New Yorkers using Airbnb to rent out their apartments, extra bedrooms and even couches — more than 10,000 in total — are now making, on average, $21,000 per year in income, Chesky said.

Some local listers make as much as $100,000 per year, he added. “That’s transformative income.”

Of course, the proliferation of shared spaces in the city has several negative side effects, including more than a smattering of complaints from neighbors and questions of legality. Chesky, however, did not address these issues.

At DLD, Chesky did speak extensively about the notion of a “sharing economy,” or what he believes is the third wave of Internet that gets people offline and connecting in the real world, as well as a movement that is stimulating local economies.

The movement includes a number of startups proffering the exchange of shared goods, including Loosecubes, RelayRides and TaskRabbit.

Instead of keeping up with the Joneses, we’re going to be sharing with Joneses, he said. “If we are successful … I think people will one day forget what the world was like before the sharing economy,” Chesky added.

Three year-old Airbnb powers rentals in 19,000 cities in 192 different countries. In July, the startup closed a $112 million round of funding at a $1.3 billion valuation, and just released an Android application last week.

[Image via DLD/Tumblr]

Disclosure: The Digital Life Design conference paid my way to Munich. VentureBeat’s coverage of the conference remains objective and independent.

Turnover has always been a problem at top advertising agencies. But these days the designers and developers needed to create rich media campaigns are also being lured away from Madison Avenue by the booming New York tech scene.

“Retaining top folks is always a problem for agencies,” says digital media agency veteran Matt Straz. “Battling for talent with tech startups and that has added a whole new dimension to the talent crunch.”

So Straz has founded a new company, Namely, which hopes to use cloud computing and data analysis to help advertising agencies retain their key employees.

Venturebeat has learned that Namely just raised a $1 million seed round from some of the biggest names in New York’s ad-tech scene: folks like Mike Lazerow from Buddy Media, Michael Barrett from AdMeld, Michael Kassan and Wenda Harris Millard from MediaLink, Simulmedia’s Dave Morgan and CIA founder Chris Ingram.

“At some agencies there can be 30 percent annual turnover on the top accounts,” said Straz. “We’re building a really robust database in the cloud so that the decision makers at these companies can get an informed take on who they should pay to keep and when it’s ok to let a competitor poach.”

Although he won’t name any names, Straz says that several of the largest advertising agencies have already signed on and imported their employee statistics, meaning Namely has a better chance to avoid the cold start problem of having a service making recommendations based on very little data.

Straz, who sold his previous startup Pictela to AOL, says that he decided to avoid raising from traditional venture capitalists and took four months going door to door with people from his own industry. “It took a lot longer, but it was a lot more satisfying. There are kind of two worlds in New York, the flashy consumer tech and then the big world of ad-tech behind it.”

He has also decided to headquarter Namely in Brooklyn. “That’s where the creative class tends to live,” Straz noted. He’ll be joining Charlie O’Donnell, who yesterday launched a new venture fund to focus on the rising tech scene in Brooklyn. “I just hired a developer and you know who I was competing with? Facebook. But this guy picked Namely because we’re based in Williamsburg, and that’s a neighbourhood he loves.”

New York-based NumberFire focuses on sports analytics and can even help you win your fantasy football league. Other sports for fantasy tracking are coming in the future. The company is a recent graduate of the ER Accelerator program.

Despite only being around since Sept. 2010 and only having four employees, the company already has partnerships in place with ESPN, Sports Illustrated and SB Nation for content and statistics.

NumberFire CEO Nik Bonaddio told us the seed round currently amounts to $650,000, but it will eventually total $750,000. Bonaddio said he and his team decided to close the round early because they wanted to get the ball rolling now. The team will get the paperwork sorted out for the additional cash in the near future.

RRE Ventures led the seed round, with participation by TechStars’ David Tisch and Pennyblack’s Eliot Durbin.

“We’re thrilled to be working alongside such great investors and mentors,” Bonaddio told VentureBeat. “This round will give us the runway to build on our great momentum by developing products across multiple sports and partners. But enough about the company — let’s go Steelers!”

Apple’s brand-new Grand Central Terminal location opened its doors today to swarms of Apple fans, journalists and tourists.

