Imagine planning a get-together with friends and trying to decide on a venue or location that will work for everyone. Distance, routes, and traffic times are just a few factors to consider, and often difficult to visualize if you¹re communicating by email or telephone.
MapChat is a new communication medium that combines existing services such as instant messenger and maps. It allows you and your friends to chat simultaneously over the backdrop of an interactive map, transforming a simple online map into a shared digital environment to search and explore locations, and generate discussions about those locations.
The MapChat demo gives you a glimpse at a whole new way of planning that next rendezvous. We invite you to connect with your friends and family and discover a more efficient way of planning your activities.
How did we come up with the idea? We studied how people planned evenings out. We saw people sending URLs and comments back and forth in email and on instant messenger. And it was clearly a pain.
So, we designed MapChat to let people chat on an interactive map. You can do searches together or start with searches you have already done. You can let people see your searches - or not. You can select favourite places and combinations of places into "bundles" - a nice collection of things to do for an evening or a day or for longer.
We'd love to know what you think - this *is* a prototype so expect it to be not exactly what the final product will look like. But give it a try and see what you think.
Tell us what you think, leave a comment: