A user.

Dogs, creatures that lack opposable thumbs and thus the ability to read or operate any device, now have a social network–sort of. Where My Dogs At, a new, grammatically incorrect app, that locates nearby dog-friendly locales and rates them with user reviews. Think Yelp for animals that make that noise a lot.

And it's so quirky, as the Los Angeles Times notes. Instead of "checking in" to your favorite dog-friendly patio, one "marks their territory." If a place meets the butt-sniffing approval test, you give it a “paw of approval.” Users can create a Facebook-like profile to meet other dog owners and set up profiles for their dogs. Currently free for iPhone owners (Android will launch soon), it plans to make money by offering a fee to access "secret data," like hidden dog trails.

The app's orange-hued, grid-like layout coincidentally looks like that of gay meet-up app Grindr or Scruff. Incidentally, in the latter you send out "Woofs" to people you like, so we'll chalk this up to a missed opportunity.

You can do this. (Photo: Vice)

If one of your deepest desires is to strip Drake's Crossfit-sculpted body naked, only to reapply this season's YOLOiest gear, then your wish has now come true. There’s a free iPhone app called “Dress Up! Drake Edition,” where you can treat Drake like a virtual paper doll. No thinking is needed, just a fashionable eye for knowing which shiny chain matches his hot lil' face.

The app's VERY CLEVER description explains it well:

If you like dress up games, this one is the BEST I EVER HAD! Dress Drake up in FANCY outfits when he's out making HEADLINES! With head turning outfits, Drake will never have anyone "MISS ME" any more! You'll never be bored - with hundreds of items to mix and match, try different looks to FIND YOUR LOVE and keep making outfits FOREVER!

It's a full-bodied experience, too. You can change the background, Drake's chains, swaggy sweaters, t-shirts, and slim-fit pants to make him go from strip club to concert in a matter of seconds.

Now when will there be an app where Drake murders your vagina? Asking for a friend.

(H/T Lindsey Weber)

Fancy parking meter. (Photo: Flickr)

Be gone, parking meter anxiety!  Today Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled  a new app that lets users refill their meters remotely, thus eliminating the debilitating mental condition of worrying when the parking meter maid is going to strike next.

The free pilot program is currently being tested on nearly 300 meters in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx, according to a press release from the Mayor’s office. The New York Post notes that the initiative was announced in 2009 but is now finally being deployed.

Drivers will have to register on PayByPhone’s website with their licence plate number and credit card information before they can use the app. The “technology,” as the release states, will even alert users via email or text messages when their time is about to expire, as well as show where open parking spots might be. So servicey.

Mayor Bloomberg said in the release the app is the latest example of bringing "parking and driving in New York City into the 21st century." Just wait until he hears about driverless cars.

Meet David. (Photo: Grindr.com)

To celebrate its fourth birthday, gay mafia invention Grindr released some important findings regarding its cultural impact on the gay community. Turns out, gay guys love it!

In a press release calling itself “groundbreaking” and a “global sensation,” Grindr revealed Monday that it has amassed more than six million users since 2009. What's more, 40 percent of new accounts were created within the last 12 months. However, users who use something beside their torso as a profile pic weren't included in the company’s release.

The location-based meetup app also said 90 percent of their horny millennial user base publicly share their location, an option that can be disabled. The survey found that users are "most addicted" to Grindr, along with social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Eighty percent of the millennials surveyed also described themselves as oversharers; 71 percent of them are fine in sharing "personal information," like the graphic results from their ab routine, presumably.

Tapping into the millennial mindframe, founder/pioneer/CEO Joel Simkhai said the app has become an “invaluable resource” for bored gay guys waiting around for their OKCupid dates. He also praised the app for disrupting the garish gay club scene, which in the olden times was the only way to meet others DTF.

"Grindr opened up a whole new world for gay men by finally providing a more spontaneous, exciting and instantaneous way to meet guys. Since our launch, and specifically over the past year, our user base has grown exponentially and we owe that to our loyal and engaged users," wrote Mr. Simkhai.

You're welcome, Mr. Simkhai. What kind of Facebook gift would you like for your community service?

(Photo: Twitter/AbrahamJoseph)

It's been said that if Sex And The City were still on the air, Carrie would be dating a startup dude. (For related theories on how George Costanza would deal with Snapchat, please see @ModernSeinfeld.)

Lucky for Lena Dunham that her Brooklyn-based take on entitlement coincides with the rise of New York's nouveau tech riches. We already saw boho babe Jessa slum it with a square venture capitalist. (Factcheck on his "Steal My Sunshine" mash-up, though: In real life, VCs are much more partial to posting indie rock or dad rock on their Tumblr. And we're sorry to report you probably picked the same song of the year.)

But yesterday, the voice (of a certain hue) of her generation went ahead and did the damn thing. In a walk through Washington Square Park, Shoshana reveals that Marnie's ex-boyfriend Charlie built an app called Forbid.

"He sold it to, like, a very esteemed business tycoon for, like, a very large sum of money and now he has a corner office in said tycoon's building with, like, 11 employees," she says. "Charlie has a company?" Marnie whimpers, mentally filling her walk-in closet with plastic dresses.

"He's basically become a bougie nightmare," older-and-wiser Ray explains.

Knowing Ms. Dunham's penchant for borrowing from her actresses' real lives in a way that hits "a little close to home," it's hard not to see the parallel with the relationship between Allison Williams, who plays Marnie, and her boyfriend, CollegeHumor and Notional founder Ricky Van Veen. It may be a mystery to Gawker, but the two have been dating for awhile now. They were recently spotted on a double-date to the Grammy's with his pal John Mayer and American firework Katy Perry.

According to our logic, that makes IAC chairman Barry Diller the source material for "said business tycoon." Last May, we spotted Ms. Williams on the mogul's arm at a startup party in the lobby of IAC's Frank Gehry building. Both CollegeHumor and Notional are part of IAC's portfolio.

So what overheard Silicon Alley tidbits might Ms. Dunham have pilfered to incorporate into the episode?

Well, Forbid, which blocks users from making calls they know they shouldn't was apparently inspired by Charlie's breakup with Marnie. (The app version of *refresh refresh refresh*?) If users give in to drunken urges, customers have to pony up $10 to unblock the number. "People are really responding to software that protects them from themselves or other people," is Charlie's elevator pitch to Marns. "So the app is free, but breaking your word to yourself isn't." Monetizable behavior modification? Give this kid a $250k seed round!

The wood paneling in the fictional Chelsea lobby looked more Upper East Side salon to us, but upstairs it's all iMacs and Aeron chairs, as custom dictates.

Charlie's still trying to maintain his Bushwick roots. He brushes off an offer to hear the new Jack Johnson--good luck with that, buddy--and hasn't gone soft on the free candy perks just yet. He's also predictably vague about the size of his acquisition. "They paid me a shitload," he jokes before downgrading it to "not that much, but enough." Enough for an unlofted bed and a boatload of headbands, we premuse.

But what's that in the distance? The blare of an air horn as a coworking-space's-worth of 20-somethings dance their way through the open floor plan to the sounds of "Teach How to Dougie." Sorry, Marns. Charlie doesn't have time for your sadface because "the office next door doing a lip-dub thing for their YouTube channel." Although we appreciate the fameball-era callback, lipdubs are so 2009. Bonus points for predicting our long national Harlem Shake nightmare, though.

Later, slumped over in her "magician's assistant" outfit, Marnie has an epiphany. "You know who end up living their dreams are sad messes like Charlie?!" Uh-oh, sounds Lena Dunham just called ya'll not awesome.

XO, Nitasha, the richest Hindi you know

The Next Web spotted this tweet from the Google team: "The iOS app we launched today contained a bug with notifications. We have pulled the app to fix the problem. Sorry we messed up."

Does Apple let crappy Google apps slide through their typically stringent review process just to embarrass their Mountain View rivals?

A Medialets streaming ad inside the NY Times app.

When Betabeat last wrote about Medialets, we highlighted the fact that they offered rich media solutions through HTML5, meaning advertisers didn't have to worry about tweaking their campaign for Apple versus Android versus RIM. This had helped Medialets to score clients like The New York Times and The Daily, which despite being in bed with Apple during its creation, chose Medialets over iAd for their rich media needs.

Today Medialets announced it would begin offering the same services for the mobile web. "We didn't go into mobile web first, even though there was audience, because the browser wasn't ready," Eric Litman, CEO of Medialets, told Betabeat by phone this morning. "But Apple and Google have been doing a ton of work on this, to the point where the mobile browser can support things like location or an accelerometer."

As for the debate over what will eventually triumph, the closed app experience or the open mobile web, Mr. Litman says it's all fairly academic. "It's an ongoing debate, and no can tell you how this will all end. What out clients want is a cross platform solution that allows them to avoid stress. We deliver that--along with top flight analytics on the back end that allow them to measure in detail how their campaigns are performing."

Mr. Litman says he sees two different kinds of relationships developing on the mobile front. "For the things you do every day--check the weather or read the news--you want a premium app experience. That's what we do in app with clients like the NY Times or The Weather Channel. For the one-time things that come up, you might prefer a lightweight, mobile web solution, and that's what we're going to start offering as of today."

"Everybody has secrets," says the earnest voiceover. "There are dirty secrets, soulful secrets. Shocking, sexy, and silly secrets. There are secrets that might haunt you. And secrets that can heal you." Basically there are just a whole mess of secrets, okay? Anyways, here's the video. We have to go find somewhere to confess a secret about how a promotional video for an iPhone app gave us the chills.

