Comments on: Location, location, location. It’s all about location..

By: David Haimes

David Haimes — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000

sadly I only have 1 person on my iPhone on loopt, good news is he drove 5,000 miles across the US so he was interesting to follow.

More people on loopt please!

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:08:39 +0000

Yeah, I've seen stuff like that. I was thinking specifically about the investment in LCD monitors at bus stops.

In my public transit experience, trains are way more regular than buses.

By: Bob Rhubart

Bob Rhubart — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:58:06 +0000

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority operates a light rail system. On the main line in that system, the platform at each station has a simple horizontally-scrolling electronic display that lists the arrival times for the next three trains. Having that little bit of information takes a lot of the impatience out of waiting for a train.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:00:32 +0000

Very cool idea, I wonder if something like that would be worth the investment here in the States.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:49:59 +0000

I recently noticed a bus stop in Singapore with a 24″ or 30″ screen showing which buses serve the stop and how long before the next one would arrive.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:36:25 +0000

This is exactly what I needed. Yelp did a decent job, and I didn't realize Maps did this too. Feeling a bit dumb about that. I'll give Around Me a try. My problem with apps is usage, just like on the regular 'tubes. I never remember to use Brightkite or any of the nifty apps.

BTW, I need a free Flickr app. Why isn't there one of those? Seems they rolled out a mobile interface (m.flickr.com), but it's only for Pro members?

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:31:15 +0000

I second that. I remember bitter cold winter mornings in Chicago waiting for a dumb bus or El that was running late. Chicago's not a great place to stand outside and wait, even when it's not Winter.

By: topperge

topperge — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:41:46 +0000

Interesting, I don't think I know a single person who uses Loopt in the DC area. Out of 250+ contacts in my phone there was only one person who has Loopt on their phone. However, the local auto repair place is offering a transflush special through Loopt.

By: Dan Norris

Dan Norris — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:52:59 +0000

Don't take the diversions to cars or LOLcats as bad things--I rather enjoy the change to something different occasionally. While I don't fancy myself a "car guy" I like reading the banter and discussion.

Back on-topic, the CTA (who runs the buses in Chicago) recently rolled out a web interface to all the location data they gather about buses. If someone could tie that in to my current location and tell me there's a bus arriving in 2 minutes (like BART does in SF), I'd buy that. I don't know the downtown bus schedules well enough to know things like that off the top of my head.

By: David Haimes

David Haimes — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:24:14 +0000

I like Loopt, I have a friend who did a Road Trip from North Carolina to California and I could track his progress on loopt, complete with comments and photos, nice facebook and twitter integration too.

By: topperge

topperge — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:36:47 +0000

I'll work on more car talk, I'm still coming down off the high from staining my deck this past weekend. So, back to location talk. I just installed “Around Me” on my iPhone, it grabs your location data and tells you where the nearest banks, bars, gas stations, etc. are to me based on my current location. The GMaps search functionality can do the same thing, but this seems much cleaner all in one simple interface.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:52:30 +0000

I like cars and motorcycles too. We can definitely talk about them.

Paul is a bit of a car-geek too. He typically shares items about Tesla and electric superbikes, etc.

In my defense, I haven't mentioned LOLcats since OOW. You're one to talk Scuba Steve.

By: Dan Norris

Dan Norris — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 06:00:59 +0000

I'm glad you're blogging somewhere again. However, I am a little surprised that there has only been one slight reference to cars so far–I expected more. Not seeing you post something related to cars is like Jake not talking about lolcats. Weird.

Anyway, glad to see you're adding to the good stuff here in the 'lab. I'll be waiting for the car reference in the next post .

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:12:35 +0000

Thanks for keeping the content rolling.

I'm with you on location. In fact, just yesterday I was wondering why the Google iPhone app doesn't ask for my location (the Maps app does). No one does a really great job with local search, and wouldn't search from your location-aware phone be a killer app?

What if you wanted a video store and didn't feel like burning extra gas while you were out already? Search could surface geo-closer results with higher relevancy. Turns out Yelp does a better job of this. Go figure.