An Idea to Combat Digital Overload

With the advancement of technology comes the significant productivity hindrance of keeping up with email, Twitter, RSS feeds, and social networking sites, just to name a few. To combat information overload I propose an idea where information is tied to a person’s location using geographical meta-data. In other words, this product will act as a filter to a person’s digital life in order to prioritize and filter information based on geographic context. I foresee this enhancing digital content and offering unprecedented features to offer stakeholders better ways to accomplish everyday tasks, organize activities, and meet with friends.

This project will leverage existing social networking components to deliver new efficiencies and increased interpersonal interaction. Examples include but are not limited to:

1. Only receive social networking updates from friends when you are in their vicinity.
2. Unlock your house when you get home and automatically lock it when you leave.
3. Being asked to pick up an item from a store based on geographic proximity. In this way, a friend could post on their public “want list” that they need a certain item from the specific store and when a friend of theirs is near the store an alert will show up for that person automatically requesting them purchase the item for their friend with the promise of reimbursement.
4. An update when friends are close by and suggestions for possible locations to gather.
5. Shows restaurant recommendations from friends or trusted sources based on location.
6. Ability to share a mobile phone’s screen with another mobile user to collaboratively solve problems.
7. Receive certain types of emails on one’s mobile device only at certain places.
8. Automatically turn on your car when you walk towards it.
9. Ability to scan groceries at home when they run out so when you are at a store that carries them you will be prompted to pick up more.
10. Will have the ability to take a picture and automatically send it to friends at the same location at the time the photo was taken.

Moving forward, I will endeavor to explore this idea in more detail through formal requirements gathering and analysis. I'm excited to see where it will go. Your ideas and comments are welcome.