So now that I have a target for the project, a ‘dream’ if you will, that I need to fulfill which is : a system where I can press one button and see a list of all the “cool things” going on in my local area.

I now need to think up a way to actually realize this. The first issue will be “how do I get the list of cool stuff into the system?” . That is definitely going to be the key to how this system will work, my options are : trawling existing sites to grab contents, asking users to input contents or writing my own contents.

The first idea, creating some sort of spider to find the information for me would be pretty straight forward technically speaking, but has a few drawbacks. Firstly I need the location information for the “cool stuff”, ie: I will need the longitude and latitude co-ordinates for each item I collect. I don’t think it would be possible to get this from a web page ( unless I do some reverse geocoding GPS lookup on the address details ). Secondly, I have no way of knowing if the “stuff” the crawler finds is really “cool stuff” or just “mediocre stuff”, as I have already stated I only want “cool stuff” on this site.

That reminds me, I have decided that this service is definitely going to be provided as a “site” for now. I have played with Brew and more recently with Android and that has given me some insight into what would be required to release this as an appli. It will be far simpler and will reach a much larger audience if I go with a regular web based system built with PHP or J2EE.

Back to the mechanics of finding the “cool stuff”. The second idea, using user generated content, even if it is a web2.0 cliché seems to be the best way to achieve what I want to do. I can get people ( hopefully ) to register the places they visit with the system and other people to rate them. This way I can find the stuff that is going on and also determine if its “cool” or not.

The third idea – providing the content myself will probably be required in the early stages regardless as I doubt I will be able to build a user base very quickly. However, I do not want to just create another “blog” with a GPS interface as I have enough difficulty keeping this one up-to-date.

So there we have it, my new project is going to be a “user recommendation system for location-based information”. Perfect!

Its been a while since I last posted and in that time I have been learning how valuable free time is for people working in the modern world, and in particular for people working in Tokyo. The amount of free time I have seems to be slipping away with each week that passes. The ironic thing is that when I do actually get some time to myself, time where I am free to do what ever I want to do, I can’t actually think of anything to do. Typical. Well this has been bugging me for a while and came up recently in a conversation I was having with a friend ( and colleague at my current job ). It seems I am not the only one who feels at a loose end. So I am wondering if this is a common feeling for foreigners in Japan, or perhaps it’s a general phenomenon that is felt all over the developed world.

I have also been toying around testing out the GPS functions on my cellphone and trying to build maps from scratch using vector data provided by the Japanese land ministry. I’ve tried using mapserver, mapnik and some great php scripts called provided by a guy called Mike Diplock ( but I have lost the reference to his site! ) and whilst I’ve learned a lot of interesting things about the vast world of GIS and information processing, I have to admit failure. Map rendering requires just too much horsepower ( and brain power ) and at the moment I do not have the facilities to put even the most basic of solutions together.

Yes I know that I could have bypassed all the pain and gone straight for a google maps or yahoo maps solution but that wasn’t the point. My problem is I like to tinker and solve ambitious challenges.

Anyway, I have given up trying to re-invent the wheel, there is no way I could provide maps with the performance or clarity of those rendered daily by google maps. Instead I have started thinking about how I can use this newly discovered world of GIS data with the GPS function of my phone to provide a useful service for my own pleasure and perhaps even for other people.

I am happy to say that today the idea finally came together. However, it is not entirely ground breaking or very ‘web 2.0’. It is still a good idea though ( or so I think ).

So what is this new project going to be then? Well I have come up with a way to help solve my “what to do with myself at the weekend” problem using the GPS function of my phone. Its really easy, really neat and goes something like this : If I ever find myself at a loose end, I pull out my phone, access my “insert_name_of_new_site_here” and press the big ‘send location’ button. Then I sit back and wait while the system gathers up a list of all the cool things that are going on near my current location. I can then browse through this selection and if I feel like it I can then pop over to the actual place where all the cool stuff is going on and check it out for myself.

Simple!

Well, that’s the theory anyway and I am willing to give it a shot. If only to give myself a pet-project to work on in the free time that I don’t have.

So tell me what you think by posting a comment - I have to moderate them at the moment because I’ve been receiving a huge amount of comments spam.