Walk of Fame

The time I had checking out Google maps, and the interactive Mymaps feature, was actually pretty cool. I can see how this would be a very handy thing for people who are perhaps looking to travel to a place that they have never been to before, and can check out what other people like to do in certain areas. By allowing user generated content like this, I believe that many small business's, that would normally get over looked, pick up a lot of "word of mouth" customers. Outside of business advertising it is always good for people who are new to a city, or area. By putting in key things like hospitals, fire stations, police stations ect.. people are able to get a stronger bearings on their neighborhoods. I actually really liked the way that Google maps set this up. It is very intuitive and has a very low learning curve. Unlike the timeline assignment I believe that Mymaps actually has a use in the real world. The timeline seemed pointless, and outside of a few very small specialty situations, I would not imagine a situation in which I would use it. While I ended up using mymaps for something as minute as a pub crawl, its appeal comes from the fact that it has a very diverse range of functional use.


View Bar Crawl in a larger map

Dipity Doo-Dah, Dipity Lame

My god, I am not one to bash upon innovative web ideas but wow. Dipity was probably the worst site I have ever had the misfortune of having to use. It comes across as a means of making people watch home movies, online. Granted I can see how it could be used for say, following a presidential campaign or something but the interface was so awful I do not think that I would even bother. To be honest I think that a site promoting information design, should probably be designed well. The interface was confusing and left me feeling annoyed at the set up. Maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning but as far as dipity is concerned, I would recommend a complete overhaul. I can understand what the creators were going for, but the whole timeline idea I foudn to have been poorly executed.

http://www.dipity.com/Rubick?msg=signup_done