Today the incubator has its first launch: Blu Trumpet, a  platform for mobile apps that helps publishers monetize and advertisers increase distribution. It's already got IAC apps like Daily Beast and College Humor signed up as clients.

The ad-network works by setting up an app wall into the strip of tabs at the bottom of an app (or in the Daily Beast's case, you can find it under the "Partner Apps" tab, also at the bottom of the app). From there, users can browse new apps to download. Publishers add the wall as a way to monetize and advertisers pay every time a user downloads an app. It's a way for them to push downloads without those annoying pop-up or display ads. With just the College Humor and Daily Beast, Blu Trumpet has already picked up 1 million impressions and boasts an install rate from the wall of about 10 percent.

Betabeat chatted via IM with CEO Nina Sodhi, who sold her previous start-up BumpTop to Google, about where she got the idea, working in Hatch Labs, and what the future holds for Blu Trumpet.

What's Hatch Labs like?

We're in the IAC building on the West Side Highway (that big white frosty one) so the premises are really nice.

"Frosty" is a good way to describe it.

When I say that, people usually figure out what building I mean quickly. :-)

It's great. We've got a bunch of smart people here, many from startups (like myself), so we have a fun start-up feel. We're tasked with coming up with new businesses in the mobile space - the mandate is pretty open, which leads to fantastic innovation (and lots of fun). Our group is about 11 people now.

Tell us more about the fun, please.

We are pretty free form here. The lab just started in December so we are fairly young as an organization. I was here on day one, and it's been great to see it grow. We work on different projects (Blu Trumpet being one of them), and ask questions cross-projects when we need help. That can come in the form of tough to crack bugs, archetiture questions, product ideas, feature tuning, etc. The group is pretty awesome - we make fun of each other, laugh a lot, and we a love to just build good products. We're looking to grow the group some more, and as businesses spin out (like Blu Trumpet), they leave openings for new folks to join.

Does that mean you'll be moving out?

Not yet. Depends on how we grow. Its pretty comfortable here for now. Plus, we get to leverage the fun atmosphere at Hatch.

What made you think people were looking for a platform like this?

I spent a lot of time with IAC businesses to understand what was missing in the mobile ad space. Those conversations led to Blu Trumpet. I felt the mobile ad space continues to need more innovation. Many existing solutions are ported over from the web, which often don't work well on mobile, especially in native apps. And as an avid mobile user myself, I get that ads are an important part of the ecosystem and I got tired of the banners and pop-ups. I wanted to help create a solution that worked for the ecosystem as well as for users.

Who would you compare yourself to in the online advertising space?

We are 100% mobile so we are different from the traditional ad players. (That's what allows us to create an awesome mobile solution, we aren't bogged down with legacy web systems). Also, we are 100% performance based (cost per install), so that also makes us different.

The IAC connection must have helped getting College Humor and Daily Beast on board?

Absolutely. That's one of our competitive advantages. We are starting with the IAC properties, though we are also ramping up our network outside of IAC too.

Anyone you can name?

Well, we are just launching today so the number isn't huge yet. :-) We have a few non-IAC properties live, with several more in the pipeline that will go live soon.

What do you have lined up on the advertiser side?

The advertiser side is booming. Our value prop to them is a no-brainer - we are a performance based system so they only have to pay when an install actually happens. Because of that, we have a healthy backlog of advertisers waiting to jump on our network while we build out our publisher base. The folks we are looking to line up are any app that wants more distribution. That includes all categories - games, entertainment, news, etc.

Also, the way our platform works is that a publisher can easily be an advertiser. For example, Daily Beast is doing just that. They want to monetize their app and also get more distribution as well.

Betabeat got Mr. Yagan on the phone to find out what exactly he meant by that, what makes OkCupid Locals any different, a time before smartphones (yes, Virginia, it did exist), and why we may soon see the resurrection of  CrazyBlindDate, a dating service before its time.

Were you trying to imply that other dating apps have poor adoption? Which apps were you referring to there?

So Grindr is obviously the most successful mobile dating app out there. The things that make it so successful—I’m going to terribly stereotype this community—but it’s larger used as a vehicle for short-term, physical relationships. Now it turns out, taking the stereotypical heterosexual case, that the vast majority of women don’t want that. In fact that’s what creeps them out the most about this. They’re worried about stalkers, they’re worried that it’s 10:30 at night on a Friday and you know someone at the bar next to you thinks you want to have sex with them.

How is OkCupid Locals different?

Number one, we’re populating Locals with the OkCupid database. Our entire reputation is built around the fact that we have this data-oriented way to understand people’s personalities. We can actually layer in compatibility. So now, when you make yourself available in Locals, it’s not just, “Oh, who are the people around me who are hot and horny at this moment.” It’s sliced by who are the people around me who are compatible with me. Instead of it being like everyone’s out there in this meat market, it’s more like I can say, “Who wants to go to karaoke.” You can post that not to just everyone in the West Village, but you can say: everyone in the Village who has a compatibility with me over 80 percent.

