N.B.: this post was actually intended for my other blog, but as apparently it’s having hiccups, let’s go for backup :)
Following last week’s exciting news about the launch of FireEagle and the consequent wave of new interest in location base social networks (like brightkite) I think it’s definitely time to come to terms with rough edges and introduce you to what has been keeping me busy for a few weekends in the past season.
Started just as an exercise to learn the FireEagle API, it evolved rapidly due to early feedback, fun and personal curiousity into what is starting to look like a full fledged application. Well, at least the stem of it. Now, to push it one step further, it needs to meet real people. So, without further ado, enter WakeMe.At.
What is WakeMe.At?
While trying to explain the idea to friends, a number of possible definitions emerged
* a location centric taskmanager
* a distributed, serendipitous travel guide
* your ubiquitous sticky notes
* a tool for collaborative local action
Ultimately, you can imagine WakeMe.At as a blank canvas where to doodle with four data brushes: where you are, where memos are, their relationship with you (through your social network), and the media through which you like to be notified.
Also, WakeMe.At is a provocation into try and think differently: it invites you to start mapping your tasks instead of listing them, and it hints to the possibility of sharing them with your friends and find out that they can be carried out in a more eco and time-efficient way by the group rather than the individual.
Incidentally, it also made me notice how the modern cities are built around the concept of personal tasklist, more than on collaboration/communication model.
Why should I care?
Strictly speaking, you don’t have to, at least at this stage.
BUT, you may be interested in playing with a new way of asynchronously exploring the space around you, or share notes and actions about places or events with your friends.
Also, if you are enjoying location based services already out there, like iamnear or brightkite, chances are you already have got an idea of the possibilities that location aware tools unveil.
Finally, from a beta oriented point of view, you may instead be interested in being involved into the development of something slightly different from the usual “show me who’s around and I may be friend of”, help me build a proper enabling web service, and enjoy waves of funny little bugs.
How does it work?
WakeMe.At tracks your position, either through manual updates or your FireEagle account (if you have one). From the site, you can then place memos on specific places (you can identify a place through its address or by using an interactive map).
A memo can be of two types: a note or a todo.
Notes
Notes, like their tangible counterparts, are used to describe the qualities of what they’re attached to (in this case, a place).
You can use a note to remember the opening times or the sales going on in a shop, an anecdote about a monument, or a particularly awesome spot to watch fireworks.
You can share notes with your friends, make them available to the public, or keep them for yourself.
Todo
Todo are tasks that, in WakeMe.At, are bound to a place: of course this includes shopping lists that needs to be triggered whenever you get close to your local market, but also reminders about that exhibition at the museum that is going to end soon, or the travel card you need to renew at the train station.
As for notes, you can share todos with your friends (they could help you with your shopping or may be interested in the exhibition too!), make them public or keep them private.
One of the trickiest parts of building a location based service is that you probably want to be able focus on your physical context rather than having to continuously check the website for notes and todos. This represents two separate technical challenges: asynchronous location update and notification:
Location update
Of course users can update their position from the website, but in order to provide maximum flexibility, WakeMe.At also integrates with FireEagle. This means that, if you have a FE account, you will be able to update your location through a wide range of different ways (some examples include brightkite, dopplr, N95, iPhone…), and WakeMe.At will periodically check and mirror your updates from there, wether you’re actually logged in the website or not.
Notification
While the web interface represent the most complete user experience, you can choose to be notified of nearby memos through different media.
This way we think it’ll be easier for you to keep track of your notes and todos while on the move.
For the time being, you can choose to be notified via email and/or Twitter.
Sadly, Twitter just announced that they disabled the Direct Message to SMS feature from their UK phone number; pity, it was the perfect catch to receive notifications directly to your cell phone. I covered the subject slightly more here.
What’s missing, and where to go next?
WakeMe.At is in its early days, you can call that alpha, beta, or just say it still needs a good deal of adjustments. I’m aware of that and will try to fix them in the near future, based on feedback and time (which is always an issue).
What follows is a list of my main areas of concern at the moment. You’re more than welcome to help me on any of these :)
Design
As you’ll notice by heading to WakeMe.At, the site doesn’t have a real style of its own yet. There are some ideas, of course, and I believe it’s ok to show its goals and the leading principles behind it, but it’s still lacking a proper IA and visual design.
The current general architecture is heavily inspired by Dopplr, which I consider a true source of inspiration when it comes to “proper” design, but since the two sites don’t address quite the same question, I think we’ll have to move away from this layout soon and find a better fit.
Mobile
I’m working on a stripped down version of the site, that will be helpful essentially to _consume_ data from a mobile device. This needs still some work (and some test), but should be available pretty soon.
Seamless experience
Currently, WakeMe.At does a pretty good job in trying to guess your location and deliver notifications, but the experience as a whole is often less than fluid.
I reckon there’s a lot of room for improvement in designing an interaction that feels more “natural”.
API
This is something that’s on its way: WakeMe.At is built as a RESTful application and pretty much all the data is thus accessible and manageable already. There are a few missing bits though, especially access to data via JSON, application based authentication, like OAuth, and some nice documentation that explains it all.
When can I join?
NOW! Even if formally WakeMe.At is in “closed” beta (or should I say alpha), I’m eager to get a little more people on board to see if it just blows off or not.
So, if you’re interested, head to this page and request an invite; it should come to your mailbox pretty soon!
A big Thank You
Last but not least, I’d like to thank the small group of very special people that helped in testing wakeme.at so far. Strictly in order of appearance in the database: simbul, amitkoth, tomtaylor, folletto, phauly, kurai, feba (who also kindly reviewed this post), margotmood, gianchan, abeggi (bugspotter supreme)
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