Nice write up on TechCrunch about Nrme, a location-based twitter type of app for the iPhone. What does it say about me that my first reaction was that people are going to send creepy messages like “I’m right behind you” or “I’m about to drop something on your head”? Clearly, my twisted paranoid mind is keeping me from really enjoying the idea of this application. No doubt I’ll give it a try, but I’m not sure a 9 block radius is really enough. Honestly, I’m not sure in what capacity I’d really use Nrme. I subscribe to an extremely useful list called Clever Commuter that is used to send out commuting warnings, questions and alternate route suggestions via email. This way, if there’s trouble in the tunnel for instance, I can just stay at work a bit longer and save myself the headache of standing in a 5,000 mile long line of angry commuters. Or I can opt for the train over the bus. Now that I’ve used Clever Commuter for the past year, I can’t imagine myself living without it, but the purpose of the service is very specific and there’s no limitation on proximity. A TC commenter makes the good point that iPhone doesn’t run apps in the background so you would need to actually keep this open all the time. That won’t work for someone as OCD as myself. What about spam? I wouldn’t put it past some clever marketers to start abusing Nrme as a way to get the word out about sales or appearances.
I may decide to send “Is there a Starbucks around here?” messages just for fun.
June 27, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Hi
Please do not worry – we are not evil, we will fight spam very hard, and we aim to be very useful.
Perhaps these are minor examples, but I’m pretty excited about standing in Union Sq in San Francisco and bringing up nrme and finding out that I can spend my boring lunch hour at a cooking demonstration in the Bloomingdale’s basement or that a full size replica of the ‘Gort’ from ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ is on display in Macy’s For Men — neither of which I’d know about without the help of nrme and nrme users around me.
-Andrew
July 1, 2008 at 1:25 am
Never thought you were evil — it’s in my nature to immediately wonder how marketers will use apps to their advantage. Look at onslaught of corporate Facebook pages. Your examples sound great and I’m 100% I’ll give the app a try.
July 1, 2008 at 2:49 am
Thanks
Make sure to register on the site and we’ll keep you up to date on happenings and our Beta test areas.
-Andrew