

Location 2012: Death Of The Information Silos - edw519
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/03/location-2012/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

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henning
This sounds like a nightmare that no one but people like Robert Scoble would
fully opt in to.

> He gets an alert on his mobile phone that I’m on my way and Glympse sends
> him the ability to watch my progress so he’ll know if I’ll be on time.

This kind of surveillance is appropriate for a police state or someone who has
to be monitored for drug/alcohol violations of some kind.

He never actually says that these "information silos" will "die" as in go out
of business, he just suggests ways they could integrate. Developing
integration between all of these websites is in general ad-hoc and based on
the whims of each service. If there is heavy integration between these
services, each individual website will still be a silo.

It's a really boring vision of technology based on endless spammy
intertwingled streams of useless information.

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shadowsun7
In my day, we did long-forgotten things on car-rides like 'watching scenery
whiz by' and 'having conversations' and 'playing I Spy'. Scoble's kids would
probably be addicted to some variant of Tap Tap Revenge on his iPhone
throughout the trip, chatting to their little friends back home, and posting
top scores to Facebook with tags like 'scored during a road trip' or 'scored
while in math class!'

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hugh3
I think I prefer the 2010 version, where I can drive all the way from Half
Moon Bay to Stateline, Nevada without being harasssed fifteen times by various
services wanting to alert me to things.

Really, the only feature out of all of those mentioned that I'd like to have
would be warning about traffic jams, and that's already available on GPSes
somewhat more sophisticated than mine.

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hristov
I don't know about you, but I just stopped reading after the first dozen plugs
and name drops. But judging from the beginning this seems like some kind of
nightmarish future science fiction story in the tradition of Philip K Dick.

If someone finishes it, let me know how it turns out, ok? I wonder if he ever
gets to that casino or whether it turns out that the casino does not exist and
he is just a brain in a vat that is connected to every single web service out
there.

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sorbus
I find myself wondering how one would have time to drive a car with all of the
things to do on their phone. Doubtless, accidents would increase greatly in
this environment - unless, perhaps, the cars are also smart enough to drive
themselves?

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rjett
Foursquare and Waze didn't tell Scoble that the accident he ran into in
Sacramento was caused by someone looking down at their cell phone. :)

In all seriousness, I think it would helpful to be able to dock your phone in
your car and navigate/communicate with these apps by voice instead of having
to look down and type on the phone.

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rjett
In my opinion, the most likely scenario laid out in this article:

But what happens if Apple ends up building its own maps, its own location
checkin service, it’s own advertising system for bringing promotions and
offers to you, its own payment system, and its own travel apps? Well, then,
this system would happen for Apple customers but that would weaken the ability
for other companies to compete. And that would force Google’s hand into
competing, or buying, these companies up, which would keep Apple from having
access to some of these companies’ APIs.

