| Here's an idea that has been on my list for years that is doable in a short time but I just haven't gotten around to it: Build a URL shortener for directions to physical addresses. Huh? 1) get a domain, say http://right.to (I'll give that to you if you build this) 2) Users can register a nickname and location: daves_house 123 Main St, City CA, 90210 3) When someone requests http://right.to/daves_house the page uses HTML5 to get the requestor's location and responds with a map with a route (and turn by turn directions if you wish) from where the requestor is at that moment, to the address that is registered. The directions come from Google or Bing maps or any other open directions API that your back-end fetches. The value is that I (your customer) will have a URL that I can always give to people for directions to my house or business no matter where they are. Bonus points: A phone app that sends SMS or email messages containing the URL http://right.to/p/xxxxx.yyyyy where xxxxx and yyyyy are not previously registered nicknames but rather encoded lat/long of the sender. Huh? 1) I launch the app on my phone. It gets my GPS coordinates and creates the encoded xxxxx, yyyyy. It opens my SMS interface with a pre-populated message: "I'm right here: http://right.co/p/xxxxx.yyyyy" 2) I enter the recipients for the text and hit send. 3) Each recipient, when they click on the link, gets located through their browser and shown directions from wherever they are, to wherever I am. value: With a few clicks I just sent a bunch of people directions from them to me without knowing where I am, or where they are. Or maybe I tweeted that. Every viewer gets a custom route right to me. This idea was inspired by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2093261 wherein I discovered that an app I wanted to build already existed, so I tweaked it a little (directions instead of just locations). *edits for spelling and formatting |
It would be great if it also offered public transit directions. One could then market it to businesses as a replacement for the static map on their contact page.
Let's keep in touch once I'm done with ezsend.it