Nihal Mehta, CEO of LocalResponse (twitter.com)

Local startup LocalResponse is apparently growing like a weed. As we've reported before, the platform leverages your social media detritus to deliver hyper-targeted ads. (Translation: You check into a store, and you get a coupon that's actually useful.)

Now, it sounds like that approach is quite literally paying off. According to TechCrunch, CEO Nihal Mehta says the company is within striking distance of profitability, and he expects to cross that particular milestone sometime in Q3. Just in time for Christmas shopping.

The company  has worked with heavy hitters like Coca-Cola, General Motors, and Walgreens and currently boasts a roster of 75 advertisers. What intrigues the blue chip types? “We think that being able to create much more targeted ads based on social can close the gap between mobile versus desktop ad spend,” he told TechCrunch.

He also shared a few wonkier details about the ad network, which is reportedly serving up 7 billion impressions per month. But before we get all, "a million dollars isn't cool," there's a catch:

To be clear, it isn’t actually filling all of that inventory, or even close to 100 percent, as CEO and co-founder Nihal Mehta admits. However, he says that if LocalResponse could fill even half of it, say at a $6 CPM (the rate for each thousand impressions), it would still be a big business.

If only we could withdraw speculative dollars from an ATM machine.

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka "The Guy with the Red Tie"), Founder of GarysGuide, Mentor at ER Accelerator 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.

Just Peachy
It starts off innocently enough with buzzwords like platform, brands, game mechanics, engaging clients, social graph ... yada yada yada ... being thrown about. And then suddenly this ... "We've been thru a ton of together. I know her mood swings, I know when her blood sugar gets low." Wait, whaaa...? Yup, thats Betabeat's very own new reality show, of course. ;) It's called "The Pitch" and as Betabeater Ben Popper recently tweeted, it's got everything from college seniors and corporate bankers to toy makers and fashionistas trying their hand at the startup lifestyle. And yes, plenty of baseball metaphors. So go grab some popcorn, lean back and press the play button already.

Deals, deals & more deals
As always, we got a bunch of cool deals for y'all including classes at General Assembly, the Raise Cache tech fashion show, 500 Startups Warm Gun conference and more.

And now, lets take a peek behind the curtains to see who's performing (and who's showboating) in the Flatiron production of Silicon Alley this week...

Social Media World Forum North America
In case you had been wondering, yes, you just found the event where you can pow-wow with social media experts, strategists, maestros and gurus all-day-long. ;)
Tuesday, 8 a.m. @ Jacob K Javits Convention Center, 655 West 34th Street

HTML5 Live in New York 2011
Been stressing out dealing with the complexities of Objective-C and inanities of Android fragmentation? Hoping the rest of the world would hurry up and get with the HTML5 program already? You, my friend, needs to head on over to this event ASAP.
Tuesday, 9 a.m. @ New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street

Hacks & Hackers: How We Made Our Maps
Like to geek out over all things cartographic? Then u're gonna like this one. With John Keefe (WNYC Evacuation Zone Map), Albert Sun (WSJ Census Map Maker) and Jeff Larson (ProPublica).
Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. @ Aol HQ, 770 Broadway 5th Floor

Girl Develop IT: JavaScript/JQuery: November Section
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Girls + Coding = Plain Awesome :)
Tuesday, 7 p.m. @ Hive at 55, 55 Broad Street

New York Android Software Developers Happy Hour
For those who like cupcakes, donuts, eclairs, gingerbreads and ice cream sandwiches. And of course beer.
Tuesday, 7 p.m. @ O'Lunney's Times Square Pub, 145 W 45th Street

Open Hardware Breakfast & Panel Discussion
Had enough of software? Hoping to hang with the hardcore hardware crowd for a change? Then this one is for u, pal. Panelists include Bob Pasker (CTO-in-Residence, Accel Partners) and Kelsey Nix (IP Partner, Willkie Farr & Gallagher).
Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. @ The New York City Investment Fund, One Battery Park Plaza 5th Floor

Ad Age Happy Hour
Throwing back martinis with the Don Draper & Peggy Olson crowd.
Wednesday, 6 p.m. @ 13th Step, 149 2nd Avenue

How to Build a Company with a Multi-Million Dollar Exit
Building a startup is cool. But u know whats cooler? Having a multi-million dollar exit. Thats what. With Laurel Touby (Founder, Mediabistro) and Mark Wachen (Founder, Optimost). Moderated by Joe Chin.
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern Kaufman Management Center, 44 West Fourth Street

GA + GLabs present: Ben Lerer, co-founder and CEO of Thrillist
Learn how to build a multi-million dollar, multi-platform brand. Bonus: Learn how to throw awesome parties.
Wednesday, 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway 4th Floor

November 2011 NY Tech Meetup
I am super excited for yet another awesome edition of the NY Tech Meetu... oh wait, did u say its all the way uptown? Noooooooo!
Wednesday, 7 p.m. @ 92 Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue

SEGD Xlab 2011: Design of Location
Where the real physical world and the online virtual world collide and explode. With John Geraci (CoFounder, Outside.in), Kiyo Kubo (Founder, Spotlight Mobile), Greg Tran (Harvard School of Design), Philip Stanger (CEO, Wifarer), Vivian Rosenthal (CEO, GoldRun), Linda Perry-Lube (Chief Digital Officer, American Museum of Natural History), Colin Ellard (Waterloo Lab for Collaborative Virtual Environments), Patrick Hofmann (Google Maps), Mark Shepard (Artist, Architect & 2011 Eyebeam Fellow), Abby Suckle (Founder, CultureNow and Museum Without Walls) and more.
Thursday, 8 a.m. @ Eyebeam Art+Technology Center, 540 West 21st Street

Occupy Wall Street & the Role of Social Media
Whats more fun than occupying Wall Street? Why, learning about how to use social media to occupy Wall Street of course. With Paul Farkas (Social TV), Andrew Weinreich (MeetMoi/sixdegrees.com) and Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media).
Thursday, 6 p.m. @ Media Training Worldwide, 34 W 38th Street

Women In Wireless Present: Public Speaking: How to Rock an Audience
Tara Hunt (she of The Whuffie Factor fame) will teach u how to speak in public. More importantly, later on she'll teach u how to karaoke like a pro at the Rock & Rose karaoke afterparty.
Thursday, 6 p.m. @ Lowenstein Sandler, 1251 Ave of the Americas

Collaboration Nation: From Napkin Idea to Reality: Best Practices or Innovation.
Cuz its about time u converted those napkin doodles into real startup gold, no? With Jason Baptiste (CEO and Founder, Onswipe), Danya Cheskis-Gold (Community Manager, Skillshare), Brandon Evans (CEO & Founder, CrowdTap) and Peter Lehrman. Moderated by Jodi Jefferson.
Thursday, 6:30 p.m. @ WeCreate NYC, 58 East 11th Street 8th Floor

Mashable Media Summit 2011
A rockstar speaker lineup of Paul Berry (CTO, Huffington Post Media Group), Emily Chang (Anchor, Bloomberg Television), Anthony de Rosa (Reuters), Tony Haile (Chartbeat), Alex Iskold (CEO, GetGlue), Alexis Maybank (CoFounder, Gilt Groupe), Andrew Nash (Google), Jesse Redniss (USA Network), Faris Yakob (MDC Partners), Brian Stelter (NY Times), ..... what's that? well yes of course Pete Cashmore is going to be there. Will he sign ur boobs? Errr, well u'll have to ask him that but if u bought a ticket, I'm sure he will.
Friday, 8:30 a.m. @ TheTimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street

EcoHackNYC
Global Environmental Change + Scientists/Hackers/Designers/Hobbyists + Hack.Hack.Hack!
Friday, 7:30 p.m. @ ITP, 721 Broadway

Reinventing Local: A General Assembly Hackathon
Attention all ye So-Lo-Mo hackers, designers, developers and entrepreneurs. Time to get ur local hack on, yo.
Saturday, 9 a.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway 4th Floor

More on the horizon...
Future of Web Design (FOWD) Conference on Nov 7 @ New World Stages
Ad:Tech NY on Nov 8 @ Javits Center
CNet Gotham Live on Nov 9 @ Openhouse Gallery
Brands Conf on Nov 9 @ 92 Street Y
ERA Giving Thanks to NY Startup Community Party on Nov 10 @ Goodwin Procter
Raise Cache: A Celebration of NY Tech and A Benefit for hackNY on Nov 17 @ State Armory

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends!

More fun than jumping into a real blender!

The MoLoSo (mobile local social) space is really heating up. OkCupid recently launched a mobile app to help horny folks find a little local love that they swear is the "anti-Grindr". Betabeat already told you about Bromance, the location based network for "dudes that do". But who better to do the anti- Grindr than the OG of spontaneous celly sex, Grindr!

Today Grindr unveiled what it called the "highly anticipated Prject Amicus", a platonic grindr for straights called Blendr. From the presser:

With Blendr, users can discover new people based on a broad range of interest categories. For example, college students can interact and make new friends on campus and at concerts, while travelers can make new connections abroad, and sports fans can find other fellow enthusiasts.

Users can check-in to venues, browse how many others are at those venues, and determine whether to venture to the trending hot spot. Blendr is integrated with other social networks, directly allowing users to share and update their Blendr activity on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. Unlike other social networks that connect users to people and places they already know, Blendr facilitates the discovery of new people and places with secure privacy settings and rich features that give users total control of how they want to connect and interact with others.

Oh wait. This is Sonar. Ok, not the most original thing we've ever seen, but hey, Grindr had staying power and this seems like a feature rich play on the same space as Sonar from someone with a lot of experience making the "meatspace" so damn appealing.