I am not a New Yorker, in the sense of having been born, raised, and educated here. I am an economic migrant, like most of the people I know and admire in New York, and the great majority of people I know are the same. New York seems to be in the early days of a tech start-up boom, created largely by other migrants: talented developers and entrepreneurs, and smart investors.

There is growing awareness on the part of city government of the role that it can play, as Mayor Bloomberg demonstrated this week at the TechCrunch Disrupt event (see Bloomberg Talks At TechCrunch Disrupt). But my sense is that at least one major element is missing for this recent spike in start-up activity to grow into a long-term and deep shift in the regional economy; where New York could become an international leader in technology like it is in media, finance, fashion, art, and entertainment.

As I said, I am not a born New Yorker. I am a product of Massachusetts educational institutions, where I did K-12 in Brookline, Massachusetts, graduated from the University of Massachusetts, and received my masters in computer science from Boston University. When I attended BU in the ’80s, Boston was a region where the many universities were deeply involved in the development of tech start-ups, and there were a thousand activities going on at local colleges that brought in and involved entrepreneurs. I attended lectures at MIT, get-togethers with researchers at IBM, regular meetings of programmers, and dozens of other local events. Many of my teachers in the computer science program were former or current employees of local companies, like DEC, Symbolics, and BBN. And obviously, the same sort of networked relationships between education and work centers on Stanford and the other Bay Area schools.

For what ever reason, I don’t see New York’s colleges playing this role in NYC’s tech explosion. What’s happened in recent years in tech has been largely driven by migrants with little or no connection with NYU, Brooklyn Poly or Columbia. I know that New York colleges have professors who are pushing the boundaries on new media — Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky leap to mind — but I can think of no corresponding professors involved in entrepreneurialism, or software development.

Mayor Bloomberg, in his comments at TechCrunch Disrupt, stated that the city was going to be involved in the launch of a new media lab later in the year. I was surprised that I hadn’t heard anything about it, and also that he would half-announce it in this way: without naming the school involved or the leadership heading it up. My sources have hinted that this project is more smoke than substance, intended more as PR than the aggressive development of an institute focused on ground-breaking research and education around the rise of the web and its impact on society, media, and business.

A Web Institute of the sort I think the region needs would focus on the world that the web is making, and the intersection of web technologies, media, policy, business, and entertainment, and their study. A major goal for the institute would be developing programs that would bring together the academic and entrepreneurial worlds: to act as a bridge between these groups. I think this is too central a social good to leave to a collection of tech meet ups and one off conferences.

If what my sources hint is true, that the media lab is mere PR, it’s a shame. Because I believe that such an institute would be tremendously helpful as a rallying point, a nexus that could involve the burgeoning tech start-up community, and to build a bridge between that community, and the researchers and students in NYC’s colleges.

I hope that some part of the energy and funding that the city and investors are pouring into funds to help NYC start-ups get off the ground will be directed toward building a Web Institute that could fill this missing piece. My hunch is that NYU’s Stern School would be the best place, if it was to be managed by a single school, but Columbia and Brooklyn Polytechnic might have their own aspirations. But I have no doubt that this will require visionary leadership — in all communities in the city — before this can take place. Perhaps identifying the need is the first step, though.

At the TechCrunch Disrupt event today, I had the chance to talk with Jeff Novich, Co-founder of Fare Share, which is a mobile app designed to help New Yorkers easily share taxi rides.

The app — which is not on iPhone yet, but Novich says it should be ready for Internet Week, early in June. The app does currently run as web application, though. Highlights:

• Users post a location (like Bowery and Grand), and a time where they hope to meet the other user(s).
• Users are alerted to nearby opportunities to share rides.
• Users can post a photo, or describe their clothing, so that the meeting can take place.
• After the ride, the app calculates how to split the fare and tip, even when the riders are not getting out at the same place.

I had a demo and it’s very well-done, but I will wait for the iPhone app before actually adopting it into my ‘cab flow’.

