Far be it from Gawker.com to claim to be the finest financial blog “in the markets,” but we can tell you this: your special “high flying” “IPO” stocks are getting clobbered!!!
In searching for a Father’s Day present for my stepdad, I hit up all the best sites: Amazon.com, google: “father’s day”, HomeDepot.com, and finally Etsy. While my returns on the first three were lackluster—what’s he going to do with another grill spatula with a light wood handle?—I was surprised to learn that Etsy really came through for a gal in need.
So many bizarre things are for sale on the online arts-and-crafts fair Etsy that spotting them has become a business in its own right. Most of these are accidental monstrosities, but artist Brad Troemel is selling a line of purposely demented pieces, in what we feel comfortable labeling the weirdest Etsy store ever.
"Home is where the heart is." "Bless this mess." "Sometimes I get emotional over fonts."
"Musical Phenominal Whitney- The light of Christ shines upon Whitney Houston and she is new again and at peace," writes artist Jeffry Lynne Hawk. "I felt so moved to draw this picture of Whitney in the hands of Jesus to make a statement that God can forgive all those who turn to him. Whitney was once a beautiful song bird who lost her way, but will sing again for her Father in Heaven." This 18" x 24" pastel can be yours for only $300.00.
Invisible Children, the nonprofit behind the KONY 2012 campaign, has asked supporters to spend April 20 raising awareness of the crimes of Ugandan militia leader and horrible person Joseph Kony. But how can you raise awareness? How about with one of the many KONY 2012 knockoffs available on Cafepress, Etsy and deviantART? Here's a lovingly curated selection:
Dusty cavern of the perpetually knitting and crafting, Etsy is full of quirky potholders, dream catchers, homemade cat jewelery, and dick stuff. Yeah, dick stuff. Surprisingly (not that surprisingly), Etsy peddles a number of crocheted, Mod Podged, and beaded phallic goods.
Take a much-loathed corporation, add poor kids, Christmas, and a popular blog, and you've got the recipe for a perfect Internet Shit Storm. Paypal is being blasted for "stealing" money raised for Christmas presents for poor kids.
Hipsters love bikes. They also love wine. But because stuffing a bottle of red in your messenger bag before pedaling down to the park for a picnic is totally déclassé, it hasn't been possible to marry the two. Until now, that is. Etsy user oopsmark is now offering a "Bicycle Wine Rack," which is described thusly:
Some people are awesome at picking just the right gifts for friends and loved ones. Others just suck at presents. For the latter group, Brooklyn e-tailer Etsy invented a brilliant mashup of Facebook and the twee crafts it sells.
Fred Wilson's venture-capital firm, the paper of record tells us, "has built its portfolio making small bets on young companies." That is an excellent definition of early-stage venture capital. But is Wilson, of Union Square Ventures, to be congratulated with a glowing New York Times profile merely for doing his job? Apparently so. The real thing that distinguishes Wilson from his peers are not his practices or his profits; it is his prolixity. Wilson writes a blog read by some 25,000 people a month. Newspaper reporters can relate to him as a wordsmith rather than a financier. Also, he is in New York, which makes him geographically convenient for the media capital. The news event which prompted this profile?Wilson gave a speech last week in Manhattan. In other words, there was no reason to run the story. What's really going on? Wilson himself explains: The Times had this piece in the works for weeks. My theory: Editors there felt it needed to run soon, before the sector Wilson favors — hipsterish Web startups like Twitter and Etsy — suffered some embarrassing disaster. (Photo by Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times)
How many ex-Yahoo managers does it take to reproduce a classic Beatles album cover? From left to right: Salim Ismail, Chad Dickerson, Scott Gatz, and Bradley Horowitz. All four were, at some point, responsible for parts of Yahoo's advanced-products group, including the Brickhouse incubator in San Francisco. The band reunited last night at the 21st Amendment bar in San Francisco's South of Market district to bid Dickerson farewell; he is leaving Yahoo to become CTO of Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for hipster-friendly handicrafts one must nod politely about. Ismail is attending to Confabb, the startup he failed to sell before joining Yahoo; Gatz is now running GayCities, a queer-travel website; and Horowitz is now at Google. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments The winner will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: Naughty Jason L. Baptiste, for "One bubble Pete Cashmore would like to pop."
Chad Dickerson, who has been responsible for Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator since December, is leaving the company to be CTO at Etsy, an online handicrafts retailer. We hear Google, where former boss Bradley Horowitz now works, had been heavily recruiting Dickerson. With this move, Dickerson has deftly dissed both Web giants. Well done, Chad! [TechCrunch]
Now that Caterina Fake has left Yahoo and Stewart Butterfield has tendered his abstract resignation letter, what will the widely beloved Flickr cofounders do? And where will they go? Brendon Wilson, who worked in the Valley himself before returning to his native Canada, pointed us to an effort by a group of geeks to convince Fake and Butterfield to come back to Vancouver, British Columbia, where Flickr was launched. The welcome wagon even turned out a video slideshow of Flickr photos to remind the couple just how beautiful the city can be. Look, a rainbow! And it may just be working — last night, Butterfield added himself to the Bring Stewart and Caterina Home! group on Facebook. Fake may have other plans, though.
