Planning a daytrip
A talented web slinging friend of mine (not Spiderman) is developing a slick social interest filtering platform. I met with founder Kevin Marshall a couple of weeks back to get the inside scoop on KnowAbout.it, a young project he and Will Cole have been working tirelessly on refining into a must have social utility. After an hour of walking and freezing, we finally found a spot in a bookstore in lower Manhattan.
Kevin took me on the staircase tour of KnowAbout.it, and after discussing what it can currently provide, I was excited to see how I could build on their infrastructure. The app aggregates social shares in order to be the best good stuff detector, and it's setup to improve with personal feedback (yes!). This signal detector begs for an API* to elevate obscure but fascinating information out of noisy channels.
The core concept of Know About It is surfacing interesting content that flows through your social stream
I planned on a visit to Kevin's secret lair deep in the bowels of New Jersey to have a good ole hack session this week.
Last night I plotted the course
Reality struck like a baseball bat in the face. The shortest distance was a 90 mile route through Manhattan which is begging for trouble. The highway options which wrap north (cross bronx) and south (belt parkway) are at best a nightmarish test of patience. The drive in and out were rush hour synchronized for gratuitous gridlock pain. The minimum car sitting frustration for the trip clocked in at 6 hours (round trip), the more reasonable estimate was 7 hours. I shot out a "oh god no" email to Kevin last night. I look forward to screen sharing, and in the near future meeting at a coworking space in Manhattan, where we can sit down, talk and stare at code like gentlemen :).
Anyone have a TARDIS I can borrow?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KZozqKskduk
Notes:
*= why an API? imagine feeding this data hungry beast your DropBox folder, Instapaper bookmarks, couchDBs, etc