This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

So Google just launched Google Nose (smelling is believing!) and Google Maps now has a Treasure View mode, while Virgin is creating a glass-bottomed plane, Twitter will start charging $5 per month for vowels and Youtube is shutting down. Hmmmm... either I am hallucinating or it must be April Fools Day!

I recently came across something awesome: brainstorming sessions between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan for the movie Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark (easily one of my all-time faves). There were five consecutive nine-hour, day-long sessions, and it's fascinating to see their thought process as the characters and story are fleshed out. Here's the New Yorker's abbreviated take.

Hola, Jersey peeps! It's Newark Tech Week, and a bunch of stuff is happening including TEDxNJIT, #blackhack Newark, STEM Education Day, The Future of Newark Tech and more. And hey, you just might run into super mayor Cory Booker at one of the events!

Also coming up is NYU Startup Week, with a bunch of events including Hack Days, a keynote interview with Jason Goldberg of Fab.com, Investing in NYC, Innovating in NYC, Demo Days, hackNY Hackathon and more!

The Makery is hosting a pop-up Makerspace (part shop and part workshop) until April 30, with a bunch of awesome events planned including Make Your Own Drawing Robot, 3D Design + Printing and Bring Your Doll or Toy to Life (yikes!).

Heard of the National STEM Video Game Challenge? Inspired by President Obama's Educate to Innovate campaign, it's a competition to motivate interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) learning among America's middle and high school kids. How? By tapping into their passion for playing and making video games. Nice! Deadline to enter the challenge is April 25. They even have a couple of workshops this week, on Wednesday and Saturday.

Girls Who Code's Summer Immersion Program is coming up. Deadline to apply is April 15.

A few more odds and ends to remember: The Kaplan EdTech Accelerator is having an info session tomorrow. The folks at fashion startup Missionelle are throwing an Art of Seduction gala this Thursday. Monday of next week are the 5th Annual Shorty Awards. Also on Monday is The British Invasion, organized by UK Trade Invest and VentureOutNY, with demos by hand-picked UK startups and a networking party afterward.

Also coming up soon: The Big Apple Smackdown (aka the Silicon Alley ping-pong tournament) that I'm co-organizing. :) It's going to be an epic night of beats and bounce with the city's startup peeps duking it, out including Gilt Groupe's Kevin Ryan, First Round Capital's Phin Barnes, Seth Godin and others. Also, I'm giving away five free passes.

Remember Startup Chile? Well here's another interesting accelerator. It's called TechPeaks and they'll give you €25,000 to go build your startup in the Italian Alps, in the Trentino region of Northern Italy to be precise. The deadline to apply is April 5.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

Ad Think: Emerging Tech in Advertising
With Brian Cohen (Chairman, New York Angels), Andreas Dahlqvist (vice chairman, McCann Erickson NY) and Nihal Mehta (founder and CEO, Local Response and partner, ENIAC Ventures)
Tuesday (Apr. 2), 6:30 p.m. @ The Advertising Club HQ, 989 Avenue of the Americas, 7th Fl.

Kaplan EdTech Accelerator (powered by TechStars) Founder Information Session
With Kaplan's Investment and Corporate Strategy team (Kate Eberle Walker and Phil Schwarz) and TechStars (Dave Drach, VP and Daniel Feld, Director of Operations)
Tuesday (Apr. 2), 7 p.m. @ Kaplan HQ, 395 Hudson St.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable 57
With Brad Burnham (Union Square Ventures)
Wednesday (Apr. 3), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 W. 4th Street

April FinTech Meetup: Selling your Products & Your Company to the Banks
With Rishi Nangalia (Goldman Sachs), Dmitri Galinov (FastMatch), Jessica Taylor (Morgan Stanley), Bina Kalola (Bank of America), Jose Marques (Deutche Bank) and Jason Kunreuther (Barclays)
Wednesday (Apr. 3), 6:30 p.m. @ Dechert, 1095 6th Avenue, 28th Fl.

