new way to shop.

Having experienced firsthand how broken the model of how we purchase and consume clothing is (women, we like shopping), I have the good fortune of moderating a panel that I’m super excited about next week, “When will fashion tech just be fashion?” Starting at 10:50am on Monday, we will sit down with founders trying to make the answer to that question come sooner, Neil Blumenthal, Jennifer Hyman, Alexis Maybank and Ashley Granata.

Many of you may have them, and many of you may want a pair; Neil Blumenthal, the co-founder of famous eyewear site Warby Parker, will be joining us onstage along with Jennifer Hyman, the Chief Executive Officer of premier designer dress rental destination Rent the Runway. Founding CEO of the incredibly well known fashion site Gilt Groupe, Alexis Maybank will also take the stage, along with the fashionable Ashley Granata, co-founder and CMO of Fashism.com.

Tickets are going fast but are still available here. Companies that still want a chance to join in can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley. The full agenda for Disrupt NYC is here.

Neil Blumenthal
Co-Founder, Warby Parker

Neil Blumenthal is one of the founders of Warby Parker. As the former director of non-profit VisionSpring, Neil spent the better part of 5 years giving glasses to people living on less than $4 per day who otherwise would not be able to see. A native of New York City, Neil is a Leo, enjoys long walks in the park and is a big Hall and Oates fan.

Jennifer Hyman
CEO, Rent the Runway

Jennifer Hyman has been the Chief Executive Officer of Rent the Runway since the company’s inception in November 2009. She is responsible for all areas of the business including technology, fashion, sales, marketing, operations, customer service and team management.

Jennifer co-founded Rent the Runway with her Harvard Business School classmate Jennifer Fleiss. After receiving approximately $31 million in venture capital from Bain Capital Ventures, Highland Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, they quickly built the company to include over 2 million members, 120 employees and 160 designer brands.

Alexis Maybank
Founding CEO, Gilt Groupe

Alexis has dedicated her career to building and launching innovative and compelling ecommerce experiences for consumers. In 2007, Alexis, along with a founding team, launched Gilt Groupe. She served as Gilt’s Founding CEO, and today she serves as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer.

Prior to founding Gilt Groupe, Alexis served as General Manager and Business Development Director for AOL’s ecommerce businesses. In 1998, she became an early member of the eBay team, where she helped launch the company’s first strategic planning group working for Founder Jeff Skoll, and later launched and ran eBay Canada, which grew to become Canada’s largest ecommerce business. She later helped found eBay Motors, which grew to over $2.5 billion in gross sales in its first two years and continues to be the largest category of goods sold on eBay today.

Ashley Granata
Co-Founder & CMO, Fashism

Ashley Granata (Co-Founder, CMO) joined Fashism with buying and marketing roles at Bloomingdales.com and Style.com under her belt.

She works with designers and retailers to bring cool promotions and giveaways to the community. She loves vintage Ralph Lauren and Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited Lipstick.

There’s been a lot of armchair valuation punditry across the Valley this week. As the Facebook IPO looms, our intricately entwined ecosystem of startups and investors seeks to benefit from the domino effect of a population feeling flush with cash. This is the picture that the WSJ painted in its Quora funding announcement yesterday, headline: “Former Facebook Hands Capitalize on Buzz.” Okay, sure, smart people will always adapt to a favorable environment — but the WSJ missed a deeper and more long-term dynamic at play.

“We intend to use some of this funding as a cushion in case of macroeconomic changes,” wrote Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo in an answer to a question about what the company would do with the financing. Sure, in layman’s terms this could read, “We’re getting while the getting’s good,” but a startup stocking up for a potential winter does not necessarily mean overvaluation. Especially when you consider that a “large portion of this money” will go to Amazon Web Services for EC2 and other bills… at least until something less expensive and more robust gets invented.

“We wanted to extend our runway,” D’Angelo wrote, about raising as optimally as possible. “[We wanted to] focus on long-term growth and quality, and this lets us avoid making short term tradeoffs like many other companies.”

Earlier today I spoke to proto-Facebook investor and Quora board observer, Peter Thiel, extensively about his personal investment in the startup. He reinforced the fact that Quora has a 20-year, 50-year, 100-year future if it manages to scale in a way that could maintain the quality of site discussion. Thiel admitted that the site had not yet reached the apex of its founders’ vision, but maintained that this kind of careful “slow growth” is a good thing in terms of keeping out irrelevant and spammy content.

“There’s a good chance that some day a majority of questions asked will be on the [Quora] platform,” Thiel said, explaining that its success fit his vision of a world where an emerging technology didn’t have to beat or destroy something else to be successful. Rather, it could just be. Imagine a layer of Quora’s intelligent discourse across all communication, where the knowledge contained on the site went beyond Q&A and attempted to solve grander problems than being a threaded platform for Silicon Valley squabbles.

In response to media criticism of the site’s valuation, Thiel referred to the technological prowess of Quora, and the breadth of talent retained by its 30-person team as its core appeal. Thiel — who told PandoDaily’s Sarah Lacy that “we’d be better off if people focused on doing unique things” — implied that the startup was indeed this sort of “unique thing” — independent of, and not competitive with, Wikipedia, Facebook and Google. More importantly, he implied that it wasn’t trying to be.

Aside from the team, Thiel — who uses Quora himself to keep up on Silicon Valley news — was impressed by the complicated technology behind the site, and held the fact that it was not easily replicable as being one of its primary drivers of value.

“The Samwers are never going to clone Quora,” Thiel said, resting his case.

Q&A site Quora has raised $50 million at a $400 million pre-money valuation according to a report by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed to me by the founders themselves. We had reported that Quora was raising in this range back in April and it looks like Facebook board member Peter Thiel has beat out many other investors including a much-rumored KPCB to lead the round. Also investing is Matrix’s Josh Hannah and Northbridge’s Jonathan Heiliger.

According to our own sources, Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo put $20 million of his own money into the Series B financing. Thiel is leading personally and not through Founders Fund, breaking up the remaining $30 million between Matrix and Northbridge.

“Thiel added a lot of value to Facebook,” D’Angelo said about the Thiel investment, “And he’s been very helpful to us in the past. He understands these kinds of companies.”

The participation of Wikihow co-founder Hannah is also interesting to note, as he is painfully familiar with the Q&A space, through his WikiHow and eHow investments.

“Quora is a phenomenal resource to capture and share all the information where there are multiple points of view,” Hannah told me over the phone, “The Yahoo Answers and Answers.coms of the world have all fallen down to the lowest common denominator because of pandering to search traffic. Quora’s long-term vision to take the high road and create a platform for high quality discourse completely differentiates it from competitors.”

D’Angelo tells me that he’s going use the money to scale and grow the company even further, “It lets us focus on the long-term. And helps us build a really good team.”

According to AppData, 20K daily active users and 180K monthly active users log into Quora through Facebook Connect — Bear in mind that this is a small fraction of its total number of users, which Cheever and D’Angelo famously never reveal. “[The site] grows every week,” D’Angelo said, “I don’t really think of mainstream as a binary thing. I think that as it grows bigger, more and more people will use it to tell their stories.”

