this is a really great idea... it can be packaged with some other LBS type applications/features and be the first killer GSP enabled mobile app...
I really want a piece of this company :)

I see it working with windows mobile for example, but the problem is not to measure distance, but to calculate the time needed. One kilometer/mile on a highway is not the same as in a town. Still the idea is interesting.
Tommy

@vanhees
you can extract the time easily from Google maps/ Map Quest.

I like this. Of course, whether it can fly or not depends on whether you can build it! It MUST be both reliable and easy-to-use - nobody will use a system like this that only works 50% of the time because you still need to keep track of everything manually, but equally nobody will use a system that works perfectly but is more hassle than it's worth. Good luck with it!

This is really interesting. I too think it could be a killer GSP app, but I also agree with PhilipH that the implementation will make or break it.

Looking forward to more comments on this one.

Different from the Vista pre-bundled calender planner program how?

The time calculation will be hard. How do you calculate walking distances?

If you did work that out, then I think you should definitely have the phone recognize when you've arrived at the meeting location and turn off the reminder. That would be a cool feature.

nothin more to say than what vanhees n techguy have pointed out.
@ kevin i have not yet experienced vista

I think techguy brings up a good point - would it also work on different modes of transportation ? Planes for example ? I like the idea though regardless - implementing it through the right medium may be the crucial part.

I agree that the mode of transportation will need to be taken into account. You could have a default mode set in your profile (probably automobile for most people). But you could change it to walk/subway (good for those in NYC). And for the .001% of our super rich users we could offer private jet mode.

Lars

As for the driving distance/ vs. straight line distance... Yes the Geocode (ie latitude and longitude) of your present location will have to converted into the nearest aproximate street address. (maybe an allowance assuming that you will walk to that location). Then with that information the normal means of finding the driving distance between 2 addresses could easily be found using the google maps api.

Nitro, (and everybody else)

You really want a piece of this company? Come get it.

For real. You can have as big a piece as you want, you just have to earn in it.

I think that people should be rewarded for the value that they add. (And just for the record I think that the person who thinks of the idea has added very little, so I put myself in the same pot.)

Lars

My background is in marketing, buzz, alternative media, and etc.. I'd be more than happy to get on board once it reaches 1.0 but unfortunately I don't have much to contribute until the idea gets a little further.

Thanks for invitation LarsBell .... As I said this is a really great idea and I am %100 onboard .... I am not really concerned about the technical issues.. the harder the problem the more valuable it is.
but I think before anyone start coding, we have to think about some aspects of it more carefully ... here are a few things to start with:
- How are we going to monetize this? There is no successful business model for mobile apps that I am aware of.... (possible answer: Get as many users as you can, until you find a way or just sell the business, e.g. Jaiku)
- Is this the only feature of this service or it will be broader... there are endless possibilities ... which we should think of the major issues ahead of time... The problem with this only one feature is that it once it proves successful ... all major calendar applications (e.g. google calendar and Outlook) are most definitely going to implement a plug in that does the same thing ... (possible solution: create something more sticky that can maintain it's user base .. since user's data should be eventually uploaded and processed via our web application, why not implement some social networking functionalities as well)

N

GroundLoad,

I like to think that marketing needs to happen at the very start. It seems sort of "bass akwards" to figure out how to build something then figure out how to market it. pricing, promotion, product....

In other words, don't wait, we need your smarts now.

Nitro,

Monetization is a very good point.

I think we are going to have to break the market into segments then figure out what will work best with each calander application.

I happen to know salesforce.com best right now because that is what I used most recently so I'll give my version of how we could make money with those users.

They have a portion of their platform that allows 3rd party developers to build applications and then sell them on their website
http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/
This would fit very nicely because companies are already using this service, it targets business users from companies that are willing to put up money to make their sales people more productive. Plus the coding is fairly easy with their new platform service using apex, so the time to market here could be very fast.

We could build payment schemes ourselves or let salesforce handle it (they take a cut of course). Either way I don't think monitizing (is that a real word?) for this particular user base would be a problem at all.

Other people can chime in with the details of ideas on how to make money with other platforms/applications.

Lars

Nitro,

I agree that a company with only one product is going to have a very hard time making it. Even worse our one product has only one feature.

I like the your suggestion of "social networking." Do you mean like a facebook plugin? We are going to have to flush that out.

Maybe also if this is truely a better application people would start using it for other things....

