This is Dots. (Photo: iTunes)

Fling those dumb Angry Birds into oblivion already: there’s a new free replacement sitting in the iTunes App Store for your time-killing needs. Enter Dots, a minimalistic game that accentuates the speediness of your swiping skills by connecting as many same-colored dots as possible in 60 seconds. The more dots—or better yet, boxes—you link together and create, the higher you score.

The game was the brainchild of Betaworks hacker-in-residence Patrick Moberg, who had never designed or coded a game before. He began development of Dots in January under the direction that the non-incubator wanted to create a “zen-like” game that people wouldn’t feel guilty playing.

"The most important thing with Dots was trusting our own instincts as players," Mr. Moberg told Betabeat. "Dots is the approach to games that we wanted to see, that almost no one is catering to. And it turns out that there's a bunch more people who feel the same way."

A "bunch" indeed: Since its release Wednesday, the Betaworks-produced game has racked up 200,000 downloads. Half of those came in the first 12 hours, Paul Murphy, Betaworks senior vice president of product, told Betabeat. Not bad for Betawork’s first foray into the crowded gaming field.

Dots started development three months ago, but Mr. Murphy noticed the company had a hit on its hands when people couldn’t put it down during its beta phase at the New York-based office.

"We knew a month-and-a-half ago that it was going to be a hit when we found people spending hours and hours playing it, " exclaimed Mr. Murphy. Without the splashy promotion or marketing power of other game developers (looking at you, Zynga), he explained, the metaphoric rise of Dots is credited to positive buzz on social media.

"There's people sharing high scores and challenging others on Twitter," said Mr. Murphy. Betaworks promoted Dots on its social news site, Digg, in an “Apps We Like” box. He noted that Digg doesn't promote every Betaworks project and said the site has rejected other apps from the company before.

With the instant success of Dots, it's not inconceivable to think that Betaworks has more games up its checkered-colored sleeves. Mr. Murphy said Betaworks is a tech company that's heavily invested in media, not a gaming studio. If another game fits into its model of building out its burgeoning empire, maybe we'll see more.

"Entertainment is another form of media," he hinted.

Mr. Moberg, who's hopefully getting a bonus for catapulting the app to the top 10 of iTunes’ rankings, said he's found the app's instant success a little overwhelming.

"When you're passionate about what you're working on, you over-analyze and second-guess a lot of choices you make.  You can get lost in yourself when you worry too much about how people will react," he wrote. "The success is a testament to Betaworks' ethos of working on projects that you believe in and want to care for."

Brb, running to the Warby Parker store. (Photo: Screencap)

Do unexpectedly blustery days leave you wailing at the fates? Sick of dressing in your smartest spring sandals, only to walk outside and discover there's still a nip in the air?

So are the folks at Betaworks, apparently.

And now, a small team led by hacker-in-residence Kuan Huang has dreamed up Poncho, a new weather service launching today for New York City. It promises to deliver a personalized forecast that'll help you figure out whether you can really get by with just a cardigan.

Mr. Huang told Betabeat that the idea was born as "something for my personal use." He wanted an interpreter for the forecast, who could tell him, "It's 46 degrees, windy; you should wear a scarf." He admitted it's "a pain point I have in my life." You and me both, buddy.

Entrepreneur-in-residence Paul Murphy said, "It's this weird thing where, as tech's gotten more advanced, it's almost like we've gone back in time." There's more data than ever, but amateurs like you and me are left trying to read satellite imagery.

"I just want someone to tell me if I need an umbrella cause its going to rain at 5 when I walk home from the work," Mr. Murphy added, somewhat plaintively.

The site says, "Poncho explains the weather in plain, clear English — just like weather forecasters used to do." When you sign up, you answer a series of questions: Do you have pets that have to be walked? Do you exercise outside? Do you have pollen allergies? What subway to you take to work, and what time? The result is a forecast that boils the outlook into a simple summary, delivered bright and early by email or text message (your choice).

Appropriately, there's more than HAL 9000 doling out the advice. In addition to the technology handling the real-time data, "we also have a human who lives in New York City who goes outside and provides the human element to the weather and they influence the data." He added, "When it feels really cold out, they can add that context." Mr. Murphy said pilot users are abandoning the iPhone's default weather feature in favor of Poncho.

The service is currently limited to New York City, but Mr. Huang says over the next few weeks they'll take a look at their waiting list and see which zip codes have the most demand.

