I love it when I find something which re-uses a technology which has been around a while in a totally new and innovative way…
Google maps, right – mashups – all that? Yeah, I know some of us (me too) are still pretty excited about the whole thing…but how about plotting incoming opinion in real time on a Google map and watching how it evolves, spreads, changes…?
That’s what Ask500People does – as I write this the question is “Should the US be democratic or Republic” but previous questions have ranged from “Do you like the job you have?” to “If you won a trip to space or $100,000, which would you choose?“*
The site apparently has a network of widgets distributed around the world which simultaneously ask the question, gathers votes (at the moment, 100 not 500 while they are in beta..) and displays the result on a Google map. It’s incredibly compelling to watch the results coming in and also pretty interesting to look at some of the past results, too. Although it’s free as it comes, you can see why you’d be interested in upgrading and paying for your question to be distributed to their network too – you get total privacy over the results and it’s an incredibly quick way (minutes, not days) of gathering responses to a burning question you might have.
The only other site I’ve seen in this space is BuzzDash but it’s much less realtime and not nearly as compelling.
* in case you’re wondering, 75% of people chose the $100k. Are they f* nuts or what??? SPACE, obviously… Maybe they had a problem with their widget 😉
I just took a look and the current question was:
“If you knew you were talking face to face with a homosexial, would you feel uneasy?”
(sp)
Made me laugh out loud. And then reminded me of Speak You’re Branes.
Looks like a cool little app though. Despite the mild homophobia!
The questions do indeed seem to have taken a downturn since I posted about the site..
“should girls shave their armpits?” is among those recently asked
User Generated Content: Makes you realise how stupid most people are…
😉