Take this example:
I use my cell phone as an alarm clock to get up in the morning. If I'm at my house i need 1 hour to get ready and drive to work on time.
but... If I'm over at someone elses house (after a late night of tiddley winks) I might need more time because that person lives on the other side of town. I wouldn't have to recalculate what time I need to get up.

Or a different example: I could set a recurring alarm to remind me to be back to work at 1pm. then I could go to lunch anywhere and not be looking at my watch and worrying about making it back in time.

Things that have greater functionality get used more.

Lars

This smells like a patent.

If so can we name cambrianhouse as the "Asignee" or should it be the project idea? but the project is not a legal enity yet, so how is that handled? (CH folks a little clarification this would be nice...)

Did you know you can patent a business method? (me neither) untill I just went to the USPTO
http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/pbmethod/
And here I was thinking about a utilty patent....

Kevin_Cox,

You mentioned Vista Calender. I don't have Vista yet. Went to the microsoft website, on there it didn't look like it has this feature
http://www.microsoft...etails/calendar.mspx

but they probably don't list all the features

Can someone with Vista confirm?

I think this might really be a problem of me not explaining very well this new system will do. If other people have more elequent words feel free to use them.

Here are some Location Based technolgies we could leverage

Sky Hook has a well deployed WiFi based system. Great for indoors and dense urban areas
http://www.skyhookwi...less.com/howitworks/

Hey guys,
I did a little research to find if a similar idea has already been patented, and then found this:
http://www.google.co...ents?id=znASAAAAEBAJ

but don't be too disappointed... because every f...ing thing that you can think of has already been patented many years ago but never implemented ... *sigh

I like it. As technology on mobile devices advance there will be a lot of cool innovations. The mobile industry is a huge market too.

Poop.

Maybe IBM will join CH and donate their patent rights to this project.

And maybe I'm a chineese jet pilot.

Ok, I'm no IP expert.

But don't we already have significant improvements over that patent? (SMS messaging, integration with SalesForce, WiFI based location determination)

I'm sure by the time we got done we would have a hundred things imporoved. Have our own bunch of patents in the portfolio. Then we could work out a cross licensing deal or something.

Someone with way more knowledge than me is going to have to step up and guide us on this.

Why dose it have to be based on your location? why not just have it on your cell phone, PDA or blackberry? So what if you get two messages?

I am just trying to see why someone would pay for this if they could just work around the problem?

Gods_Light,

You need the location becuase your location determines the amount of warning time you need. If you are on the other side of town you need more time, if you are in the same building you need less warning time.

I'm not sure what you mean by "two messages." You will have to explain that.

Lars

This is GPS on a chip:
http://tinyurl.com/2mbpky

If you can make your (mobile) application make use of such a chip, it'll take away the problem of "mode of transportation".

They also have other products/chips that integrate wifi and bluetooth, but the GPS chip will work well(or better) with your idea.
It won't be long until nearly all mobile devices will have such a chip built in.
So i guess if you want to make this idea a reality, you'd need some developers/programmers that develop for mobile devices.

Also take a look at fish99's idea. He's working on a platform where developers can test their mobile applications using crowd sourcing, which might help you test your application on different mobile platforms in the future:
http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/GVx73yK/

Here is a good article on LBS in the USA
http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=81

Also some other good articles here: http://www.lbszone.c...nt/category/6/41/45/
I remember from a few years back that there was a annual conference/competition for LBS applications.. with major VC firms having an attendee couldn't find it online tho

In a city you will ultimately need to read the traffic data and route the user to their next meeting accordingly. The idea is essentially to move an "OnStar" equivalent onto the cell phone (probably being done), and dressing it with your calendar reminder system.

I saw some "current traffic" systems on the web some time back, but I hope and imagine that they have improved greatly since then. Also, when I once rode with an OnStar user, it seems that the system was not yet reading current traffic data. What do you think of the idea to consider current traffic?

Re: current traffic conditions.

I think it is a good idea, if someone else has built it. If another company is has an API for it and we could plug it in then it would add some value. But I don't think that it would be worth our time building out that entire function ourselves.

That is just my opinion.

