Betabeat: Bringing you the finest in tech and startup news from these fine machines since before we were born. (BuzzFeed)

BLAST FROM THE PAST. Now, thanks to BuzzFeed, you can show all your friends how vintage chic your technology was—before it was cool. Prompted by the fairly recent Facebook timeline, BuzzFeed has introduced a Facebook app that lets users retroactively post images to their timeline. Checkout the "What Was Your First Computer?" question and reminisce about the nineteen eighties like it's the 2020's. The launch of this new app is probably just the beginning of a trend we'll see as Facebook prepares to unveil its new timeline backdating ability.

CLICK CLICK FLASH. Pixable, the photo sharing complement for social networks is rolling out a couple big features. First, is a hashtag feature that allows users to tag their photos or their friends’ photos for an easier experience when recalling and organizing snapshots. #drunkenregrets?

At the same time Pixable is being integrated into the Facebook timeline technology. Users will be able to share their photo viewing and tagging activity in the Facebook ticker just like when listening to tunes on Spotify.

HERE'S THE MAIL, IT NEVER FAILS... MailChimp, the easy-to-create email newsletter service has just acquired TinyLetter, another easy to use newsletter creation engine. Today, TinyLetter 2 is launching with cool features that allow you to see who has read your newsletter, who's sharing it and how many shares it has. PR's unanswered questions, answered.

WHAT'S ON... THE INTERNET? Onswipe just introduced cool new technology that will let tablet computer owners seamlessly browse and view related reading material from various publications just like changing channels on a TV.

ANGELIC. Check out Angel Guru, the new resource that "seeks to help new and emerging angel investors" from the always-ambitious Oren Bennett.

GET AROUND. If you just got a smart phone or don't already have a transit app for some other reason, Roadify is here for you. The newly updated app won the NYC BigApps contest last year and allows users to access official transit schedules, delay and service notifications, maps and anything else a savvy traveler's heart desires from one screen.

HEALTHY STARTUPS. AT&T is "providing scholarships to StartUp Health Academy for promising mHealth startups who are interested in leveraging the new AT&T Developer Center." Apply here.

EDUCATION. General Assembly is offering course deals on startup management lead by Justin Kan of Justin.tv and intellectual property from Bill Reinisch of Paladin Capital . Sexy stuff. Use promo code "_INSIDER_" to get 10 percent off and don't forget to check out the other GA course offerings.

TRABAJANDO. Bitly is now hiring for an application engineer, front-end developer, sales rep. and systems administrator.

Acclivity NYC needs a Cocoa UI developer, Python back-end developer and UI/UX designer. Polish up that CV and send it here.

Internet data company What's Watched needs a sales director. If this job is in your future, email Burr.

Inside Startups is searching for a web developer intern for a top secret project. Send your edited, spell-checked, grammatically correct cover letter to Ali.

Roadify for iPhone

The city frequently touts its Big Apps competition as one of the highlights in its campaign to foster the local tech industry. Developers get access to all kinds of city data and the grand prize winner receives a $50,000 prize. Last year's winner was Roadify, but as Fast Company pointed out today, the app doesn't seem to be doing a great job fulfilling its mission.

The premise of Roadify is that users can find parking spots, avoid traffic jams and figure out which trains to catch. But to generate data on open parking spots and snarled traffic, its needs a critical mass of users. Betabeat downloaded the app today and fired it up. The app found zero parking spots in Manhattan and didn't seem aware of the vehicular backup growing nearby our office.

In the VC world this is referred to as the "ghost town" or "cold start" problem. When you have a service that gets better the more users it has (the always valuable "network effect"), you conversely have a service that stinks when no one is on it.

Roadify does offer a few basic perks for users, like the location of parking garages, gas stations and subway entrances. This sort of functionality is already baked in to basic services like Google Maps, but it was enough to earn Roadify a number of 5 star ratings in the Apple store.

The moral of the Fast Company story is that NY City is throwing away $50,000 a year by awarding prizes to apps without figuring out if their is a user demand that needs to be met. But the winner from the first year of Big Apps, MyCityWay, scored a $5 million series A round this year and has racked up over 1 million downloads. When it comes to investing in early stage startups, batting .500 is considered a great average.