The new store is a pretty big deal for a few reasons. First, Grand Central is an iconic structure and one of the most photographed landmarks in New York City. Second, at 23,000 square feet, this location is one of the world’s largest Apple Stores. Third, the store merges the past and present. Unlike Apple’s other, more modernist stores, in this one Apple’s futuristic iPads and iPhones are coupled with a backdrop of early 1900s architecture.

As I walked around during the opening and was handed a free T-shirt (see below), I couldn’t help but feel that I was inside something special. Perhaps it’s just Grand Central Terminal’s chandeliers and marble and brass facade, but it felt more regal and first-class than any Apple Store I’ve ever been in. The Apple Store’s normal design instincts usually leave me feeling cold, but this location left me feeling warm — and not just because I was surround by hordes of people (and dogs!). It’s the sort of place I expect to find busy every time I walk by.

At least it’s accommodating to its crowds. The massive location has two Genius Bars with 12 seats each, 45 display tables for products, three walls of accessories and 315 full- and part-time employees. Because of the way Grand Central is set up, the Store is sectioned off into different areas that feel disconnected from the others. The store has a room devoted to third-party accessories, a room focused on the Genius Bars and an area called Startup, where the Apple team can help you get a newly purchased iPad, iPhone or other product up and running.

Take a look at the full gallery below:

Facebook will open an engineering office in New York City in early 2012, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg jointly announced Friday.

“For us, this isn’t a satellite office,” Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s vice president of engineering, said. The office will be core to Facebook’s engineering stack, he added.

The new office is part of a calculated effort by the social network to expand its presence in New York and recruit top engineering talent outside of Silicon Valley. Facebook currently employs engineers only in its Palo Alto, California office and a small Seattle office it opened last year. It is also planning to build an office in Menlo Park, California, as part of its planned expansion to 9,000 employees. The company currently employs about 2,000 people, mostly in Palo Alto.

Facebook’s engineering manager Serkan Piantino will lead the new office. Piantino previously led the engineering team that created News Feed and Timeline.

Facebook first kicked off its aggressive New York City takeover when it leased two floors at 335 Madison Avenue one year ago. Facebook already has 100 employees working out of that office, and will hire as much talent as required but it does not have specific goals in mind, Sandberg said.

“We’re going to grow as quickly as we can in New York,” Sandberg said. “We’ve had a great presence in New York for a long time. New York has been a really important home for us.”

“This is our first international release. And we’re going to take London very seriously,” Pandav co-founder David Hodge told VentureBeat in an interview. The app launched last week.

Pandav apps have offline navigation and arrival times, so users can find the ideal route to their destination in the widest variety of circumstances. Realtime updates are another key feature available on Pandav’s navigation apps, so when users have a data connection, they can be alerted to track construction and other possible delays, and plan accordingly.

The London app offers the same touchscreen navigation as the developer’s other apps, but will soon be able to alert riders to the availability of so-called “Boris Bikes” at their destinations — Boris Bikes are the citywide bike-sharing program spearheaded by London Mayor Boris Johnson. The hope is that the app will be used by locals and tourists alike.

“Definitely the biggest thing we learned was that there are many people who are comfortable enough with transit systems but didn’t even realize how much of their time they wasted without our app,” says Hodge. “With that in mind, we honed trip planning and made sure we could provide people with good delay/reroute information.”

San Francisco-based Pandav thinks it has a winner should it start selling location-based deals, because when people are in transit, they’re neither at home or at work, and are most receptive to location-based offers. As a opposed to a location service like Foursquare that knows where you are when you check in, Pandav knows where you’re going to be, because the app is helping you make better public transportation decisions.

With their first $3,000 the Pandav team was able to roll out iBart, the transit app for Bay Area commuters, and chalk up more than half a million users. Today Pandav apps are available for transit riders in New York City (MTA, Metro-North, Long Island Railroad) Chicago (Metra  and CTA, aka the L), and the Washington D.C. Metro, as well as the newly-launched London Tube map. Hodge says he’s seeing 1.4 million sessions per month, and they’re growing by 25 percent month-to-month.

With the 2012 Summer Olympics just around the corner in London, the Pandav team expects that tens of thousands of people may be using this app during the games to get around the city. “We aim to be able to help tourists get to specific events easily and help locals avoid the madness as much as possible. So that means specific event listings with built-in directions,” said Hodge. “It sounds straightforward on the surface, but it get’s pretty involved.”

