Ms. Herman. (Photo: Twitter)

There is something alluring to entrepreneurs about the New York taxi system. Mainly, it's messy. One taxi drives around W. 4th St., looking for fares, while around the corner a frazzled passenger tries vainly to hail one of the occupied cabs on Seventh Ave. How inefficient! There should be an app for this, thinks the entrepreneur.

And that's how GetTaxi came to be. Technology has changed, but the way we hail cabs has not, the company says. After bringing its app to Israel, London and Moscow, GetTaxi has raised $20 million and set its sights on New York, where it will launch in the coming months, said Jing Wang Herman, CEO of GetTaxi USA. "The customer experience for taxis has really been the same for decades," she said. "I think everyone would agree that there’s definitely room for improvement."Ms. Herman has lived in New York for 12 years. She went to NYU, worked on Wall Street, and got her taxi license in 2009. She's been thinking about the taxi business for a while. GetTaxi plans to build out a team in New York in the "next few months"--she was mum on specifics--and then launch in the city before moving on to the rest of the nation.

We've been chronicling the trouble that San Francisco-based car service Uber has had breaking into the New York market for a while. GetTaxi also matches drivers to passengers and relies on customers' smartphones to make the experience of getting a cab that much easier. However, this app is for taxis, not black cars, and it's free for passengers.

Drivers get a plug-and-play device that will let them join the GetTaxi network, find passengers, and crowdsource where to find fares. GetTaxi charges its corporate customers, who use it to manage their travel costs. GetTaxi is being used by Google, PriceWaterhouseCooper, Disney, hotels, law firms and hedge funds, Ms. Herman said. GetTaxi also offers enterprise clients a website where it's easy for executives or their assistants to book a car, and 24-hour human customer service with real live humans.

New York City just issued a request for proposals "for a smartphone application that will allow passengers to pay their cab fare with their smart phone." GetTaxi can do that, but it can do much more, Ms. Herman said, like allow passengers to specify if they want an eco-friendly car or a wheelchair-accessible car. Other possibilities include cab-sharing and paying with a family account. "There's a ton more that you could do with technology. I think New Yorkers specifically are ready for this."

The company plans to submit a proposal in response to the city's RFP, but it will launch in New York regardless of whether it's accepted.

She cited the ideas proposed for the last Big Apps competition. "People said, 'why isn’t there an app to hail a taxi? Why can’t I pay for a taxi for my child remotely? Why can’t I track when my girlfriend got home safely? How do I share a taxi?' These days there’s an app for everything. There’s really superior technology and it's time that we bring that solution to New York."

GetTaxi has $30 million in funding total and currently employs 110 people worldwide. The app has launched in Moscow, London and in 13 cities in Israel.

Betabeat has learned that ZocDoc has been in the market for new space--60,000 square feet, ideally on one floor--for a move at the end of 2012. There's not much out there that meets that criteria. Wouldn't it be nice to take the tenth floor at 568 Broadway, directly above the teal-painted ninth floor? That way they wouldn't have to say goodbye to that conference room with the mural of Sanjay Gupta high-fiving Dr. House! ZocDoc would probably really like it if Foursquare would only take one floor, which is more than three times the size of Foursquare's current office, so that ZocDoc could take the other.

But both companies are growing like gangbusters--ZocDoc already expanded in March and then again in October, Foursquare is the hottest startup job in the city--and have to look out for expansion down the road. What's a big startup in a small town to do?*

VERY PINTERESTING. Betabeat, when we first glimpsed the Silicon Alley darling Pinterest for ourselves: "It's for girls!" Apparently, it's also for middle America. Pinterest's biggest market is Utah, we heard, and it's gaining steam with users in other middle-America states, contrary to the usual outside-in adoption pattern most startups see.

Betabeat mentioned to a source that many peeps using Pinterest in New York, who responded. "Don't people just use Svpply?" Do they? We don't see too many peeps using Svpply either. One thing we do see peeps using is Tumblr--although we've documented that startup's other problems on the business and developer relations fronts. Could Pinterest--which picked up New York angel Brian Cohen as an investor after taking the NYU Stern business plan competition by storm--be on the way to taking down two New York startups in one fell swoop?

NOM NOM POSTLING. "Some big companies are considering acquiring Postling," a source told Betabeat. "Can't say names. Big, multi-billion dollar public companies." Well! Cue completely random speculation! Microsoft! Amazon! Google! Nielson! If one of these is right, you all have to buy the rumor roundup a cookie!

HIGHLY-COVETED ZOMBIE TAXIS. Groundlink, the latest app-enabled car service to blunder its way into the city that epitomizes mass transit, is grinning over Uber's decision to charge double-price on Halloween (a notoriously HORRIBLE night for cabs). Fingers crossed! Perhaps the first mover's hike can be Groundlink's gain. But the second mover could find itself in the same pickle that provoked Uber into pumping up the price--overwhelming demand. "Ninety-five percent of requests resulted in 'No Cars Available,' leaving Uber riders stranded," Uber wrote on its blog. "Even worse, those few riders who succeeded had to refresh their Uber app for an hour or more before getting a highly-coveted Uber ride."

SECOND GUESSES. Portfolio managers at the mega-hedge fund SAC Capital just don't get SecondMarket! The fund was recently hunting desperately for people who understand SecondMarket to join the team. Ah, where did we hear something about the billionaire-run hedge fund and the secondary markets? Right, Dealbook reported SAC investors have listed more than two dozen side-pocket stakes with Shelley Capital Advisers, which advises hedge funds on the secondary market.

IF YOU CAN CODE, PEOPLE WILL LITERALLY BUY YOU ANYTHING YOU WANT. Apparently a Swiss-based startup, iKentoo SA, is announcing a hackathon-slash-dream-vacation--a one month development sprint, as the company puts it. IKentoo is proposing to fly independent developers, all expenses paid, to the famous ski resort at Verbier, Switzerland to spend one month coding and skiing with the iKentoo team. Upon completion of the one month hackathon, the participants will also receive about $5,000 USD in Swiss francs.

*Joke explainer: While New York City is a big place, the startup scene feels like a small town.