The people behind college flirting network Likealittle have launched a new app in the App Store, Circle, an app that attempts to be more granular and thoughtful about the burgeoning ambient location space, which includes startups like Highlight, Banjo, Meetup and recent Facebook acquisition Glancee. While Likealittle will continue to run its course, the company will be shifting most of its focus to Circle.

Before Highlight launched at SXSW, I wrote that it needed to allow you to drill down into who could see you on the app, who could message you, and who you could see — Because some people were cool with people being alerted to their whereabouts, but wanted control levels, like being able to limit the functionality to only their friends. While Highlight has yet to add these granular settings,Circle operates exactly on this premise, allowing you to see the people around you if you and they are part of  limited shared networks.

To use the app, download it from the app store and sign in with Facebook Connect. Circle pulls your employment and education information from Facebook and automatically adds you to those networks on Circle. Overall the initial interface looks like what would happen if Steve Jobs had designed Google+’ Circles (demo here).

On its very sparse and simple landing screen, which asks “Who’s around?”  you can see your location, and which Facebook Friends are “around” and also which people in your networks are around — the app will only show you people if they are a part of shared groups like school, work and friends of friends (a setting which you can turn off).

In addition to networks created by Facebook designations, Circle itself has created unique mobile networks for groups like YCombinator, Stanford Alumni, Harley Davidson, Army Veterans, A16Z Founders and even TechCrunch. Eventually the founders tell me that they’ll allow users to build their own networks themselves but users who currently want custom networks can contact the company at info@discovercircle.com.

Users can choose the radius of  Circle’s reach, from “around a few steps” to “within the universe.” Like in Highlight you can’t turn the location updates off, but unlike Highlight you can block people, turn off alerts for friends and/or people in your Networks. You can also hide themselves from each individual network, like if you don’t want your former colleagues from your last job to know you’re hanging out in Vegas or something.

People can also message the people they see nearby through the app, and fiddle with those settings as well.

“In actuality, with all of the products from our company, we have focused on the same problem of how to decrease the friction of offline human to human interaction,” said co-founder Evan Reas, “We evolved into Circle as we think it is the best product to solve that. The way we think about Circle is that it creates a ‘virtual bubble’ over everybody’s head in the world and helps you connect with the people nearby that you care about, around the things you care about. Adding that layer of virtual context is the best way to decrease the friction of communication.”

The founders also tell me that they’ve optimized the timing of location pinging in order to not put too much strain on your iPhone battery, “Some of the other challenges of local-social apps are battery and privacy issues and we have solved both by easily letting people choose what they want to share and getting location in a way that does not affect your battery at all, unlike many other apps in this area,” says Reas.

Circle, via Likealittle, has raised a little over $6 million, from investors like Andreesen Horowitz, Michael Arrington, Ashton Kutcher, Mark Pincus, Joshua Schachter, Dan Rosensweig and Lee Linden.

And the app, oddly enough was a labor of love built in India, as the cofounders had to move to India for more than three months during the development cycle, sleeping in the same bed and working on PDT time because two of the cofounders couldn’t get Visas to work from the United States. The entire team is now back in the states (!) all living out of the nerdiest Palo Alto home I’ve ever seen.

Disclosure: As noted above, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington is investing in LAL. You can read more about his investment policy here.

In a world where Instagram is worth more than the New York Times, old media is no longer dying, it’s dead.

Instead, in its wake, we’ve got the Wild West: A chaotic morass of never-ending slideshows, puny WordPress blogs breaking big time news (and selling for tens of millions) and the merger of lolcats and politics on a site which focuses just as much on content sharing as content.

Although we all agree that new media is just media now, there are many perspectives battling it out for the future of the medium and whatever form it will take — Aggregation vs. Original content, etc, etc and so on and so forth — “The medium is the message” is at its most poignant in online media.

We are lucky enough to have “The Three Musketeers” of news aggregation, Henry Blodget, Jonah Peretti and Gabe Rivera, joining us at Disrupt NYC later this month, to talk about the online media zeitgeist and where this crazy ship is headed.

I’ll be there! (Because I’m moderating.)

Tickets are still on sale here, and companies aching for the chance to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley. You can find the full agenda here.

Jonah Peretti
Founder & CEO, BuzzFeed

Jonah Peretti is Founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, the first true social news organization that provides a pioneering mix of breaking news, entertainment and shareable content. Mr. Peretti, known for creating viral hits, tracking online social behavior and building technology to amplify buzz is also a co-founder of The Huffington Post. He has been called a “viral marketing hotdog” by the New York Times, “the poster boy of guerrilla media” by AlterNet and a “computer-whiz” by The New Yorker. Fast Company named Mr. Peretti one of the “New Faces of Social Media” and Business Insider listed him as one of the “11 Rising Tech Stars to Watch in 2012.”

Mr. Peretti is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab and has taught at NYU and the Parsons School of Design. His work has been covered by Time, the Economist, Fortune, and Business Insider and he has appeared as a guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America and CNN.

Henry Blodget
CEO, Co-Founder & Editor in Chief of Silicon Alley Insider

Henry Blodget is currently CEO co-Founder, and Editor in Chief of Silicon Alley Media, Inc., a network of real-time business news and analysis sites.

From 1994-2001, he was an investment banker and equity research analyst at Prudential Securities, Oppenheimer & Co., and Merrill Lynch & Co. From 1999-2001, he was ranked one of the top Internet and eCommerce analysts on Wall Street by Institutional Investor, Greenwich Associates, and other third-party firms. From 1999-2001, he ran the global Internet research practice at Merrill, coordinating teams of analysts in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Gabe Rivera
Founder, Techmeme

Gabe Rivera founded and leads Techmeme. He also enjoys cooking, napping, and encouraging people to fight each other online. He’s not a jerk, but plays one on Twitter. He lives in San Francisco

Good morning everybody! It’s beginning to look a lot like NYC Disrupt time (seriously, Disrupt is a force of nature in more ways than one). For those of you wondering why we haven’t been returning email/phone calls/telegrams/carrier pigeons, TechCrunch Disrupt NYC is happening in two weeks, starting May 21st and going through the 23rd, preceded by our Red Bull-ified Hackathon.

We promised you a great show and that is exactly what we are going to give you; First and foremost we’re bringing (some of) the band back together, with our illustrious founder Michael Arrington and former colleagues MG Siegler and Jason Kincaid also taking the stage.

We are expecting more than 1,500 attendees this year and that even more startups from around the world than last year will battle it out for the Disrupt Cup and $50,000 prize. After sitting through a slew of rehearsals all week, we’ve seen some amazing contenders; And we promise you that these startups will not disappoint.

And, this is the last call for early-stage startups to participate in Startup Alley. If your startup is less than 2 years old and has under $2 million in funding, the Startup Alley package gives you the opportunity to demo Monday or Tuesday of the conference and 2 full admission passes to the conference. The audience-choice Startup Alley company of the day gets to present on stage at Disrupt and earn the chance to fight for the top $50,000 grand prize. Startup Alley packages close Monday, May 14, so act fast or email Gene McPherson for details (gene at techcrunch dot com).