Demo Night for NYC Journalism & Media Entrepreneurs
Demos by Bibliocrunch, Skillcrush, Marquee, Spundge, Tagasauris and NowThisNews
Wednesday (Apr. 3), 6:30 p.m. @ CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, 219 W. 40th Street

The Startup Kids Screening
A documentary about young web entrepreneurs. Interviews with the founders of Vimeo, SoundCloud, Kiip, InDinero, Dropbox, FoodSpotting and many others.
Wednesday (Apr. 3), 8 p.m. @ Tribeca Screening Room, 375 Greenwich Street

Blueprint Health Demo Day
Come meet thirty amazing healthcare entrepreneurs who are twelve weeks into building and growing successful businesses.
Thursday (Apr. 4), 1:30 p.m. @ By Invitation Only

Newark Tech Week: TEDxNJIT - Connections / Digital Everywhere
Speakers include Guy Story (CTO, Audible), Carlos Dominguez (SVP, Cisco), Michael Smith (Chief Digital Officer, Forbes Media) and others.
Thursday (Apr. 4), 5 p.m. @ NJIT Jim Wise Theater Kufrian Hall, 154 Summit Street, Newark

Unleashing the Power of Data to Help Change the World
An out-of-this-world technology networking party and panel discussion on citizen science and data visualization.
Thursday (Apr. 4), 6 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

NYU Stern EEX Entrepreneurship Summit 2013
Keynote by Michael Wolf (founder, Activate; former president, MTV, and an early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg). Startup Crawl through Warby Parker, ZocDoc, Foursquare, Betaworks, Fab.com and more.
Friday (Apr. 5), 12:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern , 44 W. 4th Street

FinTech Hackathon
Bringing together FinTech developers and designers to develop financial products and discover new technologies.
Saturday (Apr. 6), 8:30 a.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
The 5th Annual Shorty Awards on Apr. 8 @ TheTimesCenter at the New York Times
British Invasion on Apr. 8 @ Greenhouse
April 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Apr. 9 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
[NYU Startup Week] Hacking NYU - DemoDays on Apr. 10 @ John Paulson Auditorium
Investor Feedback Forum on Apr. 11 @ Microsoft
Assembled Food on Apr. 13 @ General Assembly
Big Apple Smackdown: Silicon Alleys 1st Annual Ping-Pong Tournament! on Apr. 14 @ SPiN New York
ERA Summer 2013 Happy Hour With MicroOffice on Apr. 15 @ MicroOffice
Kingpins of Silicon Alley on Apr. 15 @ Bowlmor - Union Square
2013 International Space Apps Challenge led by NASA on Apr. 20 @ AlleyNYC
Women Innovate Mobile: Behind The Pitch on Apr. 22 @ AppNexus
NYTECH Presents: Designing for Touch on Apr. 24 @ Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
NY Tech Day on Apr. 25 @ Pier 92
Women Entrepreneurs Rock the World 2013 on May 8 @ Altman Building

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

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But what followed was a highly-polished series of demos, following the formula: introduction by a mentor, pitch, market opportunity, amount being raised and for what, and team. Most teams were highly polished, although the startups seemed to go from more to less compelling. "This is like extreme startup makeover!" one mentor said in his intro.

The companies are raising between $350,000 to $750,000 each. A survey of the guests showed a smattering of investors, a smattering of entrepreneurs, a few journalists and a vast number of Blueprint mentors.

On to the demos.

5 O'Clock Records. "I love medical records," said CEO Matthew Cottrell, a serial healthcare entrepreneur who founded and sold MediConnect.net, a $20 million revenue business. Doctors have to fill medical requests for insurance companies and law firms, and those requests are time-consuming and inefficient. 5 O'Clock Records automates the process and lets doctors charge a fee, bringing each doctor an average of $500 to $1,500 extra a month. (Pricing is dynamic and the system can upsell for a quick turnaround, plus the amount you can charge for a record changes by state--hence the range.) It's a $450 million market opportunity, Mr. Cottrell said, and announced that the company has signed up Atlantic Health Partners, a system with 11,000 doctors.
Raising: $500,000 with $320,000 already committed. Closing April 30, he warned.

