Smart Idea for a Smart Phone
I went to a conference in San Jose about 2 years ago. The conference wasn't all that large, but did have several venues going on at once in various locations around a large hotel. In addition, there were many people there I wanted to make contact with, or join for dinner or a meeting.
As is the usual procedure, the conference organizers handed out nifty little printed lists of what presentation or dialog session was going on in which room when - and that was about it.
Needless to say, I wanted more, and I started to think about an app that would amount to a "virtual concierge" for meetings, conferences, even huge events like SXSW (South by Southwest for the uninitiated, a huge event held in Austin, TX each year; one week is devoted to geekitude, the next to music. A strange but workable conbmination.
Anyway, my app would allow conference attendees to register online, and choose the sessions they wanted to attend, and the "friends" they wanted to keep track of at the event. Local establishments and businesses could offer service and specials, like discounts on dinner or drinks, or entrance to local attractions. More, businesses and booth owners could broadcast specials to registered attendees who happened to be within a certain proximity of their location (geo-fencing). "Stop at our booth now for a 25% discount on your next order."
When a session was about to begin (a really smart app could even warn an attendee when he needed to started heading toward a session if he was going to make it on time), the user would be pinged and reminded to get over there, perhaps even be told that certain of his friends would be there as they had registered for that session, too - maybe even allowing them to set up a meeting location.
A friend pointed out that this could be used at malls, or fairs, or other places where people want and need to keep track of each other, and would welcome special offers and sales just for users of the virtual concierge app.
The one big roadblock to all this, is, of course, the capacity of WiFi to handle the traffic in a limited space. As it happens, the company sponsoring this particular event in San Jose was boasting that it could support streaming video to fifty different devices in 500 square feet of space - no mean feat. Streaming video is the biggest bandwidth hog there is, and having that many devices all demanding huge amounts of data streamed live at one time, and delivered, is remarkable.
And, as with all good ideas, this one was already under development. Of course, there had been apps like FourSquare around for quite a while - an app that you could log on to and announce your location (whereupon, vendors and businesses who were also subscribed could offer specials, and where friends could say, hey, I'm in that area too, let's meet at this bar in ten minutes). FourSquare is, in my opinion, a little silly in that it was half app half game - you visited Joey's Bar more times than anyone else in a certain period of time and you became "Mayor of Joey's Bar." Whee. Still, it has its value as a networking tool.
More than that, though, new releases of smart phones already come equipped with the geo-fencing capability, enabling users to create a "fence" around a particular location - say, your house. Then you can assign tasks or reminders to that location, and when you get within a certain proximity of that location, the tasks or reminders you've assigned yourself will pop up on your phone.
As with any technology, there are always limitations, and as I've pointed out, traffic on WiFi would be one of the limiters of this app. But I have confidence that as more and more of us rely on our smart phones for more and more of our lives, this, too shall be overcome!
As is the usual procedure, the conference organizers handed out nifty little printed lists of what presentation or dialog session was going on in which room when - and that was about it.
Needless to say, I wanted more, and I started to think about an app that would amount to a "virtual concierge" for meetings, conferences, even huge events like SXSW (South by Southwest for the uninitiated, a huge event held in Austin, TX each year; one week is devoted to geekitude, the next to music. A strange but workable conbmination.
Anyway, my app would allow conference attendees to register online, and choose the sessions they wanted to attend, and the "friends" they wanted to keep track of at the event. Local establishments and businesses could offer service and specials, like discounts on dinner or drinks, or entrance to local attractions. More, businesses and booth owners could broadcast specials to registered attendees who happened to be within a certain proximity of their location (geo-fencing). "Stop at our booth now for a 25% discount on your next order."
When a session was about to begin (a really smart app could even warn an attendee when he needed to started heading toward a session if he was going to make it on time), the user would be pinged and reminded to get over there, perhaps even be told that certain of his friends would be there as they had registered for that session, too - maybe even allowing them to set up a meeting location.
A friend pointed out that this could be used at malls, or fairs, or other places where people want and need to keep track of each other, and would welcome special offers and sales just for users of the virtual concierge app.
The one big roadblock to all this, is, of course, the capacity of WiFi to handle the traffic in a limited space. As it happens, the company sponsoring this particular event in San Jose was boasting that it could support streaming video to fifty different devices in 500 square feet of space - no mean feat. Streaming video is the biggest bandwidth hog there is, and having that many devices all demanding huge amounts of data streamed live at one time, and delivered, is remarkable.
And, as with all good ideas, this one was already under development. Of course, there had been apps like FourSquare around for quite a while - an app that you could log on to and announce your location (whereupon, vendors and businesses who were also subscribed could offer specials, and where friends could say, hey, I'm in that area too, let's meet at this bar in ten minutes). FourSquare is, in my opinion, a little silly in that it was half app half game - you visited Joey's Bar more times than anyone else in a certain period of time and you became "Mayor of Joey's Bar." Whee. Still, it has its value as a networking tool.
More than that, though, new releases of smart phones already come equipped with the geo-fencing capability, enabling users to create a "fence" around a particular location - say, your house. Then you can assign tasks or reminders to that location, and when you get within a certain proximity of that location, the tasks or reminders you've assigned yourself will pop up on your phone.
As with any technology, there are always limitations, and as I've pointed out, traffic on WiFi would be one of the limiters of this app. But I have confidence that as more and more of us rely on our smart phones for more and more of our lives, this, too shall be overcome!
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