This idea AKA my Trio.

i really like this idea. here's some random musings...

if you could get critical mass on the device you would have the ability to create a very rich and complex mapping of travel times for virtually any user using any mode of transportation.

the device could use a clock and gps to determine your current pace (much like a more sophisticated version of a pedometer that say a marathoner might be using track and sustain a running pace) and then interpolate travel time a la systems used by highway/tollway systems (which i have some familiarity with) that track and project cmmute times. if the backend builds in estimated travel times for alternative modes of available loca travel (bus schedules, taxis in midtown manhatten, rail schedules, etc.) the device can not only measure your estimated time to destination based on current mode but can recommend alternatives to get you there quicker.

in essence the device "knows" your walking through central park right now and you have to be at union square in 45 minutes. it judegs your pace (and maybe has a memory store of how fast you typically walk), realizes that you can't make the walk in time so suggests the quickest route to the subway.

lots of potential with this one. and the revenue possibilities might be based on an advertising model - e.g. you have 1.5 hours to walk to an appointment which would only realistically take half an hour. what's wrong with the device sending you an advance notice and saying "by the way you'll have plenty of time to stroll by macy's and check out the 50% off linens sale"?

i'm still thinking about this idea and getting excited about it. tell me if i'm reading into this or not and getting beyond your concept but as i see it LBS is a mobile device/application that

1) knows where you are,
2) knows where you have to be,
3) knows when you have to be there and
4) knows your current pace (by presumably tracking/monitoring a gps heartbeat or somesuch feedback mechanism).

LBS can certainly be used to give you ample reminders of your appointments in a timely fashion but i'm envisioning something much larger.

on the one hand this is a great personal organizer. on another it is a great personalized marketing conduit. example: you are traveling to pittsburgh on business in two weeks. depending on how you opt in and set preferences, you can get specific flight and travel recommendations until you acknowledge a booking or decline the offers. once in pittsburgh, you can get restaurant recommendations, showtimes for movies, etc all clued into your location and schedule.

further, think of the communal aspects pregnant in this model. you and eventually millions of other LBS users will all be broadcasting your relative positions and destinations/appointments, again if folks opt-in to certain features i can imagine that an LBS backend intelligence is seeing that a fellow LBS'er has an appointment in the same office tower and at the same time as you. you also happen to be in the same hotel or live in the same neighborhood so LBS sends a simultaneous invite for you to share a cab or carpool with that other LBS'er. in addition there might be a taxi company also plugged into the LBS network and they're stationing/planning vehicle dispersments within a moments notice for either individuals or for the hypothetical ride sharers who agree to take the cab together.

again in the communal vein, imagine you are driving and looking for a parking spot in a busy city. within a block or two there may be another LBS user that gets an instant message from you (broadcast in a small targeted radius). he's just pulling out of a spot and IMs back that he'll wait until you pull up to take the spot.

this kind of localized communal reporting/feedback/sharing can be stretched in multiple ways - the only simple premise is that LBS knows where and when you want to be somewhere and the LBS community may have someone who has either been there to give you some insight into whatever local info you might need or is there right now to let you know something as basic but helpful as which line to get in the stadium is the shortest.

- Would not suprise me, TomTom will soon come with such features.
- Could alo work as a hiking tool, who can give me a ride to... Such sites are already in the air.

Maybe when you implement the service as a webservice where people can tell where they want to be when, you could send additional informatiion back out of other databases, not only a reminder as you have to go now. Keep it simple to ask given a bounce of aswers back will be service which could adopted. For examle, send a SMS to 9665 Nieuw Vennep Amsterdam 12:00 Which says I am in Nieuw Vennep and want to be on 12:00 in Amsterdam. You will get information back like:
- How to be there by bus, train, taxi or how to drive.
- Who have the same trip plan as well, maybe you can drive together.

Perry

@Random: thanks for the enthusiasm. Some of those features you suggest will have to wait for the 2.0 release.

Also, does anyone in the CH community have any experience (or want to get some) developing for the salesforce.com platform? I'm still thinking that is the low hanging fruit we could start generating revenue on right away.

like a palmTreo? you can even use your mobile phone for your schedules..

i guess so

ok I think you need to bring out the traffic and waiting time part of this idea. Make it more visible. I missed it.

You may wish to implement this idea as a "Smart Environment":
http://www3.intersci...ETRY=1&SRETRY=0

MIT did a study a while back that used GPS in cell phones to actually predict people's movement at a future time. Although the project was restricted to the town of the school, the predictions ended up being remarkably accurate. The name has changed since the last I looked (it appears they've moved the project into a much bigger project), something they call "Reality Mining." Needless to say, it's some very interesting stuff, and you may be able to use it to your advantage to have the system remind the user if they astray too far from their appointments, or even if it << predicts >> that they might astray from an appointment.

http://reality.media.../researchmethods.php

More methods for location prediction:
http://ieeexplore.ie...4299966/04299978.pdf

Hope this helps, and enjoy the development of this brilliant idea.

love it, it takes the worry away from the potential to ever be late again!