SymCat. Ever try to diagnose your symptoms by searching online? SymCat asks questions and queries its knowledge base to give a list of possible diagnoses, the probability that you have each of them, and a suggestion for what to do: visit the ER, go to an urgent care center, or stay home and drink lots of liquids. It's sold white label to insurers and is also consumer-facing. Founded by two Johns Hopkins medical students, Craig Monsen and David Do.
Raising: $400,000 with $100,000 committed.

Patient Communicator. This startup is based on a two-year-old patient-doctor communication system built by Jeff Novich for his dad, who is a physician and has 900 patients using it. It's designed to increase and improve communication between patient and doctor, from renewing prescriptions online to sending your diabetic patients an article you read in the New York Times health section. Mr. Novich's father reduced his phone calls by 75 percent and Patient Communicator estimates a $400 million market. Mr. Novich announced a partnership with Crowell Systems, a health system in North Carolina, and pointed out that the government is offering $34 billion in subsidies for these kinds of services.
Raising: $350,000, with $100,000 committed.

InquisitHealth. Match.com for patients, is how one audience member described it. The system matches patients with each other for a one-on-one phone call. It's sold to hospitals and support communities. they've signed up the cancer support community Gilda's Club and New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Raising: $350,000, with $100,000 committed.

ProcuredHealth. This startup aims to find efficiency and revenue in medical devices. It's expensive and time-consuming for hospitals to approve a new device, even if it's cheaper and better. ProcuredHealth provides a subscription service to hospitals and lead generation for devices. They've signed up two hospitals already.
Raising: $750,000 with $325,000 committed.

Meddik. A content startup that organizes conversations and online information about health. Users rate the content. The team is led by two University of Pennsylvania students, and we just realized that cofounder Tim Soo is the same guy who built the invisible violin that stole the show at last year's Music Hack Day.
Raising: $750,000, the highest request of the batch, with $400,000 committed.

Needl. The very personable Rashaun Sourles, who spent seven years working in sales at Johnson & Johnson, presented this escalating demo. Mr. Sourles spent two years volunteering as an orderly at his top clients in order to learn their ways, track how they were using his drugs, and make sales. Needl is a question and answer service that lets doctors query pharma companies: "I need a drug that does x. Is there anything like that?" Pharma foots the bill for everything as Needl goes on to power all Q+A on the web around health. In-app Q+A is also a target, so apps the health industry uses can add the ability to ask a pharma sales rep questions. Then, Needl collects all the data and sells it back to Pharma as an analytics tool. Esther Dyson is an advisor.
Raising: $450,000.

iCouch. We were surprised that iCouch didn't lean on Jessica Rios, a licensed therapist and apparently the only female in the entire Blueprint Health class, for its demo--if only for the sake of being memorable. The service manages patient connections with therapists, including scheduling, payment and video sessions. They have 80 therapists in the system and 45 clients, and every client has signed up for a minimum of two sessions.
Raising: $350,000 for advertising and marketing.

AidIn. In October, Medicare and Medicaid will start penalizing hospitals for readmisison of patients with certain conditions. In an effort to minimize admittance, hospitals will pay AidIn to help them select suitable care for patients after they're discharged using an online system to manage planning, coordination and billing with nursing agencies.
Raising: $600,000 with $250,000 committed.

Blueprint is part of the Global Accelerator Network which includes TechStars, and mentors to the young program include industry experts such as manager Jonathan Gordon of New York Presbyterian Hospital and Dr. Bill Hansen of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, as well as experts from the startup and venture world including Dr. Oliver Kharraz of ZocDoc and Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures. The incubator has plans to offer a coworking space for 100 health-tech entrepreneurs, and will also have a summer class of startups.

Mr. Ellis.

New York is already home to one health-centric incubator: Blueprint Health, a member of the Global Accelerator Network which includes TechStars and more than 40 other incubators. It's also the homebase of the Startup Health Academy, a mentoring program with an eye on the long-term. With Health 2.0 opening an office in New York, that makes three major resources for health tech companies; and with today's launch of Gramercy-based WellTech, that makes four. Trend-plus?

WellTech, a health and wellness-focused incubator, announced its first two incubatees today, the charmingly-named FITiST and Wizpert. The two startups--and more to be announced in the coming months--will receive guidance, office space in Union Square, mentoring and marketing support for six months, with the possibility of extension. 

WellTech companies will also receive a minimum $50,000 investment and the potential for follow-on funding from WellTech and "other introduced investors."

The inaugural WellTech companies are:

FITiST (www.FITiST.com): Capitalizing on the rise of boutique fitness and aiming to reinvent the traditional gym membership, FITiST provides members with one-stop access to the best of the best boutique studios. Members can create their own fitness and wellness plan or select a plan curated by FITIST experts like celebrity trainers Andrea Orbeck and Ramona Braganza and nutritionist Oz Garcia. Members book all their classes and manage their schedule on FITiST's universal fitness calendar, the first centralized calendar for the boutique fitness industry. FITiST also has created a black book of the top personal fitness, wellness, and beauty services that can be added to any plan. Currently in beta in New York City and Los Angeles, FITiST plans to expand to other cities nationwide in the near future.

Wizpert (www.wizpert.com): Dedicated to providing users with immediate access to experts, Wizpert is the first platform that instantly connects advice seekers with qualified experts for a real-time conversation on a wide-range of topics, from nutrition and exercise to cooking and parenting. The platform allows highly rated experts to monetize their advice by joining Wizpert and placing a customized button on their blogs. There are also hundreds of “wizperts” available for free. Wizpert is backed by New York City-based Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator. The iPhone app will be released in April 2012.

The funding for WellTech comes from Jubilee Investments, an investment firm led by SpaFinder CEO Pete Ellis. Jubilee also invested in GramercyOne, maker of a cloud-based management system for spas, gyms and medical practices. Between SpaFinder's 12,000 spas-served and GramercyOne's recent $14.5 million financing led by Steve Case's Revolution Ventures, Mr. Ellis is keen to invest in health and wellness startups, however malleable that category may be.

“The phenomenal success of SpaFinder and GramercyOne showed us that technology holds enormous potential for helping people lead healthier lives,” Mr. Ellis said in a press relase. “New York City is home to some of the most creative innovators in both the technology and wellness sectors, and we look forward to working with them to take wellness-related technology and services to an exciting new level.”

WellTech can accommodate up to five companies at a time. Application are accepted on a rolling basis.

The new Behance

HOP SCOTCH. New York City based Next Jump, a company that strives to better match consumers with businesses, has raised over $500,000 to bring technology into more than 750 classrooms. The campaign, which started late last year, funds projects submitted through DonorsChoose by shoppers on OO.com, Next Jump's discounts and deals website. The initiative has already impacted the lives of 85,000 NYC students, most of them in needy public schools.

TARGET MARKET. PeerIndex, the social influence marketing platform, has raised nearly $3 million in Series A funding led by Antrak Capital. NYC resident and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer also invested in the round. PeerIndex, whose CTO is New York tech evangelist Sanford Dickert,  seeks to identify "influential individuals" on social media and "facilitates sampling interactions between brands and these influencers." Sounds effective—but kind of creepy.

TECHATHON. "April's" New York Tech Meetup is on March 27 at NYU's Skirball Auditorium with News.me, The Birdy, SpotlessCity and HotM-FakeGirlfriend.co confirmed to demo. The event will once again be streamed to New Work City and General Assemb.ly. Get your tickets here.

REHANCE. Behance relaunched yesterday and, boy does it look good. Now users will be greeted with a new landing page and an "explore" tab that allows users to filter their search based on medium, equipment used, creative field and location. Of course, they've also added a Facebookesque "activity feed" where other people in the Behance network can share and curate other work they like. With the goal of removing obstacles between artists and projects, the Behance platform aims to make showcasing and promoting creative work easier and more efficient. It allows for syndication and integration into ProSite, a Behance owned custom portfolio building platform.

SELL, SELL, SELL. Fab really doesn't need any more publicity—the company announced their three million member milestone at the London Web Summit—but we thought we should at least point this out: in under nine months, Fab has sold a million items. That breaks down to 2.6 sales a minute.