We have already announced many of our special speakers and guests, but there are more coming so stay tuned. Tickets are on still on sale here, and the initial agenda is below.

Monday, May 21st

8:50am – 9:00am
Register for TechCrunch TechRecs

9:00am – 9:10am
Opening Remarks

9:10am – 9:20am
Welcome

9:20am – 9:40am
Fireside Chat with Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures)

9:40am – 10:00am
Founders Stories with Jason Goldberg (Fab)

10:00am – 10:25am
Building the NY Startup Ecosystem: David Tisch (Tech Stars), Jake Schwartz (General Assembly), Brooke Hammerling (BrewPR), Ben Lerer (Thrillist), Alexis Ohanian (Y Combinator), Josh Miller (Branch)

10:25am – 10:35am
A Special Product Announcement

10:35am – 10:50am
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

10:50am – 11:15am
When Will Fashion Tech Just Be Fashion?: Neil Blumenthal (Warby Parker), Ashley Granata (Fashism), Jennifer Hyman (Rent the Runway), Alexis Maybank (Gilt Groupe)

11:15am – 11:35am
Power Play with Tom Katis (Voxer)

11:35am – 11:55am
Fireside Chat with David Karp (Tumblr)

11:55am – 12:15pm
Fireside Chat with Brad Garlinghouse (YouSendIt)

12:15pm – 12:30pm
Power Play with Andrew Keen

12:30pm – 2:00pm
LUNCH and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

2:00pm – 2:25pm
Engineering on the Best Coast with Harry Heyman (Foursquare), Jason Pearlman (Zynga), Serkan Piantino (Facebook)

2:25pm – 2:30pm
How the Battlefield Works

2:30pm – 3:30pm
Startup Battlefield: Session 1: Disrupting Learning and Decision Making

Judges:
Josh Kopelman
David Lee
David Tisch
Spencer Wang

3:30pm – 3:45pm
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

3:45pm – 4:45pm
Startup Battlefield: Session 2: Disrupting Processes

Judges:
Adrian Aoun
Fritz Lanman
Dave Samuel
Michelle Zatlyn

4:45pm – 5:00pm
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

5:00pm – 6:00pm
Startup Battlefield: Session 3: Disrupting Media

Judges:
Chris Fralic
Shana Fisher
MC Hammer
Ron Palmeri

6:00pm – 7:30pm
Browse Startup Alley

9:00pm – midnight
After Party hosted by Getaround
Greenhouse
150 Varick Street
Conference badge required for admission

Tuesday, May 22nd

9:00am – 9:10am
Opening Remarks

9:10am – 9:30am
Fireside Chat with Jeff Jordan (Andreessen Horowitz)

9:30am – 9:50am
Power Play with John Borthwick (Betaworks)

9:50am – 10:15am
Fireside Chat with Harjeet Taggar (Y Combinator)

10:15am – 10:40am
New Media: Where We Go Now That We’ve Won: Jonah Peretti (BuzzFeed), Gabe Rivera (Techmeme), Henry Blodget (Business Insider)

10:40am – 11:00am
Fireside Chat with Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital)

11:00am – 11:20am
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

11:20am – 11:30am
A Special Product Announcement

11:30am – 11:55am
Fireside Chat with Ron Conway and David Lee (SV Angel)

11:55am – 12:30pm
UX/UI: Design Office Hours with Mimi Chun (General Assembly), Jamie Divine (design expert), Jason Morrow (Betaworks), Leland Rechis (Etsy)

12:30pm – 2:00pm
LUNCH and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

2:00pm – 2:20pm
How Social Advertising is Working: Tim Armstrong (AOL), Melissa Brenner (NBA)

2:20pm – 2:30pm
How the Battlefield Works

2:30pm – 3:30pm
Startup Battlefield: Session 4: Disrupting Local

Judges:
Cyan Banister
Stephen Messer
David Rosenblatt
Bijan Sabet

3:30pm – 3:45pm
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

3:45pm – 4:45pm
Startup Battlefield: Session 5: Disrupting Collaboration

Judges:
John Auerbach
Tracy Chou
John Frankel
Greg McAdoo

4:45pm – 5:00pm
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

5:00pm – 6:00pm
Startup Battlefield: Session 6: Disrupting Identity Networks

Judges:
Michael Abbott
Soraya Darabi
Pat Gallagher
Charlie O’Donnell

6:00pm – 7:30pm
Credit Suisse Networking Reception

6:00pm – 7:30pm
Browse Startup Alley

9:00pm – midnight
After Party hosted by AT&T
Hudson Terrace
621 West 46th Street
Conference badge required for admission

Wednesday, May 23rd

9:00am – 9:10am
Opening Remarks

9:10am – 9:40am
Brooklyn Makers: Ayah Bdeir (littleBits), Duncan Frazier (Bit Banger Labs), Amol Sarva (Peek),Peter Semmelhack (Bug Labs), Bre Pettis (Makerbot)

9:40am – 10:00am
Founders Stories with Cyrus Massoumi (ZocDoc)

10:00am – 10:25am
Revolutionizing Beer with Churchkey Can Co.: Adrian Grenier, Justin Hawkins, Ryan Sowards

10:25am – 10:35am
Special Product Announcement

10:35am – 11:00am
Government Innovation: Why Tech Companies Need To Pay Attention with Greg Ferenstein; Todd Park (US Chief Technology Officer) and Steven VanRoekel (Chief Information Officer)

11:00am – 11:20am
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

11:20am – 11:40am
Fireside Chat with John Lilly (Greylock)

11:40am – 12:00pm
Power Play with David Lawee (Google)

12:00pm – 12:30pm
Investing: It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst of Times: Mike Abbott (KPCB), Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital), Charlie O’Donnell (Brooklyn Bridge Ventures), Greg McAdoo (Sequoia Capital)

12:30pm – 2:00pm
LUNCH and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

12:30pm – 1:30pm
Charity Auction hosted by Outbid

2:00pm – 2:20pm
Fireside Chat with Dan Huttonlocher (Dean of Cornell University Tech Campus)

2:20pm – 2:30pm
Hackathon Hightlights

2:30pm – 2:45pm
Startup Battlefield Alumni

2:45pm – 3:05pm
Fireside Chat with Chi-Hua Chien (KPCB)

3:05pm – 3:15pm
How the Startup Battlefield Finals Work

3:15pm – 3:30pm
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

3:30pm – 5:30pm
Startup Battlefield Finals

5:30pm – 7:00pm
Cocktail Reception hosted by Hatch/IAC

7:00pm – 7:30pm
Closing Awards Ceremony and Passing of the Disrupt Cup

9:00pm – midnight
After Party

Startup Battlefield Judges: Michael Abbott,  Michael Arrington, Jon Auerbach, Adrian Aoun, Cyan Bannister, Roelof Botha, Chi-Hua Chien, Tracy Chou, Chris Dixon, Soraya Darabi, Shana Fischer, Chris Fralic, John Frankel, Patrick Gallagher, MC Hammer, Josh Kopelman, David Lee, Marissa Mayer, Greg McAdoo, Stephen Messer, Charlie O’Donnell, Ron Palmeri, Shervin Pishevar, David Rosenblatt, Bijan Sabet, Dave Samuel, Spencer Wang, Fred Wilson, Michelle Zatlyn

We’re sitting in a conference at Sequoia Capital in Menlo Park watching Disrupt companies rehearse and it’s reminding me, Disrupt NYC is almost here! (Also, I think I just stole somebody’s food.)