Pandav has three full-time employees and part-time designer, and has received unattributed funding.

Apple unveiled its long-under-construction New York flagship Store on 5th Avenue on Friday, and like a redesigned iPhone, it looks similar to the previous model but has its own charms.

Back in June, Apple began renovating the well-known location at an estimated cost of $6.6 million. The normally 24/7 location was closed yesterday evening at 10 p.m. and reopened this morning at 10 a.m. with a long line waiting outside.

The 5th Avenue location is a uniquely designed building with a giant glass cube on the ground level. Customers take a stylish staircase down into a massive floor featuring every Apple product, including rows of iPhones, iPads, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, iPod touches and iMacs.

The glass cube on top is the only notable renovation. The cube used to feature 90 pieces of glass but now it has just 15 panels. Apple said in early August that it was “simplifying” the design by using “larger, seamless pieces of glass.”

I stood back and watched the crowds almost run inside to get inside the store at 10 a.m. Apple Store employees in blue shirts cheered on customers as they went in. After watching them for a few moments, I hopped in line myself and decided to take a look inside the store to see if anything had changed. Not surprisingly, the inside of the store is exactly the same, but it’s still fun to see so many people excited to test drive the latest powerful tech products.

Take a look at the gallery below for a better look at the 5th Ave Apple Store on the outside and inside:

“A lot of businesses are struggling now to get all the work they need done with small budgets, and a lot of students are looking for ways to get exposure.” RentAStudent CEO Morgan Dierstein told VentureBeat. “We help both parties connect.”

RentAStudent’s purpose is to connect students and businesses for any imaginable project. Companies that may not be able to afford established freelancers, but are willing to take a shot with a college student, are the big winners here, especially in this tight economy. Students are helped because taking on a single project is easier than signing up for an internship and there’s money in it.

The company makes money by taking a 15 percent cut of each transaction. Dierstein said that it’s a slightly higher cut than some competitors, but said it’s worth it because RentAStudent pre-screens the students and companies offering projects. Because there is more accountability, Dierstein argues both sides are both more likely to be happy with the results of the project.

“Companies don’t want to work with complete strangers, so we help them get to know their prospective student workers,” Dierstein said.

Dierstein (pictured) first came up with idea for the company in 2006 while he was a college student in Los Angeles, looking for ways to make money. The idea intensified in 2009 when he unsuccessfully looked for jobs during the downturn and realized how strapped businesses were for cash as well.

RentAStudent officially launched in France — Dierstein’s home country — in January, but the team just made the site available in the U.S. this month. Dierstein said the company has taken in more than $40,000 in revenues this year and with the U.S. launch added in, he thinks the number could continue to grow considerably. The site has taken off mostly in France and has signed up more than 1,000 screened students, but now Dierstein and one other employee have set up shop in New York to get the word out.

At present, RentAStudent is self-funded, but Dierstein is using his company’s new placement to talk with VC firms and attract some essential funds to help the company grow and market itself.

“It was difficult to find funding in France,” Dierstein said. “I’m not sure if it’s cultural or strictly about money, but if you’re a startup, you’re more likely to find help in the U.S.”

More than 100 people from New York’s burgeoning tech scene showed up October 25 for a startup party sponsored by VentureBeat and DEMO.

That’s not a bad turnout for an impromptu event organized just a week before. It’s a sign of the robust vitality and collegiality of the New York tech economy, which is one of the reasons VentureBeat was there in the first place.

VentureBeat editor-in-chief Matt Marshall and I were visiting New York this week on a mission to find out more about the city and its tech business. We talked with PR people, journalists and dozens of entrepreneurs. We spent time with VentureBeat’s intrepid New York staffers, senior editor Devindra Hardawar and staff writer Sean Ludwig. But the highlight of the week may have been the party at Katra Lounge, where a dozen brave entrepreneurs stood up in front of the crowd to give two-minute pitches for their companies.

We picked 10 of those startups to present ahead of time. While I kept strict track of the time (using the iPod Nano on my wrist), and the dozens in the crowd sipped their beverages, these 10 gave it their best shot.

