Mizpee, a mobile service that tells you where to go (for clean bathrooms)

December 4, 2007 | Eric Eldon | Comments | |

screenshot0002.jpgMizpee, a location based mobile service that tells you where to find the nearest bathroom, is publicly launching today.

You visit the service on your mobile phone browser, and search for bathrooms by city and street address, then see a list of the nearest ones. It includes user-created rankings for how clean each bathroom is, as well as a note about any access fee. It also says whether or not a bathroom has a diaper-changing station, and whether its restricted to a premise’s customers. Once you’ve made it to the bathroom, Mizpee offers bathroom trivia to help you pass the time, such as which restrooms are the ‘best and worst’ in city you’re in. The company says a texting version is on its way.

Apparently a lot of people need this service, or are at least bemused by it. Built by San Francisco-based Yojo Mobile, the application launched as a beta in June and scored widespread although not necessarily flattering press coverage — it has received 1.4 million unique visits and nearly 100,000 unique users so far, the company says (though no word on how many real, offline “visits” this translates to).

Yojo’s database of bathrooms uses Yahoo’s location information, including mapping and driving directions. Yojo has compiled its own data about bathrooms and says it does the best job of telling you where to go, fast. Google, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and many startups, including WhatsOpen.com are working on their own more general location-based services, but don’t pinpoint bathrooms per se.

mizpeelogo.pngA UK rival, London Loos, is currently testing its own application, which lets you text “toilet” to find the nearest lav in London. The company reminds us of the size of the problem it is solving, claiming more than 10,000 gallons of urine are micturated on the streets of Westminster, a London borough, each year.

Mizpee coverage currently includes: Atlanta, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Oakland, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Toronto, Washington D.C.

The company also offers a widget so you can search Mizpee for bathrooms while on another web site.

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.

  • Brad
    Another sock puppet company...

    It kills me how seemingly every new idea has "millions of page views" and "hundreds of thousands" of uniques. I live in San Francisco, right in the heart of it all. All of my friends work in online marketing and tech. I have never heard anyone reference MizPee. Who exactly is using it if not tech people in SF?

    My suggestion to Matt: Eliminate the hyperbole. I know you don't create it, you're just the messenger. But perhaps insist companies allow you to vet their traffic data first hand if you are going to permit traffic data disclosure? Anyone can "claim" they do "almost x visitors per month".
  • Zemode
    @Brad - 100% with you there Brad. I knew about these guys only coz I happened to see them at SF Beta several months ago. And like you, I hang out in the tech circles a LOT and have never ever heard anybody use this. It obviously has an extremely laughable purpose and that's the only reason I've mentioned about these guys to my friends - to indicate how comical things are getting.
    At the same SF Beta, I also saw a social networking site for people with curly hair!
  • Brad and Zemode, I certainly agree that hyperbole is not worth reading.

    Here's the thing. The company's concept scored it an exceptional amount of blog coverage. That coverage, at least, seems to have resulted in a significant traffic boost.

    For other startups plotting how to drive traffic, this is valuable information. Mizpee, as I wrote, is a product of Yojo Mobile. It was pretty clearly designed not only to help people find bathrooms but to help Yojo get more brand attention for the next time the company launches a product.