Other than the fact that I love and miss New York, I am really psyched about this the third annual NYC Disrupt; We’ve already announced many amazing speakers and judges, and today we are announcing a few more rock stars on our speaker lineup.

We are pleased to announce Tumblr’s David Karp, Buzzfeed’s Jonah Peretti, and Churchkey’s Adrian Grenier (yes the Entourage guy), Justin Hawkins and Ryan Soward. Maybe they’ll down some Pilsners onstage?

And in case you want to be there for it, tickets for Disrupt NYC are still on sale. Don’t miss out and get tickets now.

Jonah Peretti
Founder & CEO, Buzzfeed

Jonah Peretti is Founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, the first true social news organization that provides a pioneering mix of breaking news, entertainment and shareable content. Mr. Peretti, known for creating viral hits, tracking online social behavior and building technology to amplify buzz is also a co-founder of The Huffington Post. He has been called a “viral marketing hotdog” by the New York Times, “the poster boy of guerrilla media” by AlterNet and a “computer-whiz” by The New Yorker. Fast Company named Mr. Peretti one of the “New Faces of Social Media” and Business Insider listed him as one of the “11 Rising Tech Stars to Watch in 2012.”

Mr. Peretti is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab and has taught at NYU and the Parsons School of Design. His work has been covered by Time, the Economist, Fortune, and Business Insider and he has appeared as a guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America and CNN.

David Karp
CEO, Tumblr

David Karp is a high school dropout and the founder and CEO of Tumblr. Karp grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the son of Barbara Ackerman and Michael Karp. He attended The Calhoun School from 3rd to 8th grade, where his mother taught science, until high school when he briefly attended Bronx Science before dropping out at the age of 15 and being homeschooled. Karp began interning for animation producer Fred Seibert at 14, and from there went on to work as a software consultant for UrbanBaby, an online parenting forum. Karp left UrbanBaby in 2006 and began working on Tumblr later that year. The site launched early in 2007 and has since gained major traction on the Web.

Adrian Grenier
Founder, Churchkey Can Co.

Adrian Grenier is an actor, filmmaker, musician and social entrepreneur. A creative person with an entrepreneurial spirit, he is always searching for new projects, keeping an eye out for those ideas that challenge conventional wisdom and add positive values to our culture. While some never leave the idea phase, others–like Churchkey Can Co–prove to be spot on.

In search of a symbol for the craft and community lifestyle, Churchkey came forward as an opportunity to connect to the collective experience. Passionate about creating something from nothing, Adrian is dedicated to the value system based on hard work and giving that Churchkey offers. His ability to overcome obstacles by being bold and aggressive, while also knowing when to be delicate and graceful, make him a great asset to Churchkey Can Co.

Adrian grew up in Manhattan and now resides in Brooklyn – with plenty of travel in between. When not working on one of his many projects – including Churchkey Can Co. and SHFT.com – he can be found cooking and playing music, both of which offer him an escape, entertainment, and way to connect with friends and family.

Justin Hawkins
Co-Founder & Creative Director, Churchkey Can Co.

A passionate designer and fair weather artist from Portland, Justin Hawkins has worked as graphic designer for more than 10 years. With experience at creative Pacific Northwest companies such as Nike, Weiden & Kennedy and Peetkegler, Justin thrives on working with others to make interesting projects or products come to life.

On a mission to discover his passion in life, Justin developed a keen interest in business, branding and marketing. After three years of researching and brainstorming projects that might be worth quitting his job over, he stumbled into the opportunity to create Churchkey Can Co. With the endless opportunities for collaboration and connecting with the community, it was the perfect fit. Justin has spent almost his entire life in the Pacific Northwest. Originally from Salem, Oregon, Justin attended school in Seattle before settling in Portland where he’s been for the past 10 years. When not enjoying great beer and food at one of the many amazing restaurants in Portland, he can be found exploring the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest. He makes a point to get out of the city and connect with nature for at least a few hours every weekend.

Ryan Sowards
CEO, Churchkey Can Co.

An expert in his field, Ryan Sowards joined the team with more than 15 years of experience in the beverage industry. With past roles including sales and marketing for companies such as Red Bull and vitaminwater, it’s his passion for cultivating business that makes him as asset to the team.

Known for his ability to pull resources and teams together, Ryan was an early adopter of the Churchkey concept and finds himself passionate about the brand because of how unique it is. With no boundaries, plus a creative and exciting team, there are new challenges and new experiences to be had every day – and never a dull moment.

Ryan, who grew up in Seattle and still considers it home, now lives in Pleasanton, California. For him, the perfect Sunday is a combination of his kids and recreation– maybe the park and a hike, rounded out by a delicious dinner on the grill.

Oh the “where do I find hot startups?” problem … VCs have been grappling with this for ages, resorting to such avenues as rampant gossiping, reading TechCrunch, informally tapping into early stage investor networks for intros to later stage deals and apparently, according to PandoDaily‘s Sarah Lacy, setting up formal programs where entrepreneurs who are “network rich and cash poor” serve as deal scouts. Makes sense.

Thus becoming the platform for startup discovery presents a huge opportunity for anyone who comes up with a grand solution: And, because which hot startup isn’t mobile these days, Apple itself is rumored to be trying to solve the problem with its own app discovery and promotion platform, aiming to go beyond its Featured section and expand into more intensive forms of app publicity. Its recent acquisition of Chomp harkens to this ambition and project, though as far as I can tell it still has a long way to go.

Being in on something early has become an increasingly hot commodity. But beyond word of mouth and TechCrunch, where’s an aspiring deal scout to go when they need to find the hippest startups? (Other than AngelList of course, but that’s a whole ‘nother post …)

Curious, I talked with one of the more informal Silicon Valley startup scouts earlier this week, and asked them about their process for finding cool new companies. The answer? Well, there’s an app for that of course. Many actually.

While it won’t cover non-mobile, non-consumer outliers like Palantir, this “deal scout” had a fascinating process, using iOS discovery apps to figure out which mobile startups were promising. The scout’s two most thumbed iOS apps for finding early stage startups were Chomp and Crosswalk, with Discovr Apps being used to check in on possible competitors. The scout took an hour each day to go through the “New” section of the App Store via Chomp, scrolling through thousands of apps looking for ones that fit the profile of a startup.

“You can tell which apps are going to be startups by reading the app name…. i.e. Pair, Highlight, Circle, Glimpse …. Words that are ‘Web 2.0,’ the scout went on. “Names that are singular words, Cloudy, Clear, Path, SideCar, are obvious technology startups. Words and/or sentences that are like…. ‘complete guide to,’ ‘tips & tricks for,’ ‘blah blah blah lite’ ‘religious jargon’…. are not startups.”

