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16
Aug 11

EchoEcho: On People, Place and Usability

2001: The Original Use Case for LBS from NTT Docomo

Location Based Services were launched a little under a decade ago, since then we have seen the rise of the web, social networking, and mobile. Yet, we are still struggling to turn some of the earliest applications thought up for location enabled devices, into consumer friendly reality. It turns out that moulding technology into a product that is usable for the majority is harder than it looks.

The technology is there, and has been for a long time, this is an issue of design and scale. The smartphone had existed in some form for a decade before Apple successfully merged the touch screen and an elegant interface to pull their greatest ever trick – fooling people that the iPhone was just a phone and not a computer. To achieve their dominance in online retail, Amazon had to build a physical infrastructure of warehouses, staff, supply chains and wait for enough people to change their shopping habits to digital. LBS is no different.

So nearly a decade later, I’m cheering on the EchoEcho team from the sidelines. They have succeeded in taking what was the favourite use case of LBS; the friend finder/tell me where X is/share my location with Y…. and turned into something that is designed for real people.

I don’t need to sign up for another social network, I don’t need to worry about the privacy implications of broadcasting my location, and praise be…I don’t need to check-in.

EchoEcho leverages the social network of people I actually meet in real life, my phone address book. Telling friends and family where I am, or asking where they are is as easy as a few taps on my smartphone. It is the essence of designing a solution for one use case, and making it as simple as possible for the majority of users.

On the scale side of the problem, thanks to Android the market is now full of cheap smartphones rather than feature phones. The other smart thing about EchoEcho is that when I ping (or Echo) someone who doesn’t have the app installed, they get an SMS telling them I would like to share my location with them and a link to download the app. Instant viral marketing, and I’m betting that conversions from SMSs are much higher than email.

Try it.

Visualising Big Data at Next11 Conference

This year’s Next Conference in Berlin was all about Data Love, and I was thrilled to be taking the ITO World message to such a prestigious event on the international tech circuit. I’ve been in Berlin twice now recently, and there is a great vibe in the tech/web community out here – feels like London a few years back, just as things were starting to crystallise and “silicon roundabout” was only an in-joke.

We added some visualisation love to the ‘Bright Data, Big City: How Data Transforms Metropolitan Life’, and I believe I succeeded in illustrating how important it is to create a narrative, and why our future goal is to create tools that enable communities to collaborate with data and analysis. With so much data and visualisation, the most important part of the process is neglected – storytelling. People don’t talk about data, they talk about stories and you not only communicate analysis, but enrich it by creating conversation and enabling people to collaborate.

(Click HD to increase the quality)

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1
Nov 10

WhereCampUK Is Coming

What is WhereCampUK?

A free to attend, two day geo unconference in Nottingham on 19/20th November. A British version of WhereCampEU (ie slightly smaller, and with more tea). Signup here: http://wherecampuk.eventbrite.com/

What is WhereCamp Europe?

WhereCamp Europe is an unconference; it’s open to everyone and you drive the agenda and the sessions. March 2010 saw the first WhereCampEU take place in London, with 180 attendees over two days from diverse backgrounds, including public, commercial and third sectors. It’s what you make it, so come along, listen, contribute and speak. See some of WhereCampEU in action: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1442338@N21/pool/

Who Will Be There?

WhereCamp Europe is open to everyone; from über hacker to beginner, from geo-hobo to seasoned professional, from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, and from mobile. If you have an interest in geography and how it’s changing the way in which we interact with the world then you should come along.

What Happened Last Time?

Sessions looked at the hype surrounding location check-ins, visualising geo data, community mapping, open data, crowdsourcing a whole host of data, and building apps and businesses. See the full list and session notes on the WhereCampEU Wiki: https://www.socialtext.net/wherecamp/index.cgi?wherecampeu

“This sort of system would bring many academics out into a cold sweat as there is no formal way of ensuring quality presentations and sessions. I didn’t attend a single bad session though” – James Cheshire

“The voice of the individual often drowned out by corporate messaging at traditional conferences is prominent at events likes wherecamp EU, and it is a real step forward to see such events taking their place alongside more traditional industry shows now in Europe” – Ed Parsons

“My geobatteries were recharged at the end of the day and it prompted several thoughts about the conventional approach to running a conference” – Steven Feldman

“…really well organised, with great venues and food, and all that at zero cost thanks to very generous sponsors and a great bunch of volunteers!” – Patrick Weber

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30
Jan 10

WhereCampEU – sold out

http://img124.yfrog.com/img124/6467/ifm.png

Result

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23
Jan 10

Tron Legacy

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14
Jan 10

Haiti Earthquake Response – Mapping The Crisis

Confusion reigns in the aftermath of any big natural disaster, but particularly in what was already a failed state – Haiti. With the little existing political and social infrastructure now destroyed, the situation is bleak.The irrepressible Mikel seems to be coordinating the OSM response amongst other missions. It might seem pretty small but you can get involved in creating better mapping to help in the search, rescue and eventual cleanup operations. The information is crucial to aid agencies arriving on the ground.

See the Earthquake Response on the OSM Wiki, the CrisisMapper Google Group, and while you’re at it donate to the Red Cross. There are already some very useful maps up on GeoCommons, thanks to Andrew Turner amongst others.

This morning I added a few street names and the Town Hall in Port-au-Prince to OSM, from historical maps on Map Warper, thanks to Tim Waters.

Here’s what it looks like now.

That’s from some GeoEye images recently released on Google Earth. A vivid example of how up-to-date geodata is essential for crisis management.

We have yet to confirm whether the images can be used for updating OpenStreetMap. Here’s hoping that sense prevails.

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11
Jan 10

Visualising Globalised Trade

Gorgeous visualisation of trade in the era of globalisation. (Click through for HD).

From the BBC’s ‘The History of Now: The Story of the Noughties‘.

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3
Jan 10

Tokyo! Psychogeographic

Building, coding, and designing all things spatial while running around trying to fix the political means I didn’t have the time to indulge in the metaphysical aspects of geography. That should change this year, and consider that a promise for proper design, cartography and psychogeography blog posts as well as the usual tech stuff.

As the first holiday since last January, this winter break meant eating, drinking and sleeping a lot. It also gave me the chance to catch up some of the many books and movies I missed out on, over the course of a particularly hectic year.

Tokyo! is a cinamatic tryptich of stories set in the Japanese metropolis, that explore our relationship with the urban environment – “Do we shape cities? Or do cities shape us?” Its a wonderful psychogeographic journey through issues of alienation and confinement in the concrete playgrounds of the city. (If you’re in a hurry you can skip to the video at the end).

It all opens with a rather beautiful map of Japan.

And quickly segues into the outsider’s typical image of Tokyo; neon, towers and noise. A big, bright, bustling city that looks fun! fun! fun! The imagined space is somewhat in contrast to the monochrome reality above.

And this being art-house cinema the main issues being explored here are alienation and confinement. In particular, a sewer dwelling creature called

With exceptional use of out of place sounds to create the feeling of unease, in a familiar urban environment.

And then we have the hikikomori. A growing problem, particularly with young Japanese who isolate themselves from society and confine themselves inside the home. Urban ghosts.

Which gets so out of hand, that the only answer is robotic pizza delivery.

Is techonology to blame? Or are we just seeking easy technological fixes to deeper societal problems that need to be addressed? It certainly creates some spookily empty urban environments.