Aspirational!

Earlier this week, Inporia co-founder Ryan Junee launched Kaleidoscope, a more monetizable take on those suddenly ubiquitous fashion apps, in the Android market. (Relax, fangirls, the Apple version if coming soon.)

Kaleidoscope, which also works as a website widget embeddable with a few lines of JavaScript, lets users browse a stream of both Anna-approved editorial images and street style photos. If you like what you see, click on any image and it breaks it down by item and offers direct links to sites like Nordstrom's, Bergdorff, Net-a-Porter or Shop Bop, where users can buy the exact items featured in the photo or similar ones across a range of price points, both higher (what recession?) and lower.

It's being described as "Pinterest meets ShopStyle," and indeed, Kaleidoscope uses the ShopStyle API to source potential purchasing options. But there's also an element of "human expertise," Mr. Junee told Betabeat, with a team of fashion interns making sure the "shop that look" function links to the best selection of similar items. Mr. Junee said he's also working on automating that function.

Of course, Mr. Junee, who sold Omnisio (the video editing startup he helped launch out of Y Combinator) to Google and worked as the product manager for YouTube, thinks proprietary technology will be Kaleidoscope's key differentiator. Right now, the app scans e-commerce sites twice a day to make sure items are still in stock. But longterm, his core tech team is working on training its algorithm to learn your tastes. Until then, the app lets you browse photos, search for a particular item (say, striped cardigan), save, and share the photos that come pre-uploaded in the app. Prohibiting user uploads controls photo quality, but Kaleidoscope is looking to partner with fashion bloggers who can offer the same high standard.

Mr. Junee is keeping his tech team out in San Francisco, where he has a strong engineering network, but tapped Sarah Kunst, the company's director of business development to set up an office here. (You're welcome for drawing attention to Ms. Kunst's poachable charms, btw.) Rather than commission on sales, the company is looking to make money off brand advertising and sponsored placement. To that end, he spends half his time in New York. "There's zero fashion scene in San Francisco," he noted.

Kaleidoscope's parent company, Inporia, has already raised $1.25 million in seed funding from Ron Conway's SV Angel and Dave McClure's 500 Startups (where Mr. Junee serves as an advisor), and along a handful of other angels.

"I guess it's a simple idea," Mr. Junee said of the app, "Everyone says, 'Why doesn't that exist already?' Usually that means you're onto the right thing."

SOPA, THE FILM. Some filmmakers, possibly from an agency, possibly independent, are making the rounds at New York startups (we heard Foursquare, General Assembly, and Aviary, among others) asking them to participate in an anti-SOPAvideo. It's unclear who's paying these filmmakers, but they claim Google might link to the video from Google.com.

SPEAKING OF SOPA. Some people on Twttr think other people on Twttr are being dumb for changing their avatars.

If changing you Twitter avatar were an effective form of political aBctivism, our current president would be a Mad Men cartoon.

— Anil Dash (@anildash) January 13, 2012

But it was so effective when everyone changed their locations to Tehran and made their avatars green during the Green Revolution. Wait, why is Paula Deen trending? BRB! OMG SHE HAS DIABETES.

BROKEN TRUST. BROKEN HEARTS. The embargo! Companies send a press release on condition that the blogger will cross their hearts, hope to die, not write about the invariably fascinating information in the embargo such as the addition of new advisors. On Wednesday, Betabeat had two embargoed stories: ZocDoc Adds Former Senators Bill Frist (R-TN) and Tom Daschle (D-SD), Healthcare Heavyweights, as Advisors and GetGlue Raises $12 M. With All Existing Investors Participating. Both embargoes were broken; we received flustered emails from both companies. Mashable broke the GetGlue embargo; it's still unclear exactly who broke the ZocDoc embargo. "I probably shouldn't have covered GetGlue. I'm told as they have bad history of this crap with their embargoes," one blogger told Betabeat. "They just don't know how to manage them."

JUST ANOTHER FASHION STARTUP. Aussie-native Ryan Junee, a Y Combinator alum who sold a company to Google in 2008, is spending more time in New York City and wonders if the Soho House is worth it? We're told he's poached Sarah Kunst from Mediaite to head up business development and open the New York office of his latest company, Inporia, "your shopping concierge." Rumor has it they're releasing the product, for which there is an invitation waitlist, in time for Fashion Week.