After scout used Chomp and Crosswalk to figure out what was trending, i.e. which mobile apps were seeing the most user acquisition, they then used Discovr Apps to highlight potential competitors. For example, for this article, we figured out that Zwapp, FrenzApp, AppGrooves, AppsFire and Appshopper were all app discovery competitors to Chomp and Crosswalk, using the Discovr Apps app.

But where do you go after you’ve found the newest, hottest apps? How can one tell what will be a good bet?

“It’s super hard to tell what’s going to be successful,” my source said, “I download them, and test the apps and then contact the founders, ask[ing] them questions about how it’s going, why they built it (i.e.what problem they’re solving), and where they see it going. In addition, the scout said that they check blogs and AngelList to find out whether or not early stage influencers or biggies like Sequoia had already invested.

They also mentioned that they didn’t use the Android market because it was very rare for a successful app to originate on Android and then cross over to iOS.

So should other deal scouts, or anyone who’s interested in early stage startups take this advice and download some apps that find other apps immediately? “If they want to find super early apps that may be potential ‘ins’ for investment, yes, they do/should use these apps,” the scout said. That, and wait until AngelList goes mobile.

Image via Olly 

A little under one month after its acquisition of Instagram, Facebook has acquired Highlight competitor and ambient location app Glancee.

The social network has already shut down the developer’s passive location app and all three co-founders, Glancee’s only full-time employees, will join Facebook, which now owns its technology. Eric Eldon described Glancee as, “A nice-guy ambient social location app for normal people,” so its ideas and founders should fit in well building for Facebook’s mainstream user base.

Facebook said in a statement “We are thrilled to confirm that Facebook has acquired Glancee. The acquisition closed today. We can’t wait for co-founders Andrea, Alberto and Gabriel to join the Facebook team to work on products that help people discover new places and share them with friends.”

From the Glancee homepage:

We started Glancee in 2010 with the goal of bringing together the best of your physical and digital worlds. We wanted to make it easy to discover the hidden connections around you, and to meet interesting people. Since then Glancee has connected thousands of people, empowering serendipity and pioneering social discovery.

We are therefore very excited to announce that Facebook has acquired Glancee and that we have joined the team in Menlo Park to build great products for over 900 million Facebook users. We’ve had such a blast connecting people through Glancee, and we truly thank our users for being a part of the Glancee community.

Like competitor app Highlight, Glancee went beyond the checkin and attempted to help users discover other users around them with similar interests.

The instant armchair analysis is that the company couldn’t buy Highlight so they got the next best thing in the ambient location space to compete early. According to AppData, Highlight is probably 3 times larger than Glancee. On AppData, Highlight has 9K daily active users tied to Facebook (which in this case means that about 9,000 users join Highlight per day since the app only touches the Facebook platform during the sign-up process). Glancee has 3K daily active users. Moral of the story: Don’t let an Instagram grow under your nose again.

Sometimes people ask me why we’re still here even though we’re owned by poopy pants Aol, and I’m all like, “Huh what? Oh I’m sorry I’m drunk, who are you again?”

Lolz.

Okay so the real reason that I and the rest of the TC team are here, despite the fact that we’re all so incredibly and obviously employable, is that we get to work with a bunch of geniuses all day every day. Seriously, it is awesome just getting to set a record/be a part of this crazy time while also inadvertently creating jobs and keeping our own.

But the biggest reason we’re all still here is that we all super believe in all the amazing stars on our team. And there is no one who we believe in more than Leena Rao, who is about to have a kid and still just wants to work.

Like she sent this maternity leave email to us earlier and it we’re all like, “Wow Leena, you are so hardcore, we have to publish this …” So here you go Rao (I’d say you should hire her, but if you try to poach her from us I will kill you):

Hey Eric and Alexia-

I had a doctor’s appointment today and right now I am scheduled to have a c-section delivery on the morning (8:00 am CT) of Friday, May 11. I’d like to make my last day Wednesday, May 9 if that is ok with both of you. I think I’ll be so nervous on Thursday that I can’t imagine I’ll get much work done anyway:)

That being said, I could go into labor any time before then…if that happens, I’ll email you immediately and turn on my email responder. The likely scenario in this situation is that I’ll have a few hours to get wrap things up before I have to head into the hospital.

Starting this week, I’ve been mostly passing embargoed news and requests to the other writers. I figured that next week, I’ll focus on spot news and a few feature items that I’m working on. I am doing a One Kings Lane-like long-form company profile piece on Box, and also have another thought piece I’m going to write before next Wed.

I’ll get you an excel spreadsheet of the companies I cover and contacts in the next day or so.

Let me know if there is anything else I can provide. At the moment, I am scheduled to take 12 weeks of maternity leave but I don’t know if I can last that long…I may miss it too much:)

Leena

Goddamn she makes me want to be a harder worker/mom. Too legit, too legit to quit: Leena Rao.

I know we’ve been taking the piss out of Aol* all day, but someone in Aol PR must be drunk, because this bizarre “BREAKING: Board Has Presided over Improvement of AOL’s Operating Results and Financial Strength and Unlocked over $1.7 Billion in Value in Two Years” press release just happened.

We figure that this must be some sort of Zodiac Killer-like word puzzle, where if you take out every three letters it’s an actually a crazy rambling essay about how much whoever wrote this hates their life.

*Disclosure: Aol owns TechCrunch, even though I think they probably regret it at this point.

Full release below.

Board Has Presided over Improvement of AOL’s Operating Results and Financial Strength and Unlocked over $1.7 Billion in Value in Two Years

NEW YORK, May 02, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — –AOL Urges Stockholders to Vote FOR the Board’s Nominees on the WHITE Proxy Card Today

–Mails Letter to Stockholders

AOL, Inc. AOL -1.34% today mailed a letter to stockholders in connection with the Company’s 2012 Annual Meeting of Stockholders scheduled for June 14, 2012.

The following is the text of the letter from Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and CEO

May 2, 2012
Dear Fellow Stockholder:
Since AOL became an independent public company in late 2009, AOL’s
Board of Directors (“Board”) and senior management have successfully
charted a new strategic and financial course for the Company. This
new approach has significantly improved AOL’s results, enhanced the
prospects for sustained growth, and created value for all
stockholders.
You now face an important decision about the future of your
investment in the Company. At our Annual Meeting of Stockholders on
June 14, 2012, Starboard Value L.P. (“Starboard”), an AOL
stockholder, is seeking to elect its own slate of three Director
candidates to your Board in order to advance its own interests. We
urge you to continue to support the AOL Board and our strategy for
success.
Your vote is important in this election, and we urge you to
vote so that your voice is heard. To elect the AOL Board’s
nominees, we encourage you to vote today by telephone, by
Internet, or by signing and dating the enclosed WHITE proxy card
and returning it in the postage-paid envelope.

AOL HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENTING ITS CLEAR STRATEGY TO DELIVER LONG-TERM STOCKHOLDER VALUE

– We have STREAMLINED our operations by reducing annual costs by approximately $500 million prior to investment in areas of strategic focus, reducing headcount by 37%, ending unfavorable distribution deals and exiting unprofitable markets.