I asked Novich about rolling the app out for other cities, presuming he was planning that. He argued that other cities aren’t like NYC: they don’t have the density of people and taxis that makes this sharing model work. I suggested than maybe London might work, and he agreed, tentatively, but he has no plans at present. For the time being, this will be a NYC-only app.

(see this piece in AM New York  First mobile app to help riders split taxi trips debuts)

Hizzoner Michael Bloomberg came to the TechCrunch Disrupt conference and made a compelling case for the growing tech start-up scene in New York.  Along with the city’s cultural attractions he pointed out that New York is arguably the world’s leading financial, media, and fashion center.

Mayor Bloomberg stated that New York City’s venture investments grew 19% in the first quarter of 2010. I found this on Crain’s which clarifies his claim a bit:

Kira Bindrim, NY’s start-up funding rises as Silicon Valley’s falls

Metro-area venture-capital funding saw an uptick in dollars and deals for the second consecutive quarter, even as investments fell in Silicon Valley and nationally.

Funding for New York-area startup firms rose to $566 million in the first quarter, up 18.9% from the fourth quarter of 2009, and 32% year-over-year, according to a report released Friday by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. Some 75 companies received venture-capital in the first quarter, up 13.6% from the fourth quarter of 2009, and 11.9% year-over-year.

The Big Apple had a better quarter than rival Silicon Valley. Although the Valley still beat New York in dollars and deals—$1.5 billion in funding went to 202 companies there in the first quarter—funding fell 21.4% from the fourth quarter of 2009, and deal volume dropped 24.6%.

New York’s share of overall venture-capital dollars also increased in the first quarter, to 12%, from 9.2% in the fourth quarter of 2009. Silicon Valley accounted for 32.3% of all venture-capital dollars in the first quarter, down from 37.5% in the fourth quarter of last year.

So the growth is a comparison to the first quarter of 2009, not over the previous quarter.

Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city-sponsored NY Entrepreneurial Fund has invested in MyCityWay, the fund’s first investment. FirstMark Capital is collaborating with the New York City Economic Development Corporation to manage the fund, to which the city has contributed $3M, and the fund is dedicated to seed funding of NYC start-ups.

MyCityWay is building mobile apps, basically a collection of apps in a portal-like interface, so users can find information about landmarks, restaurants, and dozens of other specific sorts of local information. The company’s team is moving from NJ to NYC, and plans to have versions of their technology for as many 20 cities.

Perhaps the most interesting comment that Mayor Bloomberg made was a teaser: sometime later in the year the city will be announcing the creation of a ‘major’ media laboratory in collaboration with a New York City university, something along the lines of the MIT Media Lab. I am betting on New York University, but the Mayor is not talking.

Squarespace is a New York based company that offers a hosted blogging platform of the same name. No longer a start-up, the company has been running for 7 years, has been totally self-funded, and is profitable.

Squarespace is the platform that I have been using for the past several months to publish my /Message tech blog, and other websites I maintain, like my Edgewards conference site and the non-profits Microsyntax.org and 301works.org. My familiarity with — and admiration for — the company’s technology led me to contact the founder, Anthony Casalena, and learn about his plans for the company, as well as the story behind Squarespace. I am covering my technical analysis of Squarespace in a companion to this post at /Message (see Squarespace, An Advanced Modular CMS), while here I want to just focus on the conversation I had with Anthony earlier this week. However, I will characterize the product, briefly, as a sophisticated blog-oriented content management system, offering a great variety of built-in modules — like blogs (called ‘journals’), forums, pages, and forms — as well as very rich access controls. It’s most direct, well-known competitors is Wordpress.

Anthony started working on the first version of Squarespace in college, at the University of Maryland, when he grew disenchanted with the various alternatives available for building and maintaining websites. He grew the business and managed it in Maryland for 3 years, by which time the company was already making $1M/year. The top line for Squarespace has been recently more than doubling annually, Anthony said, which will put growth in the past three years near the 700% mark.

The story of Anthony building something he personally needed, and the way that he did so without outside funding, reminded me of 37 signals. Anthony agreed with that characterization, although he hasn’t worked to keep the company artificially small, as Jason Fried and the 37 signals team did. “I think there are some things that you can do with more people in the company that just couldn’t be done — or done very slowly — if you don’t grow.”

Anthony moved the company to New York 4 years ago, so he is no longer a newcomer. In his viewpoint, he relocated to NYC at a time when ‘no one cared about tech’. He wasn’t trying to be some sort of contrarian, building a tech business in a city that could care less. He wanted to live in NYC because of what it offers outside of its support for tech: a huge mix of different communities — fashion and finance, art and media — and very diverse.

Anthony is very much the New Yorker now. “I am a 24×7 guy, always out at night. And although I like the Bay Area, I didn’t like the groupthink of Silicon Valley.” Anthony worries that people might be moving to NYC now for “the wrong reasons”, by which he means to just hang out with other tech folks rather than all the other things that NYC offers, and especially its diversity.

Three years ago he brought Dane Atkinson as CEO to lead the business, which has allowed Anthony to roam from one aspect of Squarespace business to another, focussing on what is most important at the time, whether that is programming, product planning, or developing channels.

The company has been approached by investors, but has not taken any funding. Anthony says that while he doesn’t see the necessity for raising capital for Squarespace at this point, he is actively considering the strategic partnerships that may help accelerate Squarespace’s growth

The community of users is approximately half individuals and half businesses. The nature of Squarespace means that it attracts individuals who are “do-it-yourselfers”, who want to have relatively sophisticated blogs or websites without having to be programmers or even have advanced design chops. Businesses often are steered to using Squarespace by web designers who gravitate to the technology because it can be turned over to clients once developed and running, and then the clients can update the content without having to use designers or website developers to add or modify the content.

Because Squarespace is a rich and largely self-contained system, it differs in philosophy from Wordpress, where much of the functionality is provided by various third party plugins. Anthony is unimpressed with this architecture, and believes it is outmoded and dangerous. “Who wants to update a company’s content management system by adding patches to the software? It’s a security mess.” He also wonders if the Wordpress approach to supporting both a hosted product and a standalone self-hosted version of the technology creates a strategic conflict for Wordpress. “Some of what they do, I would never do,” he stated.

Anthony is deeply involved in the development of the next generation of Squarespace, called Squarespace 6. This sounds like a dramatic step forward in flexibility and sophistication, based on his description. I have yet to see it, although I hope to do so in the next few weeks. Given the strides that Anthony and Squarespace have made to date, I expect that my mind will be blown.

Anthony is growing in new directions, and has started to think about becoming an angel investor, especially for other New York startups. He is a perfect fit for that role, considering the the continued growth at Squarespace, and his personal odyssey from dorm room startup to New York success story.

We don’t really know where inspiration comes from. The idea that hits you like a brick thrown out a speeding car, smashing into your head behind your left ear, and leaving you dazed at the side of 7th avenue. Or late at night, when you are looking at some screen mock ups for the 7 zillionth time, and all of a sudden you know exactly how wrong this approach, but you also know a better way to model it.

This sartori, this epiphany, is something we generally associate with artists: the painter daubing a canvas madly in her garret, or the pianist scribbling eighth notes. But the selfsame creative spark occurs time and time again in technology, and so the artist and the software designer are close cousins, not living in worlds apart.

That understanding is, I guess, what has motivated the upcoming Seven On Seven project, organized by Rhizome, paring seven technologists with seven artists:

These cross connections between the NYC art world and the burgeoning tech scene are a fascinating aspect of what makes NYC a unique place for tech to evolve, and art, too, for that matter.

I hope to be in attendance when the results are unveiled on 17 April, at the New Museum.