START 'ER UP. Business Insider's Startup 2012 Competition is coming up on May 3. Ten lucky startups will present to a VC panel for a chance to win $25,000 in cash and $50,000 in services. Applications close March 30.

CRAIN BRAIN. Do you know of a business that's over three years old with less than $100 million in the bank? If so, it's eligible for Crain's New York Business Top Entrepreneurs competition. The winner will appear in a May issue of Crain's. Enter your favorite (or your own) startup here by March 23.

DATA RESTRAINT. As a part of its Data Transparency Week, the Wall Street Journal is inviting developers to a code-a-thon to create "web tools that promote data transparency and control." Entry is free and $500 travel stipends are available, but the event is "open only to qualified participants," so if you don't know your   from your href just stay home. The event is April 13-15. For more information and to apply, click here.

TURN YOUR HEAD AND CASH. Startup accelerator Blueprint Health wants to help entrepreneurs improve the wellness industry with a three-month long startup bootcamp program and $20,000 of seed capital. Qualifying startups will have access to a shared work space, mentorship and angel and VC investors. Apply by June 8 here.

PUTTING UP WALLS. Banters, the platform devoted to saving life's quotable moments, just rolled out the site's newest feature: walls. Just like Facebook, Banters walls allow anyone to contribute but privacy controls give the user the option to approve quotes before they're made public.

ADAPTING. Mike Finnegan is the new VP of client services at social media ad company Adaptly, which handles social media for PepsiCo and News Corp. among others.

SAGE WORKS YOU. Sageworks is currently hiring for a number of positions including senior software engineer and, media relations associate, junior software developer and network engineer. Check out all the available jobs here.

(flickr.com/katerha)

Healthcare startups have a rough go of it. They don't generate the buzz and excitement of a new private photo-sharing app or a virtual pinboard for moms, and they're taking on one of the most tangled, frustrating, illogical industries around. The premise of Startup Health is to support healthcare companies by putting them in a class with their peers and then providing them with resources and advice as needed.

Right now, Startup Health's mentoring program, or "academy," has no campus and no roster of splashy name mentors. But ideally, the program will encourage innovation and growth and give the entrepreneurs moral support. 

Startup Health is building a campus in New York City, but the ten companies in the program starting March 26 will be phoning it in for a while. "The peer-groups meet once per month as a group virtually and then in person once per quarter in NYC for a in depth workshop and customer and investor demo days," cofounder Unity Stoakes said in an email. "This is not an Accelerator or Incubator model where people move somewhere for 12 weeks to launch an idea.  We are helping support the business through years of growth (which is required in Health Care)."

Startup Health just announced its first class of companies yesterday. According to a press release, they're all "highly accomplished and are operating companies at various stages of the growth lifecycle" and all have received funding or are generating revenue. They are evenly split between the East and West Coasts. Startup Health plans to run four such classes throughout the year.

Mr. Stoakes believes New York is becoming a health tech hub. "With BluePrint Health and Health 2.0 now in the city too there is significant collaboration and momentum going on. Many companies that we once based in Boston or West Coast are coming to NYC now," he said. (Health 2.0, based in San Francisco, just opened a New York office.) He also noted that the Bloomberg administration has been very supportive of healthcare tech companies. "All these forces are working together and at the same time," he said. "We are working hard to bring the entire ecosystem together so we can innovate faster."

The companies, which were chosen from 400 applicants:

• Sundeep Bhan is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to revolutionize the way physicians and patients leverage lab testing to make better decisions leading to improved health. Sundeep is CEO of Medivo, which he co-founded with Jason Bhan, MD, and Destry Sulkes, MD, and is headquartered in New York City. The company recently raised $7 Million in a Series A from Safeguard Scientifics. Sundeep’s previous company Medsite was acquired by WebMD in 2006.
• Veer Gidwaney is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to improve people’s health through daily behavior change. Veer is CEO of DailyFeats, which he co-founded along with Morley Ivers, President & COO, and Vinay Gidwaney, Chief Product Officer, and is headquartered in New York City and Cambridge, MA. DailyFeats is profitable and growing rapidly with numerous partners including Walgreens and Cigna. Veer’s previous company Control-F1 was acquired by Computer Associates in 2005.
• Samer Hamadeh is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to make it easier for people to find and book appointments with alternative healthcare and wellness practitioners ranging from acupuncturists and chiropractors to massage therapists, physical therapists, and personal trainers. Samer is the Founder and CEO of Zeel Networks, headquartered in New York City. Zeel has raised over $1.5 million in seed funding from angel investors including Esther Dyson, Ravi Mhatre, Tim Kendall, and Matt Ocko. Samer was recently EIR at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Samer’s last venture, career site Vault.com, was acquired by private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson in 2007.
• Nadeem Kassam is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to reinvent how people track and manage their health. Nadeem is the Founder and Chief Alliance Officer at Basis, which he manages with Jef Holove as the CEO, and is headquartered in San Fransisco. The company has raised $9 Million in a Series A from Norwest Venture Partners & DCM. Jef was previously CEO at wireless photo card maker Eye-fi and spent almost a decade at Logitech.
• Hesky Kutscher is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to revolutionize and simplify the way families manage their children’s health. Hesky is Founder and CEO of MotherKnows, headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. MotherKnows has raised $1.7 Million in a Series A from First Round Capital, Charles River Ventures, Giza Ventures, and Band of Angels. Hesky’s previous company Shoplocal was acquired by Tribune and Gannett in 2004. Hesky is also Chairman and founder of High Gear Media, a leading automotive content network.
• Bill Scott is a Board Certified Neurotherapist on a mission to revolutionize therapeutic treatment options by giving clinicians the ability to easily and cost-effectively use neurofeedback to help patients train their brains to be more adaptive and healthy. Bill is CEO of BrainPaint, which he co-founded with Cora Scott, President, and is headquartered in Malibu, CA. BrainPaint is profitable and growing rapidly with over a 125 customers including Promises treatment centers and hospitals in 35 states and 7 countries.
• Bronwyn Spira is a physical therapist on a mission to deliver mobile applications for physical therapists that transform the delivery of care. Bronwyn is co-founder and President of FORCE Therapeutics, which she founded with her husband Mark Lieberman, a serial entrepreneur and technology executive, and is headquartered in New York City. FORCE Therapeutics has raised seed funding from prominent CEO investors including Thomas Layton, John Pleasants, Joseph Varet, and Randall Winn.
• David Wong, MD, PhD, is a dermatologist on a mission to make it easy and affordable for anyone to get online access to board-certified dermatologists and get immediate assistance in the diagnosis and management of skin diseases. David is CEO of Direct Dermatology, which he co-founded with Rajnish Gupta, MD, PhD, and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. Direct Dermatology has received funding from California HealthCare Foundation and angel investors.
• Faheem Zaman is a young entrepreneur who recently left Harvard University to become one of the first Thiel Fellows and pursue his dream of rethinking healthcare by leveraging technology, data, and elegant design to make quality care more accessible. Faheem is founder of a “stealth mobile health company,” which he co-founded with Ilya Vakhutinsky, and is headquartered in New York City. Ilya brings expertise in contextual design and data visualization from his work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Faheem is a recipient of $100,000 from Peter Thiel and the Thiel Foundation’s “20 Under 20” Thiel Fellowship program.
• George Zamanakos, PhD, is an entrepreneur on a mission to make it easier and more affordable for pregnant women to get remote care from anywhere in the world. He is heading up a “stealth mode” initiative backed by some of the biggest visionaries in the ecosystem, and is headquartered in San Diego, CA. George has a PhD in Physics from Caltech, was an associate principal at McKinsey, and previously worked with Johnson & Johnson’s leading strategy and product development in diabetes.

More in-depth bios of the founders are here.

Fitocracy goes mobile.

FITOCRACY MOBILE. "After what seems like an eternity, we've finally released the very first version of our mobile web app. That's right, you can now log your workouts on the go if you have an iPhone or an Android phone!"