I'm putting this back in this week to get new ideas as it relates to Android.

Of course general ideas are also welcome, but let's also flush out the Android angle.

I like this idea. Does this mean that the schedule jump about to suit the exact location I am at?
How does this mess with other peoples diaries.
i.e.
1, I have a 2pm meeting scheduled at building Y
2, I get to building y at 11am
3, How does the other party know I am early, or do I just take a chance?

This is very cool! I haven't read the demoralizing patent info discussed earlier but.....

If the patent is concerning an app running on a cell phone or pda, then why not make it a webserver app that uses realtime gps updates sent from your cell phone or pda (with wifi) every few minutes, does all the calculations, then sends the reminder when necessary to get you there on time. It could even be just a simple text message.

Changed focus from a mobile app to a web app. Does the patent cover this?

Are you doing anything with this idea Lars ? Are you waiting for it to win an idea wars to implement it ?

Harder than it sounds - does it know how hard it is to catch a taxi from where you are? Or would you save time taking the subway?

@ GroundLoad,

I'm not currently doing anything with this idea because I don't have all the skills to make it a reality.

The reason I put it back into the idea war was because of the Android weeks that we are celebrating.

Thanks for asking

Lars

It's a great idea. You can implement it as a GPS app or with the new Google Maps My Location feature ( http://www.google.co...ylocation.html?hl=en ), which will give you an approximate location on a cell phone without GPS.

But perhaps the more practical way is to start on a smaller scale ( not unlike the MIT project mentioned by DrV ). You can implement a college campus system that helped students 'get to class' on time. The software, infrastructure, and real world bugs could be ironed out in this more 'controlled' setting.

If you are away from your office, on an appointment for example, then this software must determine my distance to my next appointment, and to give me an accurate prediction, which is what your idea is centered around, it will have to read accurate traffic data. I think that the only available traffic data is for freeways and accidents. So if you don't have accurate traffic data for all roads then how is this software able to accurately tell me when I'll have to leave to get to where I'm going in time???

OK...on calculating time needed to get to your next appointment....use averages. Have the webserver look at everyones travel time from point A to point B. Say from McDonalds on the north side of chicago to O'Hare airports main terminal. Overtime, more and more people will travel this route. Or maybe the same person. The point is it can be averaged over time and become more accurate. 100% accuracy of course will never be achieved and users will know that.

It might be good to start this on a college campus. But I would look at a patent asap. I have some resources for patents on a business process. Not free resources, but if they are interested they may want a peice of the action rather than a fee. Of course they will want an Executive Summary and Financial Analysis. Confidential and Trade Secret agreements will be signed.

Oh...by the way...I'm on board.

DavidDubree said "It might be good to start this on a college campus. But I would look at a patent asap. I have some resources for patents on a business process. Not free resources, but if they are interested they may want a peice of the action rather than a fee. Of course they will want an Executive Summary and Financial Analysis. Confidential and Trade Secret agreements will be signed. "

Patenting business processes is an area that I think we could all use some education on. I know that is now possible to do (this is a change), but I'm not sure on the rules.

As far as confidential and trade secret agreements, those went out the window when I put this on CH. Hopefully that will be offset by the incredible speed to market that the crowd will enable.

Traffic conditions are a factor, one that we can add as such data becomes more and more available.

Lars

I do think the best way to market is to test in a College campus first. The prototype can be the your proof of concept for the patent.

Campus setting offers these advantages:
1)Limited scope of destinations
2)Limited scope of traffic modes/conditions
3)A predictable pattern of schedules

At the same time you can still test all of the crucial parts of your system, handling traffic conditions, GPS accuracy, estimating travel times etc.

I'd thought of something similar a while ago, but it was only when a big wireless company asked me to do a patent search that I came across your site (which is very cool, by the way, lots of good ideas here). Unfortunately, I also came across an even earlier Motorola patent application (WO 01/10143) which was published in 2001 essentially describing this same idea. I can send you a PDF if you're interested in seeing it.

Cheers!