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Just released a new app.... called AskTheLocals. Anyways... thought I would share... its completely free and has no ads... i.e. i just built it for fun...
It allows you to ask questions to people at a given place/location. For instance
1) Before you drive to see the band ask people at the concert if the band is any good.
2) Lost your dog in the park... ask people in the park if they have seen your dog.
3) Want pics of the big game. Ask the people at the game to send them to you.
4) Ask the people on your favorite lake if the fish are biting.
5) etc...
I figure the best way to get information about an area is from the people that are there... i.e. the locals....
As far as I know it was only released 2 days ago. I'm in early because I like to help, rather than be helped + getting in early means you get to have a cool user name
Cheers,
Sombre.
The Following User Says Thank You to Sombre For This Useful Post:
As the person that wrote AskTheLocals I would like to just say thanks for the comments... as for people using it... i just released it on sunday afternoon... so not a ton yet... maybe 100 or so... hopefully more will join to make this app a cool little way to find out whats happening somewhere/someplace.
For those of you who are using it... can you recommend anything that would make it better... chatting, user profile, other... I would really appreciate it...
if you already have this feature, i'm apparently overlooking, and if you don't have it it may be way too difficult, but...
this seems a little pointless to me without geotagging. Someone asks "any good bars?" but I have no idea if they're in new york or los angeles or idaho or louisiana. If I ask a question it'd be nice if the app would tag where I am so people looking through it would know. (or have an option to enter an address, in case i'm asking a question about somewhere I'm traveling to)
On the other side, it'd be nice if the app could recognize where I am and only bring up questions for me to answer that are asked specifically about my location.
Unless the person specifically mentions location in their question, I can't really answer it.
The Following User Says Thank You to sonofaresiii For This Useful Post:
I'm in the process as we speak of writing it so users can give a little more info about themselves... i.e. pic and location. In terms of geotagging... the idea was that people would only ask questions to places there interested in... so for instance.. your example... if someone asks
'are there any good bars'
If you receive this question then the person is interested in bars around you... I.e. when a person asks a question he/she chooses the area their interested in (i.e. downtown NYC)... then the question is only sent to the people in downtown NYC...
Another example... say I lost my pet in Central park... I would then ask a question 'have you seen my dog...here's a pic' and indicate that the question should only be answered by people in central park...
I'm in the process as we speak of writing it so users can give a little more info about themselves... i.e. pic and location. In terms of geotagging... the idea was that people would only ask questions to places there interested in... so for instance.. your example... if someone asks
'are there any good bars'
If you receive this question then the person is interested in bars around you... I.e. when a person asks a question he/she chooses the area their interested in (i.e. downtown NYC)... then the question is only sent to the people in downtown NYC...
Another example... say I lost my pet in Central park... I would then ask a question 'have you seen my dog...here's a pic' and indicate that the question should only be answered by people in central park...
Does that make sense?
Cheers,
Ross
Yeah, do you already have a feature that lets people specify the location? I may just be overlooking it... but right now I see a person asking about Thai places in NYC, which I can answer... and someone else asking who's online in Florida, which is irrelevant to me. Maybe you could have it filter by location so questions about Florida don't come up in my feed? If this app gets popular, it's going to be a PITA to dig through questions from all over the country just to find one in my area. A little like searching for an apartment on craigslist by looking in "America." Not too useful.
But I really love the idea and I hope the app does well... it's fun!
The Following User Says Thank You to sonofaresiii For This Useful Post:
Thanks sonofaresii... i hope it gets more users too as I do think it would be quite useful... plus its kind of cool to know that people are using an app you wrote..
Yeah... it does have a feature where people specify the location when asking a question... unfortunately as you noticed some people right when i first released it specified a large area (i.e. the us).... fortunately it seems like people are starting to catch on... and are now specifying only the area they are interested in....
I'll look into that filtering capability... and see what I can come up with...
I downloaded ask the locals yesterday. It is in its early days but one day, I think it is an that everyone should have on their phone. Although it doesn't have a big community yet, I asked a question about a farm park and within a hour I had got am answer. I like to go different places with the kids at the weekend. Being able to ask for local advice is great.
The Following User Says Thank You to jaybo1973 For This Useful Post:
Nice to see you posting on here. Not sure if it is because of feedback I gave via app? Anyway, I used it to ask about a farm park which is about a hours drive away. Believe it or not I had a reply within the hour. Not bad to say it still has a small user base. I can't praise it enough. Would like to see it automatically zoom to location in future releases?
Is there a way to reply to the person who answered your question? I.e, keep a thread open or something? YOu may want a few more details
Last edited by jaybo1973; April 24th, 2011 at 07:07 AM.
The Following User Says Thank You to jaybo1973 For This Useful Post:
Thanks jaybo1973.... I'm so glad to hear you like the app... and thanks again for all the nice comments... we just released last week... and our small user community of 1 (me) has now grown to around ~200... Through comments/posts from people like you as well as an advertising campaign... we hope to continue this growth...
Your ideas... excellent... I love the idea about replying to an answer someone gave you... i will make sure this is in there on the next release... Automatically zooming to your location... do you mean zoom the map to your current location... or something else?
No, I mean to the location you are interested in. For example I was interested in Liverpool. I typed it in then had to manually zoom to it. Although it does zoom to the correct place, I think it Would be good if it jumped to the correct place like Google maps does, you could then tweak the zoom level manually. Or at least have this as an option.
Hi jaybo1973,
That is a great idea... I'll try to get that implemented as well... Hopefully google maps was nice enough to provide some way of doing this... btw... i really appreciate all the feedback... its helped me tremendously...
Device(s): Samsung Captivate, 2.3.3, Serendipity VII
Thanks: 174
Thanked 210 Times in 164 Posts
Very intriguing idea, I'm going to try it
__________________
Ann, Palm refugee, learning to grok Android. Perhaps your answer is in the CapFAQ Excellent video tutorials, watch and learn!! Now on Serendipity VII, click link to learn more Did you read the first post in the thread?
The Following User Says Thank You to reinbeau For This Useful Post:
I think the main screen should be a map (or, at minimum, something similar to the places app). You use the map to set or choose a location, or it can autodetect where you are.
Then, once a location is set you have options to ask or answer questions in that area.
It would also be nice if there was a way to set a radius perhaps?
Then, we need some sync settings. How often to check for answers or new questions near your location (or choose a default location instead of detecting your actual location each time). Something like that.
Also, a list to see all the questions I have asked or answered. Like a history.
The radius is the amount of map you can see on screen. Think this works quite well. YOu can zoom into a local park or the whole world and everything inbetween. Asking the question and then setting the area works well.
amlothi.... thanks for the suggestions... i'm always trying to improve the layout and flow of the software and I have found user feedback is always the best way to get good ideas...
To answer your suggestions...
1) The main screen as a map... I'm always trying to figure out better ways to make the layout easier to use... So I will noodle this idea around... Currently right now the app detects where you are and allows you to answer questions in this area... Now... you can send questions to any area in the world... I personally have about 4 into Libya as I want to know more about whats going on with the war...
2) The radius... are you referring to the
a) radius of a question
Right now... as jaybo1973 discussed you can set the radius of your question by zooming/panning into the map to the area you are interested in...
b)or the radius of the questions you receive.
If you are referring to the area of the questions you receive... i.e. don't receive questions that are asked the whole world... I concur. It would be nice... as it would allow you to filter out questions. I'm thinking of ideas and will try to have it out asap..
3) Check for answer or questions....
Right now the service will check every 3 hours... the next version will allow you to set this to whatever you would like within reason (i.e. not 0).. In terms of checking for questions/responses the service is the only one that actively does this periodically... To refresh the answers or questions when the app is open click the 'refresh' button... Also, you can turn off the service by going to Settings->Show Notifications and unchecking it..
4) history
Great idea... This is defiantly something I'm going to implement...
Let me know if any of my responses were unclear... your thoughts... other peoples thoughts...
The biggest visual thing I saw was the rating button,on my Droid X the stars you click on are cut off at the bottom because they are too large for the popup box. Looks really unprofessional.
The other thing you should do is default people's ask radius to a city sized area, instead of defaulting to the entire Western hemisphere.
Thanks exwifeusesiphone i'll definitely look at the rating bar issue... and have that fixed on the next release. as for zooming into the city by default... what city... maybe your current location... any ideas?
I think my idea would solve the zoom issue. as soon as you type in the city it should zoom into it automatically. you can then tweak the zoom level, eg a residential area or city centre.
Yeah, the rate me stars don't fit desire either.
Last edited by jaybo1973; April 26th, 2011 at 12:07 PM.
Would also be nice to keep an easy-to-find history of questions I've provided answers to. Sometimes I get curious as to if anyone has provided different/better suggestions than me.
jaybo1973... your idea on zooming automatically to the city when asking a question is complete and will be out in the next release... great idea... its implemented just trying to get a couple more features in the next release.. hopefully this week or early next.. also... hope you get some good info for your stag party...
sonsofaresiii -> with the most recent version that is released you can see what other people have written about the questions you have answered... its not really a history though.... as if you move from say one state to the next the questions will change... in the future i have plans to first like you suggested make it so you can see the history of all questions you answered. Second... down the line... make it so you can see (not answer) questions for a given geographic area.... i.e. you can move a map around and see what questions were asked and answered at a given location...
exwifeusesiphone - the issue you brought up with regards to the rate me feature... i am looking into that as we speak...
Just released a new build... Tried to address some of the issues you guys posed. Was able to address:
1) we now automatically zoom to the city when asking a question.
2) think i fixed the rating bar issue
3) you can now provide posts to your own questions
4) provide the first of many filters on the 'answer questions' page
For those of you using it... I was thinking of writing a website to allow people without android phones to access the system. They would register their location (i.e. i live in minneapolis mn) and then questions for minneapolis would be received by them. They could then also send out questions.... any thoughts?
Also... looking to do some advertising ... anyone know of any good sites?
blah, i'm still getting questions from people all over the country. Any way you can default to region specific or force someone to pick at least a region (if not a city) before they ask a question? I honestly can't think of a single scenario where someone would need to ask a question applicable to the whole country.
sonofaresiii... i am sorry to hear that... last night around 11pm cst... i put in a way so people can no longer ask questions to large areas.... if they do it will be flagged as spam and you will not receive it. as of now... you should no longer receive questions from all over the country... if you do please let me know... i also flagged several questions that people previously had posted to the entire world as spam... so you should no longer see these as well...
There was a person that posted a question in my area. I responded but my response is invisible unless I press on the original question. What's your thoughts on a threaded setup for conversations so all individuals who reply can be seen?
If that would be to messy as multiple questions fill the screen, how about some sort of designation that clearly shows which questions I am involved with?
AskTheLocals
