Friday, July 26, 2013

Idea: location-based minisite for smartphone

This is an idea about the application of Mug and Sam.

While "Minisite" refers to a sort of websites which contains information about one specific product or subject, but in this context, minisite represents just a site that contains little amount of contents. If trying to write "location-based minisite" more detail, that means "location-based discoverable minisite in proximity". Mug and Sam are a sort of file sharing tool that is location-based, Sam has a role of host. Mug can discover nearby Sam, and access to files that are shared by Sam.



I am imaging that local businesses such as stores and restaurants use Sam as this location-based minisite. For example, a little photo exhibition at a cafe, and photos are accessible by customers' smartphones or tablets when they visit the cafe only. I know a cafe's owner who loves a travel, and had ever seen photos are on his cafe's wall. A little space was needed for even this little exhibition, if he utilized Sam then the space might not be required.

How would it works? Look at this (they're from my album, at Lake Louise) :





Above one is relevant to images, but audios or videos can be provided with:






If a document is needed, that is, at a information center or a conference, PDF would be fit:





As you see, Mug is basically designed for sharing media files, but you can configure it accessing any web resources:



On above, Mug is accessing Wikipedia page, but it is possible to configured to redirect a certain web site of a store. The benefit is, customers that visit the store can access to a webpage without inputting URL into web browser directly.



Currently, mega internet services are doing business based on their proprietary information that is collected only for itself and by itself. Lots of services - search engine, portal, map service, review site and so forth - have influenced to local business unilaterally.

But I believe IT technology can also help local business to face to this situation in some ways, like providing location-based minisite with unique user experience. And for that purpose, I'm in considering what features are needed additionally to these applications.

Any suggestions?



- Refer to http://www.fountainproject.com/info for detail information.