My aim today was to develop a realtime Google Earth map of free items from Craigslist for the Apple iPhone interface because I thought that was a million dollar idea. I was surprised to find out such apps already exist by the dozens, are traded for cheap, and no one cares about them too much.
The psychology of this simple finding and implications for humanity in what appears to be a progressive contemporary civilization full of emerging technologies is far too revealing of a deceptive and devastating state for which I have no blog time. Unless you see it for yourself, my experience shows no possibility of communicating this to anyone.
Instead I will share my process:
Initially I got drunk with a friend at a patio and after the idea was established as motivating enough to get up, we began by introducing ourselves as computer-lovers to hot ladies, asking them if they would ever use their touch-and-GPS-enabled smart phones to locate nearby parties. The ones we spoke to replied that such ideas do not interest them and that they are not part of the general swarm of flies who would be interested.
Subscribed to “Social Media Twitter Pack“, gained followers, posted about the project.
Parsed “Rent a Coder” for iPhone GPS projects to see if anyone was working on such things. I took note of the recent dates of the projects, the terminology and programming languages people used in their descriptions of ongoing work.
Oversighted online information about iPhone GPS applications using aggregate search engines such as:
Technorati, Yacktrack and Powerset.
“GPS enabled, geographically aware, location based” are all terms describing that feature of Social New Media Networks which allow people to play with the data of their coordinates on planet Earth.
Blogs with practical examples for further work included the following:
iPhone App Development for Web-Hackers
iPhone Mobile Social Networking Applications
and
Google Maps View for the iPhone
among others.
I noted the common patterns for production with keen interest in the technical programming concepts. The following were the protocols for communication design I pursued.
The iPhone, a handheld mobile device, through the custom programming (in Xcode using Cocoa, Objective-C) of a user interface manageable only by a Mac computer and downloadable for free from the official iPhone SDK Developer Connection, transceives (transmits and receives) geo-tagged data with a Web Service (usually a short program on a server) which translates the data into an acceptable format for the Google Earth API which can be displayed in any web-enabled browser.
Aside from the fact that this idea of iPhone to Google Earth is in Beta at earthscape.com, and apparently available with a new facebook download at the iPhone Facebook home, there were other issues:
Developing for the iPhone: No support for Java or Safari, development only on a Mac, learning curve for Object-C, fees for larger distribution. There seems to be a lack of interest or need in the content of this pursuit, possibly arising out of the psychological state of the contemporary West. Aside from technological competition, profit seeking, engineering for its own sake, marketing and business venturing, there is a rhizome of nerds talking to hippies about theories.
The following list clearly shows that even though people are interested in plotting real-time location information for the objects they find desirable, nothing is actually happening. People are mapping for the sake of mapping and, at the most, for doing what they already do - to meet up for shopping, drinking and eating. Whereas the potentials are just as vast as the dullness of today’s understanding of the applications.
A magic list of geographically-aware mobile social network web applications (mostly):
iFob
Where
Loopt
Jaiku
Whrrl
Mologogo
Limbo
Brightkite
Twitterrific
Fireeagle
This posting and everything described (except for the drinking done a few days earlier) was completed within a few hours and posted here to trigger further weaving of discussion in order to continue collecting material for future developments.
Deeper relevant links: Emergent Internet Research Circle .
This is my first professional post since obtaining a Fine Arts - Image Arts, New Media degree, specializing in digital theoretical and practical transmission and network art. I hope to write many more entertaining entries. I work in motion pictures.
