Funniest Web Contest of the Month: Find the Best Toilets in San Francisco

This week sees the launch of a funny and somewhat peculiar contest for San Francisco residents to vote on the best (and the worst) public toilets in the city. The contest is held by MizPee, a funny little mobile service intended to help you find the nearest restroom throughout the US using your cell phone (we reviewed the service last summer when it was launched).

And while this sounds like a much-needed service for both residents and visitors to those cities the service has information for, now MizPee seems to be looking to grow the database of toilets in San Francisco along with first-hand experience from real people.

The Flush of the Year contest started yesterday and will run throughout September. The goal is to have visitors add and rate as many restrooms around the city as possible and eventually find the winner, all the while collecting information to serve more reliable information to MizPee users in the future. The contest runs city by city so next month it will help users decide which toilet is the best on in Chicago.

Unfortunately right now it looks like visitors are usually dissatisfied with public bathrooms as 4 out of 5 latest votes available on the site are “blush” (worst toilet) with only one “flush” (best one). Hopefully contests like this will be able to somewhat influence owners of public facilities and they will come up with some improvements.

An additional (and more important) incentive is that MizPee creators will donate $1 for every vote cast in the contest to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation which helps children with cancer. So no matter how funny the contest itself may be, they will also do something universally important as well.

The winning flush will receive an award to display at their facility or on their website. I have no idea how many of the toilets in San Francisco actually have websites of their own but if it’s many, I can only admire the city and the level of internet penetration to every sphere of an individual’s life.

But anyway if you happen to visit any public restroom in San Francisco this September, don’t forget to cast your vote in the contest for other people to appreciate your efforts in delivering the most reliable information on this incredibly important part of our daily lives.