• agrowculture.org — helps urban farmers find the right technology for their space whether it is a window sill, backyard, or rooftop, and allows them to sell to their community.
• Campalyst –  provides social media analytics software that helps brands to convert fans to paying customers.
• ChatID –  a universal platform that powers chat communication between businesses and consumers anywhere around the web
  and from any mobile device.
• Estimize — “First Call” for the social media age, allowing social finance users to aggregate their earnings & economic estimates and compete against each other.
• Ingenuitas — creates open source software and hardware for manufacturing inspection and systems and provides customization, data management, and analytics.
• Leebug — a SaaS solution for events that offers networking tools for attendees, branding tools for sponsors and revenue generating tools for event producers.
• LocalBonus — allows consumers to use their existing credit/debit cards as their loyalty card at local merchants.
• Paatle — the first global platform to simplify the way consumers rent, buy and sell real estate while enabling the entire real-estate ecosystem to collaborate.
• Shodogg — a patent pending technology enabling any smartphone to deliver media content to any connected screen without using wires or boxes.
• Surre.al –a location-based virtual world that interacts with the real world through augmented reality and the camera of your smartphone or tablet.

Missed your chance to come to the party? Don’t worry — VentureBeat will likely be holding more events in New York in the near future.

Photos: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Twitter executive chairman and Square CEO Jack Dorsey joined Bloomberg on stage to announce the opening, coming at a somber time, since Apple’s Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. But Dorsey kept the conversation light and even offered Bloomberg a job, saying, “I know you have an engineering degree, Mr. Mayor, and you may be looking for a new job soon. We’re hiring.”

Dorsey said New York has a burgeoning tech community that can help the company with talent. He also noted that New York is the most active city on Twitter, so it the city is a natural fit for the company.

“New York has the most Twitter users of any city in the world and the biggest community of Twitter developers outside of California,” Dorsey reportedly said.

Maybe more importantly, New York’s connections to some of the biggest players in advertising could open new doors for the social media company in generating revenues. Twitter has more than 30 employees in New York already, but the new office at 340 Madison Avenue will be able to hold 100 people if the company wants to expand further.

Twitter’s integration into New York’s growing tech scene will no doubt be welcomed by other startup owners who want New York’s creativity and ingenuity recognized.

Tumblr’s blogging platform emphasizes its ease of use and now hosts more than 27 million blogs. Fashion and photography blogs are especially popular on the site because it pushes strong visuals. A reported 20 percent of Tumblr blogs are related to fashion.

Silicon Valley venture firm Greylock Partners, which has also participated in rounds with Facebook, Groupon and Airbnb, was named as a new investor.

Both Greylock and Tumblr did not immediately return requests for comment on this story.

New York-based Tumblr has been growing steadily since the beginning of the year, even though it has had trouble finding ways to generate revenues. In December the company has 16 employees; it now has around 50. comScore says Tumblr had 13.4 million unique U.S. visitors in July, which is up considerably from 6.7 million in December.

Tumblr last raised $30 million back in December 2010, with funding coming from Sequoia Capital, Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. The company has raised about $40.2 million total, not including the new funding that’s about to close.

Are you a fan of Tumblr? What do you think the company can do to monetize?

Note: Business Insider reported earlier in the week that Tumblr was in the process of raising a new round of funding.

Forget the debates about whether online media is killing print: For the makers of Longshot, the internet makes it possible to publish an issue of a magazine in just two days.

From announcing the issue’s theme (“debt,” according to the announcement that went out today) to collecting submissions to editing them, laying them out on pages, adding art and shipping everything to the printer, the editors have given themselves just 48 hours.

Longshot is one of several seat-of-the-pants literary experiments based on fusing real-world talent and internet tech. For example, Pop-up Magazine is a live event, held occasionally in New York or San Francisco, that is structured like a magazine and features the talents of many magazine writers and editors. Like Longshot, it makes use of social media like Twitter to attract contributors and publicize its unique events.

Longshot cofounder Alexis Madrigal (a friend and former Wired.com coworker of mine) told VentureBeat that the project is only possible thanks to the internet.

“What’s crazy about making an instant magazine is that all the tools we use were created in the last few years,” Madrigal said. “You just could not do what we do in 2004.”