It sort of cleans the unwashed masses. It’s like, ohhhhh. You’ve been on OkCupid for a couple years, you know that people with high match percentages tend to be people that you could tolerate having a beer with. (Or not—there are creepy people everywhere in every compatibility index.) But in general we’ve got this sort of filter of the users, which I think is super valuable.

What else do you think will get you more adoption than other dating apps?

We come with a user base. It’s just so critical. Mobile requires both synchronicity and proximity—you have to be at the same place at the same time. And that makes it super hard unless you have millions of users already to populate the system with. [Ed. Note: Mr. Yagan emailed us later to say the OkCupid has 1 million downloads, which is an eighth of its 8 million registered users.]

Unless you have massive database, you don’t want to start filtering too much because you’ll take an already small database and make it even smaller.

Are all OkCupid users now going to be in the Locals App?

You’ll be able to turn it on. But a third of our log-ins everyday are on people’s mobile phones. So even if we don’t get 100 percent of our people using it, we’re gonna to instantly have a lot of people, especially in dense populations like New York.

Does this mean you have to ask permission for location? Because I don’t think you were before?

That is right. Oh actually, I think we did ask before?

Now if people log-in at a certain place, will it show on the app that another OkCupid member is there?

Once you’re in Locals, then yeah, you have the ability to show up. The thing that I think is cool is this idea of broadcasting what you want to do for the evening. With Foursquare you check into where you are, but it’s not great for planning events. We allow the ability to post to people of a certain compatibility level or a certain geography and be like, “Hey, I’m going to be at a piano bar in the West Village.” Or better yet! “Me and three of my girlfriends are going to a piano bar in the West Village, let’s find three guys who want to come hang out with us.”

How does that mitigate the idea of being a woman alone in a bar making it known that you’re  . . . available?

There’s a process. You can post the idea of saying, “Hey I want to hang out in the in the West Village,” without necessarily saying where you are at that moment. Then there’s a back-and- forth process where you guys can suggest venues you want to go to. Because you know we’re plugged into the Foursquare venue database, so you can say “How about this place, how about that place, you guys pick.”

Wait! Didn’t you guys do Crazy Blind Date too? [Company description via Crunchbase: “Users fill out a set of questions to help match them to other Crazy Blind Date users, and then indicate at what times and in what neighborhoods they are available for a date. When Crazy Blind Date has a match, they will text you to confirm that you are still available for the date.”]

Yes. We did! But that was pre-Foursquare.

God, that was a long time ago.

I know!

My friend and I would try to use that because we thought it would be really funny, but there were never any dudes who signed up together. Why do you think it’s going to work this time?

First of all the time may come again when Crazy Blind Date will revive itself.

Oh, really?!

Yeah, Crazy Blind Date was pre-smartphone, so we had to have this like bizarre text message relay thing where we had to anonymize your text message. And now you just have an app. It’s so much better now.

Before smartphones it was very, very hard to maintain anonymity across the communication layer, right? You really only had texts as a way to communicate when you’re out on your mobile. And texts obviously reveal a very personally identifiable piece of information, which is your phone number. So there was also this clunky process where OkCupid had to mediate the texting and that was just a pain in the ass.  We had tens of thousands of people, but it was so hard to find overlapping people who wanted to go on dates at the same place at the same time. But if Crazy Blind Date were integrated into the OkCupid app, I think you can imagine it would  be much easier to have blind dates set up all the time. That may be something that we would pursue down the road.

You mentioned Grindr. But you know they’re putting out an app for straights, right?

Sure. But I think their straight user base is probably zero going into it. So they’re going to have this problem of how do you seed it with a million people. I hold Grindr up as a model of success. I’m not disparaging them. But their reputation and their name in many ways is about something that I think the majority of straight women don’t want. It’s one thing to be on an adult dating site and you’re in your home and there’s this fantastical element that it’s not really happening. It’s another thing to be on an app that’s about one-night stands and being in a bar on a Friday night kind of drunk.

I don’t think the folks at Grindr see it that way. But you’re right, it will be a hurdle for them to cross into that market. Say I’m someplace and I don’t want to use the forecasting. Can I just look up who’s nearby?

Yeah.

So that’s like Grindr?

Yeah, but that’s more or less all Grindr is. The very first wave of mobile dating apps were like, “Find out who’s close to you!” And to me that’s like an oh-by-the-way in what we’re doing, to me it’s much more about the filtering by compatability, so you don’t have freakshows hanging out with you.

[Checking app] Oh, I have to answer 25 questions before I can use it??

Yes.

Aw, man.