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Ask HN: What do you think of a real-time travel app

2 points by snehesht 11y ago

Hi, little back story to this I'm participating in Startup Weekend, We came up with an idea of developing a real time discovery app for travelers. We are trying to integrate real time information about the events that are going around, for an example a food truck located at the next block or a street performer next street. These are small things that brings a lot of good experiences in the trip and make it more unique. I would really appreciate your inputs, suggestions.

rahimnathwani 11y ago
I am on vacation right now, and would like to consume content in something like this. However, I'd only use it if it already had a lot of current information about what's going on within a 2km radius of where I am right now. That information is (i) hard to collect at scale, even with a really great UI, (ii) goes stale quickly, (iii) sparse for many locations. Perhaps you could seed this by building on stuff you pull from Twitter/Facebook, and then slowly shift towards content originating on your platform?
- snehesht 11y ago
  Cool, that one of he way we planned to gather information, and our design relies on people to find and post it on our app/social media.
kspaans 11y ago
Have a look at Waze (now owned by Google): people on the road ahead of your can put up warnings, and the system can figure out of a certain road has congestion in real-time and suggest alternates. Also maybe look at OpenStreetMaps for a starting point for mapping and place data.
- snehesht 11y ago
  thanks, we modeled few parts of our app based on waze.
  - kspaans 11y ago
    Also look at Untappd. Instead of "checking in" at a location a la foursquare, you check in what kind of beer you are drinking (optionally with a picture and a location). In denser areas I can occasionally find new beer without having to walk past a bunch of pubs and squinting at their taps from the windows.
LarryMade2 11y ago
I've been working on that idea on more passive way and smaller scale http://www.doplaces.com http://www.doplaces.com A few things Ive added beyond the general what's nerby on touristy websites are: Group locations and meeting schedules, "points of interest" category for those who like to wander, adjustable date time to see what will be open during the time of their visit, notices to learn about pre-event tickets or signups for competitions and such ahead of time. The biggest issues I see is a)Advertising the service and b)Buy-in by the businesses/community groups/vendors and performers - unless you have some good traction already, you have to prove that it's worth their effort. On the advertising, my current plan is to make a programmatic "vendor printable" flyer they can print up and post - a simple sign "you are here [big X] find out what's nearby [QR coe and custom url for the business like "doplaces.com/near/BillsDiner"]. Reduces the effort to get results on the public side, goes right into what they want to see. Once you do have public buy in, the next problem is making quick updating painless for the participants... My site currently has no-login updating, I've made it about as simple as you can get (edit one text field - I'll deal with the hard input controls.) Not as much input as I expected... but also could be because I'm in the sticks, and mobile savvy audience is not as big as would be in a city. If I had the time, and doing it on a live scale, like you are thinking, I'd probably have a vendor-side mobile app where they could either turn on/off real time tracking or just be able to push a "ping" button to update their location/status (tied to their record of what they do) Incentive - might be able to provide them with metrics of popularity, competition density, peak time graphs, etc. Good Luck!

2 points by snehesht 11y ago

rahimnathwani 11y ago

I am on vacation right now, and would like to consume content in something like this. However, I'd only use it if it already had a lot of current information about what's going on within a 2km radius of where I am right now. That information is (i) hard to collect at scale, even with a really great UI, (ii) goes stale quickly, (iii) sparse for many locations. Perhaps you could seed this by building on stuff you pull from Twitter/Facebook, and then slowly shift towards content originating on your platform?

snehesht 11y ago
Cool, that one of he way we planned to gather information, and our design relies on people to find and post it on our app/social media.

kspaans 11y ago

Have a look at Waze (now owned by Google): people on the road ahead of your can put up warnings, and the system can figure out of a certain road has congestion in real-time and suggest alternates. Also maybe look at OpenStreetMaps for a starting point for mapping and place data.

snehesht 11y ago
thanks, we modeled few parts of our app based on waze.
- kspaans 11y ago
  Also look at Untappd. Instead of "checking in" at a location a la foursquare, you check in what kind of beer you are drinking (optionally with a picture and a location). In denser areas I can occasionally find new beer without having to walk past a bunch of pubs and squinting at their taps from the windows.

LarryMade2 11y ago

I've been working on that idea on more passive way and smaller scale http://www.doplaces.com http://www.doplaces.com A few things Ive added beyond the general what's nerby on touristy websites are: Group locations and meeting schedules, "points of interest" category for those who like to wander, adjustable date time to see what will be open during the time of their visit, notices to learn about pre-event tickets or signups for competitions and such ahead of time. The biggest issues I see is a)Advertising the service and b)Buy-in by the businesses/community groups/vendors and performers - unless you have some good traction already, you have to prove that it's worth their effort. On the advertising, my current plan is to make a programmatic "vendor printable" flyer they can print up and post - a simple sign "you are here [big X] find out what's nearby [QR coe and custom url for the business like "doplaces.com/near/BillsDiner"]. Reduces the effort to get results on the public side, goes right into what they want to see. Once you do have public buy in, the next problem is making quick updating painless for the participants... My site currently has no-login updating, I've made it about as simple as you can get (edit one text field - I'll deal with the hard input controls.) Not as much input as I expected... but also could be because I'm in the sticks, and mobile savvy audience is not as big as would be in a city. If I had the time, and doing it on a live scale, like you are thinking, I'd probably have a vendor-side mobile app where they could either turn on/off real time tracking or just be able to push a "ping" button to update their location/status (tied to their record of what they do) Incentive - might be able to provide them with metrics of popularity, competition density, peak time graphs, etc. Good Luck!