Madrigal posted a list of the tech the Longshot team is using on TheAtlantic.com, where he works during the day as the editor of the site’s technology coverage. The magazine’s toolkit includes:

• HP’s Magcloud, a print-on-demand service
• SubMishMash, a tool for collecting submissions to literary publications
• Kickstarter, the popular website for soliciting donations to projects
• Soundcloud, an audio hosting service where Longshot audio will be posted
• Google Docs, the lingua franca for collaborative editing today
• Google Forms, a feature within Google Docs that makes it easy to collect data
• Twitter, the ubiquitous microblogging service
• Tumblr, the blogging service that Longshot uses to post updates, photos and video
• Google+, which they’re experimenting with this time around

Still, a lot of it comes down to face time. For the magazine’s previous issue, everyone gathered in the San Francisco offices of Mother Jones magazine, working on a table that was reportedly used to lay out the first issue of Rolling Stone. For this issue, the team will be gathering in the New York offices of blog journalism pioneer Gawker Media.

“Despite the tools for networked collaboration, we all love being in a room together. There still is no substitute,” Madrigal said.

In addition to Madrigal, there’s a team of talented magazine media editors who will be working around the clock for the next two days to get their magazine together.

If you’d like to contribute your writing, drawing, photography or other skills to the new issue, get your submissions in by 3pm Eastern/12 noon Pacific on Saturday, July 30.

Photo: Longshot magazine team members hard at work, August 2010. Photo by Mat Honan.

Google attempted to buy Groupon late last year, but Groupon declined the reported $6 billion offer to pursue its own lofty goals and has even filed for a $750 million IPO. In response, Google introduced Offers, which could prove dangerous to Groupon, LivingSocial, and other daily deal sites.

Google Offers’ site says Austin, Boston, Denver, Seattle, and Washington D.C. are coming soon. People in those cities can go to www.google.com/offers to sign up if they want to be notified.

Android phone users get a little extra Google Offers love because they can buy, view, and redeem a Google Offer via the Google Shopper 2.0 app for Android.

The big question Google must answer is how it will differentiate itself from Groupon and LivingSocial. With Google’s heft, reach, and resources, the company has the power to give businesses more tools and a broader reach. A business’ Google Offer, for example, could show up when someone puts in a particular search term into Google. Or perhaps Google’s new Google+ social network could advertise an Offer when someone talks about a business or service.

A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat that Offers is “unique in several ways” and has added convenience for those who already have a Google account or use Google Checkout. “For businesses, an important distinction from other local deals providers is that the revenue from pre-paid Google Offers comes to them within a week,” the spokesperson said. “With costs on the rise for everything from gas to milk, getting paid up front means a lot to small businesses. And we know people want to support local businesses, so this is one more way to do that while having fun at the same time.”

Google Offers’ promotional video on NY and SF is below:

We’re in NYC for a couple of reasons: One, we’re constantly looking for awesome entrepreneurs to connect with, so that we can cover their stories on VentureBeat.

Second,  and I guess you could say it is related, we’re on the prowl for the best companies we can find so that we can invite them to showcase their products at DEMO, the big emerging tech conference we produce, and which takes place Sept. 12-14.

At DEMO, we’ll have the nation’s top tech media present, awesome speakers, and a room full of buzz.

So if you’re an entrepreneur, investor or just a tech junkie, you’re invited to join us at our event in New York next week. We’ll be partying from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. Spread the word and let’s get the entire New York tech scene there.

If you’d like to come, make sure you register here. We’ll be buying drinks for the first 50 people to show up.

And another reminder: If your company is interested in launching at DEMO either this fall or next year, apply to attend the open house at RRE Ventures we’re having earlier in the day Wednesday. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we’ll be inviting up to 10 companies to present at RRE’s offices.

But get your applications in soon, because we’ll be sending out invitations on Monday.

See you next week!

A month after wrapping up DEMO Spring, we’re back traveling the world looking for the next awesome products to launch at the upcoming DEMO, to be held September 12-14 in Silicon Valley.

This New York session will give you a great opportunity to get feedback from a few RRE partners, myself (I’m DEMO Executive Producer and am in charge of selecting DEMO’s class of companies) and other key members of the DEMO team.

DEMO is where a long list of successful companies launched their earliest products, including Netscape, Salesforce, Palm, TiVo and E-Trade. Also, we’ve just launched a new DEMO Scholarship Partner Program, which effectively makes DEMO free for the earliest stage companies. This next event is going to be huge.

And with New York humming with new technology and media excitement, it’s going to be big stop for us.