– We have MONETIZED our patent portfolio by entering into a definitive agreement with Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) to sell over 800 patents and license 300 additional patents and patent applications for $1.056 billion in cash in a tax efficient transaction.

– We have RETURNED capital to stockholders by buying back more than 12% of our outstanding shares since August 2011, and have committed to return a significant portion of the proceeds of the almost $1.1 billion patent sale.

– We have ENHANCED the consumer experience offered by our products by significantly reducing the number of advertisements on our pages, introducing industry-changing offerings like Project Devil, by investing in high-growth opportunities like The Huffington Post, goviral and Patch, by improving our search product, and by tailoring our Subscription service to our customers’ needs through curated service bundles and

– We have FOCUSED our product portfolio by investing in key destination brands, including AOL.com, The Huffington Post, Moviefone, DailyFinance, Stylelist, Engadget and TechCrunch, while outsourcing non-core content such as Sports, Health and Real Estate Listings.

Our strategy has positioned the Company to succeed in a digital
landscape that is still being formed. AOL has developed a
premier portfolio of online brands. On a monthly basis, our brands
serve the needs of more than 200 million consumers around the
world and we have a full-service suite of advertising products
that allows our thousands of advertising partners to reach
meaningful audiences at scale. We believe our strategy has
positioned AOL for success today and in the future of the digital
media space. Our strategy is working, has created significant
stockholder value, and will create even more stockholder value
over the long-term–if YOU, by supporting the AOL Board, allow
that strategy to proceed.

AOL’S STRATEGY IS WORKING, GENERATING IMPROVED RESULTS AND POSITIONING THE COMPANY FOR GROWTH

AOL ended 2011 with our best relative performance as a Company
in the past five years with advertising revenue growing once
again for the first time since 2008, with significant improvements
in legacy revenue streams and with substantial cost reductions. As
a result, the Company is well on its way to achieving its goal of
total company revenue and adjusted operating income before
depreciation and amortization (“Adjusted OIBDA”) growth in 2013.
Our improved results demonstrate the significant progress we have
made in executing our strategy.

– We have ACHIEVED revenue growth in global display revenue for the first time since 2007 in the first quarter of 2011 and grew global display revenue year-over-year in each quarter of 2011 and by 15% in the fourth quarter of 2011.

– We have ATTAINED four consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth in search on AOL.com and three consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth in Third Party Network revenue.

– We have ACCOMPLISHED significant improvements in key metrics in the fourth quarter of 2011, including a double-digit growth rate in video revenue, video ad impressions, Project Devil advertisers and revenue, and a triple-digit growth rate in local traffic, advertisers, ad impressions and revenue.

– We have PRODUCED substantial progress in moderating the decline in subscription revenues, with the first sequential growth in subscription revenues since 2006 occurring in the fourth quarter of 2011 and

– We have REALIZED two consecutive quarters of sequential Adjusted OIBDA growth through the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first increase in free cash flow year-over-year since the first quarter of 2009.

AOL is investing in high-growth areas, such as Patch. Patch
offers a flexible and powerful solution connecting national,
regional and local advertisers with highly-engaged, hyper-local
audiences on one platform. The opportunity for local online
advertising is massive and growing, with the market expected to
increase to $38.5 billion by 2016 (BIA/Kelsey, March 2012). As
part of our strategy to leverage our existing competencies in this
area by growing consumer traffic to Patch sites and then
implementing a scaled monetization plan, we have established more
than 850 individual Patches and we are now focusing on increasing
the monetization of those Patches. We believe this strategy is
working, as Patch ended the fourth quarter of 2011 with
triple-digit year-over-year revenue growth and approximately 6,500
advertisers. Furthermore, as of March 2012, Patch had already sold
advertising equivalent to over 80% of its revenue for the entire
year in 2011, illustrating that the growth witnessed in the fourth
quarter has continued into 2012. We expect to remain on this rapid
trajectory of revenue growth and assuming that trend sustains and
is coupled with expense control and continued strong consumer
engagement, we will maintain our course to take advantage of this
opportunity. We believe Patch is exceptionally positioned to grow
in the local space and we believe it will yield meaningful returns
for our shareholders in the years to come.

THE BOARD HAS TAKEN ACTIONS THAT HAVE DELIVERED SIGNIFICANT STOCKHOLDER VALUE

The Board has a clear and consistent pattern of unlocking
significant stockholder value and has increased our cash
position from $100 million as of December 31, 2009 to more than
$400 million as of December 31, 2011:

– In 2010, we DELIVERED $650 MILLION in stockholder value by divesting non-core assets, such as Bebo, buy.at, DMS, ICQ and certain real estate properties.

– In 2011, we INITIATED A $250 MILLION stock repurchase authorization and

– Now, in 2012, we will GENERATE OVER $1 BILLION in stockholder value from the Microsoft patent transaction, and we intend to return a significant portion of these proceeds to our stockholders.

Our Board is committed to creating stockholder value and
nowhere was this more evident than on April 9, 2012, when AOL
announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement with
Microsoft to sell over 800 patents and license 300 additional
patents and patent applications for almost $1.1 billion in cash.
The structure of this tax-efficient transaction, with a combined
sale and licensing agreement, allows AOL to monetize its valuable
patent portfolio without selling the Company’s foundational
patents that span core and strategic technologies. The patent
transaction represented the culmination of a process of exploring
ways to monetize intellectual property that began in October 2011
and was the result of a robust auction process.
AOL will return a significant portion of the sale proceeds from
the patent transaction to stockholders. Having unlocked the
value of the Company’s patent portfolio for stockholders, AOL
intends to return a significant portion of the proceeds to
stockholders and we will determine the method to do so prior to
the closing of the patent transaction. The current Board and
management of AOL have a track record of actively returning
capital to stockholders, with the Company having repurchased more
than 12% of its shares outstanding since August 11, 2011.

AOL’S STOCK PRICE HAS APPRECIATED AS THE MARKET HAS RECOGNIZED THE COMPANY’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS

As AOL’s stock price has appreciated, it has outperformed the
Company’s peers. Our strategy has delivered improved
performance and our stock price has increased. AOL’s stock price
has appreciated approximately 144.6% from its 2011 low and 65.6%
year-to-date through April 20, 2012. Even before the recent
significant increase due to the patent transaction, AOL’s stock
performance through April 5, 2012 represented a 80.2% increase
from its 2011 low and a 22.0% increase year-to-date. Furthermore,
AOL’s stock price has outperformed the market over the last 12
months, appreciating 25.3% relative to (1.3)% and 7.1% returns for
the S&P Midcap 400 index and NASDAQ Composite index, respectively.
Our stock price also outperformed the market prior to the patent
transaction, with our 22.0% increase year-to-date as of April 5,
2012 beating 12.0% and 18.2% returns for the S&P Midcap 400 index
and NASDAQ Composite index, respectively. Your support will
enable us to continue to pursue the strategy that has achieved
these returns.

