Sunday, June 26, 2011

#blogjune 26 Geoloqi




I have been puzzling for a while how to share local historical data and photos via apps, i.e. if someone is walking down the street they will get a push saying this is the Leinster Arms, it has been a hotel since blah and blah and a link to old photo. Recently I had an email (yes it was the Webbys again) telling me about Geoloqi. This is a mobile and web platform for location sharing. I'm rather cynical about location sharing but what got me to check this one out was the suggestion in the email that you can use Geoloqi to create a virtual guided walking tour if you have friends visiting.

It was easy to sign on as you can just do that with Twitter and there is a free app for iPhone4/iTouch though not for iPad. Unfortunately there are no Australian timezones either. You track where you have been as well as where you are going.

The function I am interested in is about leaving geonotes for your future self which you can have emailed, texted or pushed to you when you get to the location. So you can leave a note at the supermarket to buy cat litter, leave a note at work about an important task, or leave an historical comment at a site. As far as I can see you can't add a photo as part of your Geonote but presumably could add a link to a photo (e.g. on Flickr or Picture Australia). And each Geonote only works once so that is not really want we want.



There are "layers" that you can subscribe to which are said to to be such that you could have information about the street as you walk down it. Yay! And you will be able to make your own layers soon but now you need to build by using Geoloqi api. It does seem to me that this is the type of tool I have been looking for but as it's in beta maybe more exploration is necessary and a bit of patience.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin