New Project & Importance of Contextual and Real Time Data
Our team was quite busy (yes, I know, as always!) recently, working on our client piece of work and developing new exciting idea, which soon will be ready for your testing, comments and feedback.
We are launching new mobile app with an ambitious goal to provide users information on demand - contextual information or as we call it real time info.
One of the great writers Irene Ng emphasizes interesting facts in her book. We currently have 6 billion mobile phones around the world and 68% of their users claim they sleep with them by their heads. And yes, since I got my first smartphone, I also sleep with it by my head. This is really amusing, but also very important fact. Ben Hammersley from Wired makes fun of us and says that smartphones took away 20% of our brain and even made us a little bit retarded.
This small device incredibly changed our behaviour in recent years. First, it gave us opportunity to play - take pictures, edit videos, write posts, check in or measure our blood pressure on the go. And yes, we loved it! We loved it so much that Big Data became one of the biggest buzzwords around. Marketers love it, tech entrepreneurs love it, researchers hate it, saying that it is impossible to make sense in this huge noise of meaningless numbers, locations, words and vague facts.
But we always know, that when humans get problem, they love finding solution. So, we saw how smart folks used this mess of data for practises such as predicting flu outbreak following Google Trends, managing earthquakes using social media or even predicting election results looking at viral videos. Not to mention, recent trend in using sensors and tapping into many more ways to make our life easier when we need it.
Our team wants to be a part of this data curating and problem solving as well. We believe that in a few years it will be ancient to find out the current venue atmosphere by physically going there and checking it out. We believe that standing in a queue might sometimes be fun, but usually it is not and you should be able to find out about the queue itself before you are in the place.
We dream that one day we will be able to see how venue looks like NOW live. And that we will be able to explore all places real time on our phones.
We also believe in micro localised content. It is incredible feeling to imagine how many things are going on at the same time in the same area. You might think that venues are the same every day, but just look - that coffeeshop just got new cake, and this small venue is running a free workshop and your favourite market has a brand new stall you will love. We all know this extraordinary feeling when you unexpectedly notice graffiti artist drawing live or when you rush after work and stop for a cigarette just because this street musician caught your ear. Places, areas and people change every day and exploring them is such a great experience!
We decided to use available data, gather data ourselves, write algorithms and partnership with others to let everyone know what is going on around them in real time.
Moreover, we strive to make this experience contextual. We won't recommend you a rooftop bar on a rainy day and we will definitely encourage you to go out and have a picnic in a local park when it is sunny! Technology should be smart and we believe that best solutions come from technology being in partnership with humans.
To make this story short, we started from Shoreditch area. We went out ourselves, we explore, record, hear what others say, we talk and sometimes we just enjoy exploring local real time.
We also spent so many hours trying to find real time information locally. We downloaded around 200 mobile applications, we constantly check Facebook and Twitter and we check venue websites every day. So we know what you feel when it is Friday 9pm and you are in the area and you want something and the only one available option is 'just go, be spontaneous and try everything you see in front of you, maybe you will find something'. None of us like spending 30 minutes browsing and trying to find info on the go. Neither, we like to find out that all pubs we tried are completely full! We also hate to miss best events nearby especially when we are in the area and we get jealous when our friends discover something amazing we've just missed!
So, we are Shoreditch Hype and we will give you real time information in Shoreditch. We soon might come to other areas or even start using real time information for solving bigger problems. But currently, we are coding, discussing and finishing our first app which we really believe is great.
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