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These were our 12 most-read stories of 2017

2017 was another year of growth in the Brooklyn tech world. Here's what you wanted to read about.

A Downtown Brooklyn Partnership outdoor concert. (Image courtesy of Downtown Brooklyn Partnership)

As we pivot from 2017 to 2018, we at Technical.ly are taking stock of what people found interesting last year and wanted to share that with you.

What follows are the 12 most-read stories of the year. We went chronologically rather than by total reads throughout the year with the hope that some patterns might emerge. That sort of happened, at least in seeing a cryptocurrency story during the fall, a focus on women in tech and coverage of Etsy during the Great Etsy Shakeup of 2017.

There’s more cool stuff in there, too. Take a look:

These 20 startups are the rising stars of Brooklyn: realLIST 2017

Some of the members of Technical.ly Brooklyn's 2017 realLIST.

Some of the members of Technical.ly Brooklyn’s 2017 realLIST.

Our top startups of the year did pretty well.

We went a little low on ConsenSys, founded by the Ethereum blockchain cocreator Joseph Lubin at No. 5, but to be fair, for February we were still pretty early on blockchain. Obviously that world has exploded, as has ConsenSys along with it.

Coliving leaders Common, which got the No. 1 spot, continued to grow, more than doubling the number of coliving houses around the country from six to 15. Our No. 2 company, Voodoo Manufacturing, went through Y Combinator, raised $5 million and plans to reduce the cost of 3D printing by 90 percent. Our No. 3 company, Croissant, blew up to offer entrance to more than 200 coworking spaces in 10 cities, including in Europe and the Middle East. There’s more great startups in there, we won’t post any more spoilers.

This new incubator is a kitchen, and all its startups are in food

The FoodWorks coworking space.

The FoodWorks coworking space.

From the story:

The FoodWorks, located in the old Pfizer building, includes coworking space, cold storage, dishwashing service, a test kitchen, a temperature-controlled room for ice cream and chocolate making, and a baking center, among other amenities. The idea is that food startups would have a place to get started making their product that’s not their kitchen. In the same way that coworking spaces work for software startups and freelancers, FoodWorks is way cheaper for entrepreneurs than renting their own space would be, and way better than working out of founders’ own apartment’s kitchens.

Inside Bulletin, the Williamsburg startup bringing ‘coworking’ to retail

Bulletin founders Alana Branston and Ali Kriegsman.

Bulletin founders Alana Branston and Ali Kriegsman.

From the story:

As it turns out, the much-hyped “sharing economy” might be not so much about sharing labor as sharing real estate. So here comes the coworking of retail space, Bulletin, a Brooklyn-based and Brooklyn-funded startup. Bulletin rents out square footage in its two storefronts, one in Williamsburg and one in SoHo, to high-end ecommerce brands that are ostensibly online-only. The companies can rent anything from a shelf of space to a corner of the store.

This German founder has made a billion dollars and lost a billion dollars and now he’s back to reconquer the American market

Wilfried Beeck in his Greenpoint office.

Wilfried Beeck in his Greenpoint office.

From the story:

It was the early 90s and Wilfried Beeck, now bald, self-assured and successful, was a young programmer who’d recently graduated from the computer science department of the University of Kiel, in the north of West Germany, just 60 miles from the border with Denmark.

Why a giant aerospace conglomerate is opening a $300 million innovation lab in Dumbo

The courtyard at Empire Stores at 55 Water St.

The courtyard at Empire Stores at 55 Water St.

From the story:

“We think the location is going to attract talent,” Joe Muldoon, the company’s vice president for digital transformation said by phone. “The mission of the digital accelerator is to accelerate their ability to develop and bring to market innovative solutions.”

These 6 technologies are redefining the ‘smart city’

A rendering of Industry City. (Photo courtesy of Time Inc.)

A rendering of Industry City. (Photo courtesy of Time Inc.)

From the story:

The phrase “smart city” conjures up images of gleaming new infrastructure, from intelligent street lights to NASA-style command centers. In reality, however, technology’s biggest impact on urban life is much less flashy.

NYU’s Gary Marcus is an artificial intelligence contrarian

Don't worry: the machines won't be taking over for a long time, says NYU's Gary Marcus.

Don’t worry: the machines won’t be taking over for a long time, says NYU’s Gary Marcus.

From the story:

IBM’s Watson might have beaten Ken Jennings at Jeopardy!, but in Marcus’s view, the average AI system isn’t smarter than a fifth-grader: it can’t make abstractions, and it can’t converse naturally.

This Brooklyn startup wants to disrupt the way you drink water

Reefill in action.

Reefill in action.

Ahh, the rage-clicks.

From the story:

For the price of one bottle of water, you could get a month’s worth of filtered water and not contribute to any plastic waste. That’s the idea of Reefill, a new, Brooklyn-based startup that’s trying to build a grid of filtered water stations around the city.

As Etsy CEO, CTO ousted amid stock crash, employees come out to praise them

Chad Dickerson, formerly of Etsy.

Chad Dickerson, formerly of Etsy.

From the story:

Etsy announced last night its CEO and Chairman of the Board Chad Dickerson and its CTO John Allspaw are out, after Brooklyn’s largest tech company missed first quarter earnings estimates… Praise of Dickerson and Allspaw flooded Twitter last night, as former employees spoke up about the man who used to be their boss.

Did Etsy just cancel its summer internship program? [Update]

Inside Etsy's Dumbo headquarters.

Inside Etsy’s Dumbo headquarters.

From the story:

Twitter is abuzz this Wednesday morning with talk that Etsy canceled its internship program for this summer, leaving some young developers and designers in the lurch.

Can this Brooklyn-built app predict the price of Bitcoin?

Ready to jump on the blockchain?

Ready to jump on the blockchain?

From the story:

Those price fluctuations are exactly what Greenpoint developer David Roma is interested in.

“My theory is that the price of Bitcoin is almost 100 percent driven by public opinion,” he said by phone last week.

12 women founders in Brooklyn you should know

Allison Kopf speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2015.

Allison Kopf speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2015.

From the story:

It’s no surprise that women are doing impressive work in the Brooklyn tech community. From health-tech to wireless communications, women founders in the borough are creating innovative products and bringing them to market. Three of the founders below were featured on our 2017 realLIST of Brooklyn’s most promising startups.

Series: Brooklyn
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