INCUBATE ME. Blueprint Health recently closed its fund and opened for applications.  "The program will be launching on Jan 9, 2012 with an application deadline of November 13."

FACE ME. Facebook is hiring in New York. Via Inside Startups, the company is seeking a "Strategic Partner Development, Media" with "high levels of creativity and strategic thinking, extensive experience in the media industry, eight-or-more years experience, including 5 years of related partner or partner facing experience, a proven track record of initiating and successfully driving new business opportunities, exceptional communication and presentation skills."

NEW MUSIC. Exfm is about to release its next major version, due out this afternoon. Look for a "push play music experiences available at ex.fm, new extensions for Firefox and Safari, plus a completely revamped one for Chrome" as well as a new embeddable site player for music blogs.

NEW GILT CITY. "Gilt City is excited to announce that we have acquired Joe Bastianich and Jeff Zalaznick’s upscale private dining booking engine, DinePrivate.com. Gilt City’s acquisition of DinePrivate.com will allow members access to over 90 of New York’s top private dining accommodations in restaurants such as Del Posto, Bluefin, Megu, Marc Forgione and Da Silvano."

USERS. "ONE MILLION. That’s how many subscribers have signed up for FanBridge’s Social Digest in just 24 hours. I wanted to reach out again with this update, as it means that Social Digest has established itself as a new, viable revenue channel for FanBridge, especially since they control 4 advertising and partner inventories in the digests, and are now opening the doors, at scale, for advertisers looking to get in."

BINDING. "DIRECTV and GetGlue have partnered together to create a first for the TV industry: people can now share what they are watching with their friends, right through their TV screen. Additionally, GetGlue’s enhanced iPhone app now automatically detects and pairs with DIRECTV customers’ set-top boxes, allowing one-tap check-ins.  The integration enables DIRECTV and GetGlue customers in the U.S. to use their remote control to check-in to their favorite TV show, view the feed of their friends’ check-ins and easily change channels to see the shows their friends are watching, automatically detect what they’re watching on DIRECTV with their iPhone, check-in on GetGlue via DIRECTV’s iPad app."

HOPSTOP GETS A PATENT. The New York-based startup is going to need a patent arsenal to compete with its big cousin Google. "The United States Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the company a patent for its popular location-based service that provides door-to-door mass transit and walking directions. The patent touches on major trends in mobile applications and local navigation."

F&*$ YOU, PAY ME. New Jersey baby startup Takeoff Video is taking off. "We’re turning Takeoff into a paid product," the company writes on the eve of the close of its free beta. "This will allow us to continue our service, feed our families, and ensure Takeoff is the best it can be for years to come. We’ve got great plans in the near future including custom skinning (aka white labeling), native mobile apps, public sharing, editing program integration, and much more!"

NYU STARTUP WEEK. Started Monday. You can still catch "How to Get a Job at a Startup" with Union Square Ventures and others, and "Designers as Entrepreneurs" with Khoi Vinh.

Potential incubatees.

Betabeat has been trying to warn you that the healthcare revolution was coming to tech industry. But Blueprint Health might finally be able to get you out from behind your standing desks and pay attention. Xconomy reports that Blueprint, a member of the TechStars Network, is opening an incubator in January and already taking applications for health-related ventures.

The TechStars connection comes in because members of the network  share best practices across accelerators. In keeping with that model, startups get $20,000 in seed funding and Blueprint takes 6 percent equity. Partner Brad Weinberg, who started his first company, Shape Up, in 2006, says Blueprint, which expects to get 300 applications for 10 spots in the inaugural class, has raised $400,000 and is setting up "a really cool space”  in Union Square. But like TechStars, the big draw seems to be the mentors. They include two techies Betabeat has profiled recently, ZocDoc co-founder Oliver Kharrza and Future Well's Jay Parkinson, as well as experts from Pfizer and VCs from Bessemer, Google Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, and Spark.

This reminded us of an interesting conversation we had with Cornell's Daniel Huttenlocher, Dean of Computing and Information Science. He said Cornell picked "health informatics" as one of the interdisciplinary hubs the school wanted to focus on for its tech campus proposal because that's where the market was headed.