AOL’S BOARD IS EQUIPPED WITH EXPERIENCE HIGHLY RELEVANT TO OUR STRATEGY, IS INDEPENDENT AND REPRESENTS THE INTERESTS OF ALL STOCKHOLDERS

AOL’s Board has the experience, qualifications and diversity
necessary to provide effective oversight and direction to the
Company. All of AOL’s Directors have extensive executive
and/or public company board experience in a variety of businesses
that are highly relevant to oversight of AOL. These businesses
include display advertising, marketing, journalism, digital media,
television, finance and business development. Your Board has
brought its substantial experience to bear through active
engagement in AOL’s turnaround strategy to create value for
stockholders, with members holding or having held senior
management or board positions at brand-name companies such as
Amazon.com, Automatic Data Processing, Inc., CBS Corporation, Gilt
Groupe, Inc., Google Inc., Kraft Foods Inc., The Proctor & Gamble
Company, and respected organizations including the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation, and The Paley Center for Media, among
many others.
AOL’s Board is independent and has a stockholder-friendly
corporate governance structure that provides rigorous oversight of
AOL’s strategic direction. Your Board consists of eight
highly-qualified, annually elected Directors, seven of whom are
independent. In addition, all five of the standing committees of
the Board are comprised entirely of independent Directors and the
Board has a Lead Independent Director to ensure effective and
independent oversight of management. Because all of our Directors
have joined the Board within the past three years, each member
brings a fresh outside perspective.
The interests of AOL’s Board and management team are directly
aligned with the interests of our stockholders. All of our
Directors and senior executives own AOL stock. To ensure that the
interests of senior executives are fully aligned with
stockholders, the Company instituted stock ownership guidelines
for AOL senior executives that encourage behaviors that have a
positive influence on stock price appreciation and total
stockholder return, and all executives are in full compliance.
Additionally, AOL Directors and executive officers collectively
hold almost 5% of AOL’s stock. Furthermore, cash compensation
from performance bonuses for senior executives is almost entirely
tied to Adjusted OIBDA and Free Cash Flow. In 2011, over 69% of
our Chairman and CEO’s compensation and 78% of our other senior
executives’ compensation was from equity and cash performance
bonuses as the Company had its second sequential growth in
Adjusted OIBDA in the fourth quarter of 2011 and saw Free Cash
Flow grow year-over-year for the first time since the first
quarter of 2009.

PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT: SUPPORT YOUR BOARD’S EFFORTS TO ENHANCE STOCKHOLDER VALUE VOTE THE WHITE PROXY CARD TODAY

AOL seeks your support in electing the Company’s eight highly
qualified nominees and your Board unanimously recommends that
stockholders vote “FOR” the Company’s experienced and
highly qualified Director nominees: Tim Armstrong, Richard
Dalzell, Karen Dykstra, Alberto Ibarguen, Susan Lyne, Patricia
Mitchell, Fredric Reynolds and James Stengel.
Your vote is extremely important, no matter how many or how few
shares you own. Whether or not you plan to attend the Annual
Meeting, you have an opportunity to protect your investment in AOL
by voting the WHITE proxy card. We urge you to vote today
by telephone, by Internet, or by signing and dating the enclosed
WHITE proxy card and returning it in the postage-paid envelope
provided. Please do not return or otherwise vote any proxy card
sent to you by Starboard. If you have any questions or need
assistance voting your shares, please contact MacKenzie Partners,
Inc., which is assisting us in connection with this year’s Annual
Meeting, at 800-322-2885.
On behalf of your Board, we thank you for your continued support
of AOL as we work to create a lasting business that provides
stockholders with exceptional value.
Sincerely,
/s/
Tim Armstrong
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

If you have any questions, require assistance in voting your
shares, or need
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About AOL

Having helped millions of Americans to get online, AOL Inc. AOL -1.34% is on a mission to inform, entertain and connect the world. The home of a world-class collection of premium brands, AOL creates original content that engages audiences on a local and global scale. We help marketers connect with these audiences through effective and engaging digital advertising solutions.

From time to time, we post information about AOL on our investor relations website ( http://ir.aol.com ) and our official corporate blog ( http://blog.aol.com ).

Forward-Looking Statements

This letter may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements concerning anticipated future events and expectations that are not historical facts. Words such as “anticipates,” “estimates,” “expects,” “projects,” “forecasts,” “intends,” “plans,” “will,” “believes” and words and terms of similar substance used in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs about future events. As with any projection or forecast, they are inherently susceptible to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Except as required by law, we are under no obligation to, and expressly disclaim any obligation to, update or alter any forward-looking statements whether as a result of such changes, new information, subsequent events or otherwise. Various factors could adversely affect our operations, business or financial results in the future and cause our actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including those factors discussed in detail in the “Risk Factors” section contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011 (the “Annual Report”), filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, we operate a web services company in a highly competitive, rapidly changing and consumer- and technology-driven industry. This industry is affected by government regulation, economic, strategic, political and social conditions, consumer response to new and existing products and services, technological developments and, particularly in view of new technologies, the continued ability to protect intellectual property rights. Our actual results could differ materially from management’s expectations because of changes in such factors. Achieving our business and financial objectives, including growth in operations and maintenance of a strong balance sheet and liquidity position, could be adversely affected by the factors discussed or referenced under the “Risk Factors” section contained in the Annual Report as well as, among other things: 1) changes in our plans, strategies and intentions; 2) continual decline in market valuations associated with our cash flows and revenues; 3) the impact of significant acquisitions, dispositions and other similar transactions; 4) our ability to attract and retain key employees; 5) any negative unintended consequences of cost reductions, restructuring actions or similar efforts, including with respect to any associated savings, charges or other amounts; 6) market adoption of new products and services; 7) the failure to meet earnings expectations; 8) asset impairments; 9) decreased liquidity in the capital markets; 10) our ability to access the capital markets for debt securities or bank financings; 11) the impact of “cyber-warfare” or terrorist acts and hostilities and 12) the approval of the patent transaction with Microsoft Corporation by antitrust authorities and the satisfaction of the other closing conditions to that transaction as well as to factors that could affect the manner, timing and amount of the return of any of the sale proceeds to AOL shareholders including the need for AOL to retain cash for its business or to satisfy liabilities.

Additional Information

In connection with the solicitation of proxies, AOL has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a definitive proxy statement and other relevant documents concerning the proposals to be presented at AOL’s 2012 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The proxy statement contains important information about AOL and the 2012 Annual Meeting. In connection with the 2012 Annual Meeting, AOL has mailed the definitive proxy statement to stockholders. In addition, AOL files annual, quarterly and special reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. You are urged to read the proxy statement and other information because they contain important information about AOL and the proposals to be presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting. These documents are available free of charge at the SEC’s website ( www.sec.gov ) or from AOL at our investor relations website ( http://ir.aol.com ). The contents of the websites referenced herein are not deemed to be incorporated by reference into the proxy statement.

AOL and its directors, executive officers and certain employees may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from AOL’s stockholders in connection with the election of directors and other matters to be proposed at the 2012 Annual Meeting. Information regarding the interests, if any, of these directors, executive officers and specified employees is included in the definitive proxy statement and other materials filed by AOL with the SEC.