Diversity of opinion! (Photo: screencap)

Do you have a Google Doc or an iPhone note where you keep a running list of books, movies and other things you've been meaning to check out? Well, today partners Betaworks and Fictive Kin announced a new service meant to help out. Done Not Done, at its simplest level, is a new and improved kind of to-do list--one that'll (so the idea goes) evolve into an increasingly useful recommendation engine as more users sign on.

The goal was to build "an app to try to use the web to get people off the web," Fictive Kin's Cameron Koczon told Betabeat. The idea is users will quickly open the app and either add something new to try or quickly pick something off their list and be on their way.

"Nobody's favorite memories are, 'Oh remember that time we were tweeting at each other?'" he added.

"Some of the stuff that's on there right now is more media centric, but more and more we want it to be not just off the web, but get out and spend more time with your friends, stuff like that," Mr. Koczon. (Those of you without IRL friends are in trouble.)

To get started, you sign up, add a few friends and start telling the app what you've done (seen Casablanca) and not done (read War and Peace). Of course--and this is where Done Not Done starts to sound like a social-web-loving Betaworks production--once the service has all that data about you, it can start making suggestions to your friends. The Ideas tab tells us to read the novel Cryptonomicon, since we follow Union Square Ventures' Andy Weissman on Twitter. 

"I think [the social web] is now evolving where you take those connections and you do things with them," Betaworks entrepreneur-in-residence Paul Murphy told us.

Of course, the problem is that if you're just signing on today, you'll find the service not quite a social desert, but at least a bit arid. Mr. Koczon insisted it's still meant to be useful to you early adopters, though: "People keep these lists on their own everywhere,  often just in iPad or iPhone notes, maybe a piece of paper, Google Docs, excel spreadsheets," he said. Sewing everything up into a purpose-built app is meant to make it all cleaner, simpler, and better organized.

"It is more like a personal ultility that does become a recommendations thing with social," he explained.

Eventually, the team will add new options like travel destinations and places to eat. As for now, maybe you'll finally remember to start watching Breaking Bad. 

Mr. Murphy (Photo: Twitter)

Looks like startup non-incubator Betaworks is in a hiring frenzy. Days after announcing it had snapped up former Tumblr VP Andrew McLaughlin, the company is making news again with another Entrepreneur-in-Residence hire.

Paul Murphy, COO of Aviary, is leaving his post at the photo editing startup to join the Betaworks folks at their sweet Meatpacking office.

Mr. Murphy wrote on his Tumblr today:

I’ve wanted to help start and run businesses from the earliest stages since I wound down a company I co-founded in college.  Even though we’ve recently hit a number of major milestones (funding, partnerships, growth), I’m at a time in my life where if I don’t pursue my goals now, I may never.

Ah, the "now or never" mentality, a truly classic excuse for leaving a startup.

Mr. Murphy, who worked at Microsoft for 10 years before joining Aviary last year, will be working with Betaworks "to incubate new ideas while helping a number of companies in the portfolio scale."

Mr. Murphy is also the second executive to be poached from Aviary in a handful of months, following a heady pivot last year. Back in April, Dwolla nabbed Aviary's head of biz dev, Alex Taub.

For all the pivot hiccups, Aviary seems to be doing a-okay. Writes PandoDaily:

Users of the B2B tools grew to 11 million in 10 months, with 150 million photos edited a month. The company launched a partnership with Flickr, replacing Picnik as the photo site’s editing tool, as well as several larger unannounced deals I’ve heard murmurs of. Five of the top 20 photo apps in the iOS app store use Aviary tools. The company raised a new $6 million round of funding in June, bringing its total to $17 million.

Sounds like the kids are all grown up and empty nest syndrome is setting in at the aptly-named Aviary.

Paul Murphy - VP of Business Development at Aviary

Hot on the heels of their successful hack day, Aviary launched a mobile SDK today to embed their photo editing tools into mobile apps. They launched with 31 partners including Picplz, Pictour, Pixable, Piictu, Getaround, Fashism, Yumalicious, Minus and iSocialize.

"Right now it's all about distribution for us," says Aviary's Biz Dev artiste, Alex Taub. "We want to get this in the hands of as many developers as possible, then monetize down the line with premium tools and services."

To that end Aviary has just hired Paul Murphy, an eight year vet of Microsoft, who prior to Aviary was chief of staff for Office, Redmond's largest division.

"I've always been passionate about the startup space and I wanted to find a great team with good investors," Mr. Murphy told Betabeat by phone. "Photos are a part of so many mobile apps these days. My job is to take us to the next level, to help Aviary figure out where the rubber meets the road."

Betabeat doesn't know much about rubber roads, but it seems like Aviary is making a big push to expand its developer base and business partnerships.