Tunezy, a fan-driven social record label, believes it can revolutionize the $20 billion independent music industry. The idea behind the Richmond Hill-based start-up is to leverage the tools of social media and gamification to empower fans to help their favourite independent musicians succeed. When fans engage with music on the site, by listening to a song, sharing it on Twitter, or leaving a comment, they earn notes, a virtual currency that can be used to tip artists they like. Once they've earned enough notes, artists can spend them in Tunezy's marketplace, which contains services associated with a traditional record label - including mixing, studio time, licensing and promotion.

In March, the Tunezy team pitched its concept and won first place out of over 80 teams at NBTC in Toronto, and earlier this month Tunezy announced it had sold a 20% stake in the company to Intertainment Media. Next up, Tunezy is poised to launch in private beta at the end of May, and will unveil itself to the public later this summer.

"There's a love-hate relationship people have with transit," says John Krissilas, CEO of TransitHub. "We're hoping to make it more positive." Krissilas was inspired to create TransitHub, a digital start-up company based in Toronto, to do for commuting what, in his view, Nike+ does for running. That is, to use technology and the power of the web to turn an otherwise "solitary experience" into one where people are "connecting together and creating a community."

TwoMangoes is a startup with one sweet vision: to help mangoes everywhere find love. The Toronto-based company runs TwoMangoes.com, an online dating site exclusively for Indian singles. The idea behind the site was simple: while there are a lot of websites to help Indian parents connect their children with "marriage material," there was no online space for modern Indian singles to simply connect, network and find someone to date.

The result is an online dating site with a distinctly South Asian flavour, a healthy dose of humour and a lighthearted approach to flirting. If you spot a single guy or gal that interests you, for example, you can send them a laddoo (fried sweet) or a mango frooti. The site is also a hub of entertaining content for the modern Indian-Canadian through its Mango Mag blog. The blog dishes out dating advice in its Ask Shilpa column, which covers everything from BBM etiquette to how to secure a second date, as well as the hottest Bollywood reviews and trailers.

Twitter and toilet paper together at last! For those who missed the big news yesterday, a start-up called Shitter makes it easy to turn your tweets into toilet paper. News of the product launch got plenty of play in, um, the Twitterverse in the last 24 hours, not to mention other social media and web circles. Turns out the latest and greatest invention of the must-have bathroom supply actually has a Toronto connection.

Ian Ha is a software engineer at Blu Trumpet in Toronto. He also wrote the code that makes Shitter possible. He and some friends came up with the idea last year and have been working on development since January. They all have full time jobs so it's been something they've been plugging away at during their spare time. It officially launched yesterday. For $35 (plus shipping), Shitter will send you four rolls of toilet paper with the latest tweets from any Twitter feed. Already they've received several dozen orders. I caught up with Ha late last night and asked him to fill me in on some of the finer details.

Uber has arrived in Toronto. In a somewhat surprising move, the San Francisco-based car service has picked Toronto as its second international location. This follows earlier expansion to Paris late last year and operations in seven US cities. While there's no official word from the company, last month Toronto popped up as a secret destination on the Uber web site and tweets have been flying fast and furiously over at the Uber Toronto Twitter feed. On Sunday, they made somewhat of a splash driving VIPs and volunteers to and from the Toronto Underground Market.

Only a certain special few (and everyone under five years old) can appreciate the thrill of driving through a commercial car wash. But such delights usually come in exchange of free time, with which most of us would probably rather hit the bar than the car wash depot. You could do the deed yourself, but washing your car in your driveway usually uses an obscene amount of water, nevermind the eco-unfriendly soapy runoff.