User Generated Content

Last week I have been traveling around Poland. Saving sunny coral reef resorts for depressing days of November, I really like Poland in Summer. A friend of mine took off a few days before and stopped for a few days at a remote lake in Tuchola Forest. This used to be some 6 hours drive from where I live, so without much rush I programmed my Garmin GPS unit to guide me there. Unfortunately I soon found out I would not make it in 6 hours, as all the major roads were under construction. After spending an hour in a traffic jam and moving just a few hundred meters, I decided to take the first road away I could. We do not have the TMC (Traffic Message Channel) implemented in Poland, so my GPS, while it knows A LOT, is not aware of blocked roads and traffic jams. On the other hand we are experiencing enormous growth of popularity of CB-Radios (drivers alert themselves about police radars and speed cameras, but also about traffic conditions).

The immediate thought was how nice it would be to touch the GPS screen to "submit to the system" an information about the blocked road. I bet an Internet - enabled GPS unit, working with a backend system gathering feedback from users would prove much better than any commercial, centrally operated TMC service. Drivers could alert themselves "on screen" about various conditions - accidents, jams, speed cameras... The comeback of CB radio is the proof, even when the CB technology is from the past century, utilizing analog transmission of voice instead of digital data.

Next day, after meeting our friends, we wanted to find a new place to stay. The Garmin unit I use, combined with the GPMapa software (a must when you have a Garmin and want to rely on it in Poland), has a decent database of POIs (Points Of Interest) divided into categories. With my position pinpointed down to 4 meters in 3D, after selecting "Lodging" I had a dozen or more places within 30km range to choose from, but was really lost (pun intended), having no idea what to choose and how to make sure I would like the selection. Driving around for a day was not a better option either... Again, the user feedback would help here a lot. Surely somebody must have stayed at some of those places before. And most of them had an opinion, either good or bad. There just was no platform to share it... Last week I wrote about my new rule of thumb when purchasing gadgets:

BTW the Amazon.com user reviews section, available for almost any home electronics product you can imagine is a great service. Kudos to people who find their time and take the effort to post the reviews. It really becomes my rule of thumb to go to the Amazon website and check for reviews before I buy anything.

I would pay real $$$'s if my car GPS unit could not only sort the POIs based on the distance from my location, but also based on user feedback. And I would like to read the feedback as well. Sceptics claim the reviews may be loaded. Sure. But Amazon, eBay and others prove the concept of user generated content works very well, statistics filter out the sponsored reviews.

Looking for some related services I found the MSN Direct. While it delivers some real time information, its general flaw is one way operation. You cannot submit anything to the system. It works like an FM radio (BTW it really uses FM radio airwaves to stream down the information). But we already know the one way FM Radio is fading... to make room for the two-way Internet services, where user generated content is the king. I really do believe my next GPS unit will be not only able to steer me away from the traffic jam, but also with a press of a [I'm Feeling lucky...] button will offer me a smorgasbord of options I'll like.