Here are the details: On May 11, we’ll meet with up to 10 companies at RRE’s offices (130 East 59th Street, 17th Floor). Each company will be given 20 minutes to present to the DEMO team and partners from RRE Ventures, followed by 10 minutes of feedback.

If you’re interested in presenting at this gathering, please fill out this form. If you’re selected, we’ll get in touch with you immediately to provide instructions.

After the day of presentations, we’ll all be heading out to Katra Lounge (217 Bowery at Rivington), where the whole NY tech community is invited to join us for drinks. We’ll be buying drinks for the first 50 people through the door. If you’d like to come to the party, please register here.

Look forward to seeing some of you in New York!

Clearwire

Clearwire will offer dual-mode 4G/3G USB modems in New York City and Los Angeles in advance of commercial service. It isn’t clear just how much of the San Francisco Bay Area will be covered, but it’s about time that wireless networking came to broader Silicon Valley. Clearwire already has service operating in 74 markets in the U.S. More than 66 million people live in the areas covered by the service. Clearwire started the service in areas where it had less competition and it could improve the quality of the service more easily. By going after the biggest cities, Clearwire will finally bring some serious competition to cable modems and telephone digital subscriber lines. It’s about time that wireless internet infrastructure provided more competition in the broadband market.

Prices start at $29.99 a month for 3G internet service and $69.99 for 2 megabits per second speed and access via a mobile PC cards.

While Kushner is only 25 years old, he is already a successful entrepreneur in his own right. He is the co-founder and chief strategy officer at Vostu, a highly profitable South American social gaming company. In addition to his role at Vostu and as an investor, Kushner is also in his second year at Harvard Business School.

The fund has made 15 investments already, including GroupMe and Hot Potato, 12 of them in New York City. Thrive will focus on early consumer internet and social media companies. Kushner indicated to VentureBeat that in addition to seed stage deals, Thrive would reserve a significant portion of the fund for follow-on investments.

In addition to Kushner, Thrive has an all-star group of advisors including Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and Square; General Catalyst co-founder Joel Cutler; former Hot Potato CEO Justin Shaffer; Drop.IO CEO Sam Lessin; and Zelnick Media co-founder Strauss Zelnick.

The Kushner name is not a new one in New York business circles. Josh’s father Charles is a prominent real estate developer, while his brother owns the New York Observer and is married to Ivanka Trump. Josh hopes to leverage his network and those of his advisors to help the firm’s portfolio companies penetrate the traditional business world.

If you’re based in NY, and you think you’ve built a technology product that will set off the next tech revolution, consider applying for a special session we’re hosting next Tuesday with one of New York’s respected venture capital groups, RRE Ventures. Some partners at that firm will join us in providing feedback on your product.

Two weeks after wrapping up DEMO Fall in Silicon Valley, we’re back to traveling the world looking for the next great class of products to launch at the upcoming DEMO, on February 27. This session will give you a great opportunity to meet with myself (I’m DEMO Executive Producer and am in charge of selecting DEMO’s class of companies) and other key members of the DEMO team. We’re hoping to meet companies contemplating launching a product at the next DEMO or a later DEMO event.

DEMO is where a long list of pathbreaking companies have launched their earliest products. This includes names like Netscape (its browser helped spark the Web revolution), Salesforce (it ushered in SaaS), Palm (its Pilot product heralded the coming wave of smartphones) and VMWare (its virtualization technology has helped it morph into a $35 billion company). Could you be next?

Here are the details: On October 5, we’ll be meeting with up to 10 companies at RRE’s offices (130 East 59th Street, 17th Floor). Each company will be given 20 minutes to present to the DEMO team, and partners from RRE Ventures, followed by 10 minutes of feedback.

If you’re interested in presenting at this NYC gathering, please fill out this form. If you’re selected as one of the 10, we’ll get in touch with you immediately to provide instructions.

Look forward to seeing some of you in New York next week!

According to Bloomberg, “When you want to start a business, you don’t have any choice. This is where the best and the brightest are.”

Bloomberg pointed out that venture funding in NYC rose by 19 percent, when it fell in most other places in the country. He went on to say that the city is also home to two technology incubators (Betaworks and Rose Tech Ventures), and a major New York university will soon be launching a media lab.

There don’t appear to be any plans for tax incentive programs for tech startups. And Bloomberg made it clear that the city is certainly expensive and doesn’t offer much space. But he argued that it’s still worth it for tech startups to give the city a shot.