SOURCE: AOL, Inc.

Media:
AOL, Inc.
Maureen Sullivan, 212-206-5030
Maureen.Sullivan@teamaol.com
or
Investor Relations:
AOL, Inc.
Eoin Ryan, 212-206-5025
Eoin.Ryan@teamaol.com

For a social network that’s, for lack of a better term, monogamous, social network for couples Pair has just raised funding from so many high-profile investors I’m having trouble picking who to include in this headline, and seriously running out of room.

Investors in the company’s recent $4.2 million seed round include Ashton Kutcher’s A-Grade Ventures, Dave Morin, Paul Buchheit, Founder Collective, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures, Michael Birch, Sam Altman, CrunchFund, Tencent, Yuri Milner, Betaworks, Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, Harjeet Taggar, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brandee Barker, Brian Pokorny, Elad Gil, and Susan Wu.

This sounds like it would be an amazing dinner party.

The YCombinator startup, which was built by robust a team of five co-founders, Oleg Kostour, Jamie Murai, Anton Krutiansky, Aswinkumar Rajendiran and Michael Petrov, plans on using the funding to expand its mobile development and design team, of course.

Co-founder Kostour tells me that, because a social network exclusively for couples is sort of a rare occurrence, many see the company’s closest competitor as Path. “We’re both mobile apps that are giving you an easier way to share things with a smaller group of people,” he says, “However … the two tools are focused on different relationships.”

He, in addition to Path founder Dave Morin apparently, views the two apps as complementary, “I think we’ll see people using both Path and Pair, rather than choosing between them. As an example, we actually use Path as a company to share things with each other internally, but that doesn’t change the fact that I use Pair with my girlfriend.”

Unlike run-of-the mill text messaging, Pair allows a given boyfriend and girlfriend or whatever to trade photos via the app, in addition to simultaneously draw, share photos and simultaneously Thumbkiss — A unique Pair feature which leverages the iPhone’s touch screen and vibrates every time a given couple’s thumbs kiss. Seriously it is the future of communication.

Pair has seen over 220K downloads in the past month since its launch, and Kostour says he wants to “further explore” dynamic ways for couples to engage a la Thumbkiss, “At the end of the day, Pair is for a couple. It’s for them to use share their memories, have fun and talk to each other. That changes how we design the product. One of the challenges is to examine the more subtle social interactions that exist between couples, so we can integrate those interactions into Pair.”

This is awesome. Oh, and this.

Brit Morin, the Martha Stewart of tech, is today announcing a $1.25 million seed round for her technology and content company Brit. The list of investors is actually pretty sympatico with “the next generation of lifestyle” branding of Brit & Co, with fashion-heavy Index Ventures, tech fashionista Marissa Mayer, KCPB’s Aileen Lee, Tina Sharkey and Seth Goldstein, Kevin Colleran, Annabel Teal, General Catalyst Partners, Founders Fund Angel and DMGT all going in.

In addition to the funding, the company is also launching its first app, Weduary, which lets tech-savvy couples build their own attractive and dynamic wedding websites. The Facebook app, which users can try for free, lets prospective brides and grooms build a custom wedding website in four steps, leveraging the Facebook social graph to make it easy to import photos from Facebook, invite guests, coordinate registry details and other event RSVPs.

In addition to logistic planning, the app allows guests to build personal pages using their Facebook profiles and encourages them to connect with other guests through common interests. The app monetizes by offering premium features, right now custom URLs are $15 and premium themes are at $20.

The concept for the app originally developed after Morin and her husband (Path founder Dave Morin) had friends keep asking to borrow the code used in planning their own ”Pixel Cowboy”-themed wedding this summer. Disappointed with the general aesthetic hideousness of the website creators already available, Morin decided to build her own.

Morin tells me that while TheKnot.com, MyWedding.com, and WeddingWire.com all let users create wedding sites, Weduary is at an advantage due to its novel Facebook integration, “We are combining the social power of Facebook groups with beautiful themes, plenty of customization options, and other premium features for brides and guests alike.”

An iPhone version of Weduary is coming soon, and Morin tells me that she wants to add more themes and more robust social features to the app’s existing offerings. And while this is the first Brit app to launch, it won’t be the last, as the tech style maven is also looking into other verticals like Home, Style, Food, and Health for her next trick.

SimpleGeo’s Matt Galligan and Icanhascheezburger’s Ben Huh have teamed up to change the way people consume news via mobile. Their startup Circa, which boasts a newsworthy list of advisors like former Digg CEO Jay Adelson, has just raised 750K in seed funding from eonCapital, Quotidian Ventures, Techstars’ David Cohen and David Tisch, Tumblr’s David Karp, Eric Norlin’s SK Ventures, Manesh Arora, Pedro Torres-Picon, Rick Webb, Scott Belsky and Soraya Darabi.

“40% of our current funding is provided by Davids,” Galligan jokes.

As to what Circa will actually be when the product finally launches? Well, the company is keeping many details under wraps. “A lot of what we’re doing is entirely new and I don’t say that lightly,” Galligan explains, revealing that the startup is committed to solving the information overload problem, “There are no sacred cows in this.”

While Galligan is keeping mum on what exactly the play is, he does divulge that  the idea for the startup grew out of Ben Huh’s “Moby Dick project,” which aimed to find a solution for humanity’s current state of TMI.  He also reveals that it is not a pure news aggregation play like Digg or Techmeme, “We’re solving a different kind of problem. There is more information created today than ever before. But as a society we’re less informed.”

The five person company plans on using the funding to hire more engineers who are enthusiastic about building a mobile experience — And who want to make consuming news and staying engaged with stories much easier via mobile. “We’re trying to make it so that people educate themselves for 5 minutes as opposed to play Angry Birds,” Galligan says.

Someone wise once said “If Instagram for video were to happen it would look nothing like Instagram” but, because it was on Twitter, I briefly saw that tweet before it got lost in the ether and now I can’t find it, dammit. But whoever said this is right (please reach out if it was you, I want to give you credit) and also didn’t tell Viddy, which for the most part looks exactly like Instagram for video. Fine.

Anyways, people have been reporting all over the place about Viddy’s current insane Series B so I guess I (and you) should care. And quite honestly, I (and you) totally should really care because it’s more money than I’ve ever seen. Seriously, ever seen. Which means co-founders JJ Aguhob and Brett O’Brien might just be onto something, so …

This is what I’ve got, Viddy is raising a dead serious $30 million Series B round at a $370 million valuation. I have no idea whether that is post or pre-money but whatever it is, it is really fucking ambitious, and Viddy is throwing its reported 10 million users on the table. It also means investors are hoping it’ll be a $10 billion company, or an $800 million company at the least. Okay.

NEA, who I hear is shooting for these kinds of BFDs, is in, but I have no idea who else though the round is close to closing apparently. But maybe others will try after this post, right?

Stupid hype cycle. I love/hate you.

Two updates: This and this. Also, after a bunch of people reached out, it’s a Series B not A. My bad.