About two years ago, @Kyomedia and I were working on a social networking site where car number plates were your user ID. There are loads of times where you may want to talk to the owner of a car and we thought it a no-brainer that your number plate could be tied into some kind of online database.
Initially we thought about the flirting/dating implications, then just how it would tie into existing social networks and the as yet unheard of location based systems.
We talked about calling it TrafficJammin.
That’s about as far as we got. We hit a wall around health and safety and the legalities of using your phone in this way whilst driving. We thought about voice activation etc but the system still demanded so much attention we figured it just too unsafe to carry the idea forward.
Well it seems the US don’t feel the same way. Mashable is now touting invites to what they call a new ‘genius’ start up doing just what were were planning to build all that time ago.
It’s called BUMP and if you watch the video below it seems they expect people to only use the system when on foot. Well.. we will see about that. Maybe we should have ignored the initial safety concerns and we could now be genii too.
Yet another reminder that ideas that are pretty useless unless implemented.
This isn’t a new idea. MotorFlirt (http://www.motorflirt.com) is a UK site established way back in 2003. Maybe you should have stuck with it.Another that started this year in America is quickcarflirting.com. It looks like what makes a social website make the social media news is knowing the right people in the U.S tech industry.
Thanks Ian i’ll check those other sites out. And yes.. as ever it seems like it’s who you know.. 😉