(Photo: Instagram)
Selfie study Kim Kardashian could be in possession of the just-announced iPhone 5s, or sunlight could’ve just made her black iPhone look grey. Tech!
Refinery29 spotted a photo uploaded to Ms. Kardashian’s Instagram in which the iPhone that appears looks mysteriously like the Space Gray color the new iPhone 5s will be offered in. That wouldn’t be too much of a surprise, given Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak was one of the first non-Kardashian humans to visit baby North West. But let’s not kid ourselves: it’s been awhile since Mr. Wozniak had any sort of insider pull at Apple and he’s going to be waiting in line for the iPhone 5s just like everyone else.
We’ll chalk this one up to a suspicious choice in filter.
All aTwitter Yesterday, in case you've been dwelling under a very large rock without Wifi, Twitter announced it's going public. The company wants to make its debut on the public markets as quietly as possible, but the tech press has pageviews to gin up, here. Is @jack about to make a mint he can plow back into Square and tasteful hand-blown glass plates? Are we destined to witness another Facebook-like embarrassment?
But if there's one person who kicked back yesterday afternoon, it's probably New York Times reporter Nick Bilton, whose book Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal (so dramatic!) drops November 5. Timely. As Daily Intel's Kevin Roose pointed out at the height of the news frenzy, "Lesson from the past 20 minutes: @nickbilton's Twitter book is going to sell so many copies." Mr. Bilton favorited the tweet.
Speaking of Twitter, before its big Thursday news, the company announced it had shelled out $300-plus million for the startup MoPub. And, well, this is how they chose to celebrate:
.@Drake Hi Drake, our startup @mopub just got acquired by Twitter, now we're listening to 'Started From the Bottom' on a loop. GREAT TRACK
— John Egan (@jegania) September 9, 2013
Guys.
Design Travesties Don't show this photo to Jack Dorsey, who's so addicted to minimalism and clean lines that he regularly rounds up his employees and has them help pick up trash from the streets of San Francisco. Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell recently posted this photo from the back of a cab somewhere in America, and it would make @jack weep to see his payments product associated with something so fugly. As one commenter put it, "Sounds like a pyramid scheme." That's just the yellow-highlighter/red-pen combination, but it's an understandable mistake.
Disrupting Disrupt Rumors about the murky ethical relationship between Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington and the startups he funds, reports on and touts have always swirled, but he may have taken it to new heights this time. Valleywag reports that for the third year in a row, mind-numbingly boring tech conference Techrunch Disrupt has awarded a company funded by Crunchfund, Mr. Arrington's investment arm, first place in its startup competition.
Of course, the Valley is rife with conflicts of interest, but you'd think Mr. Arrington would recuse himself from the judge's panel upon hearing that one of the companies he will see a financial gain from if it succeeds stands to win an award. But that's not how tech works, is it?
Boss ass bitch In addition to running her platform-shoe-and-skintight-dress online empire, ecommerce queen Sophia Amoruso is penning a book about business. #GirlBoss: How to Write Your Own Rules While Turning Heads and Turning Profits is planned to be “part memoir and part business advice,” Women’s Wear Daily reports. The hashtag in the title is a bit regrettable, but wannabe tech tycoons of every gender would do well to check the book out. It’s not every eBay account holder who can turn her vintage-peddling side project into a $100 million enterprise.
Sporty spice In between advising all those startups, hawking some book and bopping around the country doing God knows what, Alex Ohanian made some time to chill with his bros this week. The scruff-adorned Mr. Ohanian took in not only a Washington Redskins football game with the "same crew" but fratted hard with Ben Lerer at a Mets game. (Mr. Lerer's dad, HuffPo cofounder Ken Lerer, is a part-owner of the Mets.) Judging by the team's terrible record and empty seats behind them, they seemed to be one of the few to enjoy themselves.