According to TechCrunch’s transcript, Bloomberg wrapped his talk with the following rousing statement:

In NYC we understand innovation drives economic growth. We’re nurturing information technology. If you have an idea, or a product, or an app, NYC is the city for you. Business is better here. NYC has just become No. 1 tourist destination. It’s happening here. I can’t guarantee you will be successful, but it’s an awful lot easier to attract the best and brightest, and to interface with other people. If you’re a smart person this is the happening city.

Bloomberg also announced the first investment by NYC’s entrepreneur fund, $300k in the local search company My City Way. The city partnered with FirstMark Capital for the fund, which can now invest up to $22 million. My City Way won several awards at the NYC Big Apps competition, which was held to spur on innovative companies in the city. The company’s mobile app fits over 50 local search tools (it’s available for New York as NYC Way), and it plans to make its app available for 20 cities by the end of 2010.

[Image via Columbia University]

OpenSky, an e-commerce startup from veteran New York entrepreneurs, raised $6 million in a second round led by Highland Capital Partners and Canaan Partners. The round brings the company’s total funding to about $11 million.

The company helps bloggers monetize their businesses by making it easy for them to sell products directly to readers and earn a cut of the resulting sales. Bloggers choose what and when to sell; for example, it makes sense for makeup- or fashion-focused bloggers to sell clothes and cosmetics to readers that they have established a rapport with over many months or years.

OpenSky does some of the heavy lifting by signing on retailers, facilitating orders, and tracking purchases. It also uses a proprietary matching process to connect products and suppliers to the most appropriate potential seller. OpenSky splits the markup with publishers 50-50. That beats traditional affiliate marketing programs, which usually offer sellers specific fees below 10 percent of the retail price.

The company’s founder, John Caplan, was chief executive at Ford Models and head of marketing at About.com. (The other execs have strong e-commerce pedigrees, with stints at Gilt Groupe, Zappos, Bonobos and Target.) He did a soft launch earlier this month after finding 250 established bloggers willing to sell products directly to their audiences.

Caplan argues that OpenSky won’t compromise the perceived integrity of the bloggers, because they retain control over what they recommend.

It’s up to the publisher how much they might want to affect their credibility by selling products. The Federal Trade Commission moved last year to tighten regulations on product endorsements by bloggers, requiring them to disclose commercial arrangements or face possible fines. The agency subsequently backpedaled on the likelihood of fines, but the appropriate disclosures remain a confusing issue for bloggers.

Although Patrick’s plan is similar in some respects to California’s enormous $3 billion stem-cell effort and New York’s proposed $1 billion investment in stem-cell and related research, it differs in key respects. The most significant may be that Patrick isn’t billing the effort primarily as a stem-cell plan, even though it’s clear that the state initiative would give the stem-cell field a major boost.

The Massachusetts plan would devote roughly half its total funding to capital investment in research facilities across the state — in part, simply to ensure the wide availability of expensive research equipment for use in stem-cell work. (In California, by contrast, only about 10 percent of the $3 billion can be directed to “bricks and mortar.”) Currently, instruments purchased under a federal grant can only be used in studies involving a limited number of stem-cell lines, a restriction that has hampered the work outside of privately-funded laboratories.

According to this piece in the Boston Globe, another $250 million in the Massachusetts plan will be devoted to direct research grants — a much smaller amount than in other states. The remainder of the $1 billion will consist of tax subsidies designed to draw biotechnology firms to the state. Among the individual projects the plan may subsidize are a tissue bank for housing newly created lines of stem cells and a center for the exploration of a gene-silencing technique called RNA interference that earned a University of Massachusetts scientist the Nobel Prize last year.

Also unlike proponents of the similar plans in California and New York, Patrick isn’t promoting this initiative specifically as a way to cure deadly diseases or to boost economic development in the state. Instead, he casts it as an effort to meet competitive challenges from foreign nations and other states, as well as a way to counter a recent flattening in biomedical research funding through the National Institutes of Health, which has disproportionately affected states like Massachusetts.

The NYT has more here, and notes that the plan also includes $250 million in hoped-for private-sector “matching funds” that will pay for grants, fellowships and capital investment. You can also check out the state’s official press release, a more detailed outline and five-point plan, and even the video of the governor’s announcement.